Hosea and the Whore
July 29, 2007
Perhaps it’s just a modern legend, but it’s said that when “Gone with the Wind” opened in 1939, hundreds of movie-goers across the South fled their theatres upon hearing Rhett Butler’s parting words to Scarlett O’Hara, “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.” Back then, in those more innocent days, the word “damn” was considered sufficient to scandalize many polite citizens.I think it’s safe to assume that no rector of the time ever chose today’s Old Testament passage as his sermon text. He could have pointed out to his congregation that its startling word—“whoring”—came straight from the Bible. But such a rector would have had a very short tenure, I suspect. There are some things nice people just don’t talk about.
In fact, no Episcopalian anywhere has ever heard a sermon on this text before, because—until this year—these words from Hosea have never been included in any Anglican lectionary. Yet here they are this morning, thanks to our Church’s recent embrace of the Revised Common Lectionary. Now the Presbyterians, the Methodists, and the Lutherans have all been using this lectionary for years without becoming too obviously depraved. Maybe our Church has decided that we’ve finally grown up, too. But I wonder how many Episcopal preachers today will choose to ignore this reading altogether.
And that would be a pity, because Hosea’s relationship to his unfaithful wife is one of the glories of the Old Testament. The story is this: Hosea has fallen in love with Gomer, a woman with a bad reputation—she’s slept with so many men that everyone calls her a whore. Despite this, Hosea makes Gomer his wife. Marriage doesn’t improve Gomer’s behavior, however, and soon she’s presenting Hosea with children whose paternity is at best debatable. Hosea gives them names indicating that he’s not their father—a daughter is called “Not Pitied,” for example, and a son “Not My People.” Then, when we read beyond today’s passage, we learn that Gomer eventually runs away with another man, abandoning her husband and children. Yet Hosea seeks her out and brings her home again. Perhaps to mollify her, Hosea renames his rejected children: from now on, “Not Pitied” is called “Loved One,” and “Not My People” becomes “My People.”
The symbolism is obvious. Like Gomer, Israel has been repeatedly unfaithful to God, whoring first with one strange god and then with another. That’s the message Hosea—like all the prophets—has been preaching to the people, warning them of God’s coming judgment. But gradually Hosea realizes that just as he always takes Gomer back, so God is always willing to have Israel return. God uses Hosea’s own family to teach the prophet how much he, God, loves Israel.
This theme of family runs throughout Hosea’s prophecies. Toward the end of his book, he gives us the sweetest picture of God in the whole Old Testament. Here Hosea shows God despairing over his wayward child, Israel. “I brought her up from infancy,” God says. “I taught her to take her first steps. I lifted her and held her against my cheek, I bent down and fondled her. How can she do this to me?” We can all understand God’s question. Many of us have asked it ourselves.
Last week I talked with a woman who had been paying the college bills for her niece and her nephew until she lost her job in the dot.com collapse. As soon as she couldn’t pay their bills any longer, her niece and her nephew stopped talking to her. I know a family here in Charlottesville whose seventeen-year-old daughter ran off with a boy nearly twenty years ago. They haven’t heard from her in all that time; they have no idea where she is today. Many of us have stories like these in our own families—we know what Hosea was going through. The prophet is showing us, through his own life, what the love of God is like.
Our gospel lesson continues the theme of family. “Is there anyone among you,” Jesus says, who, if your child “asks for an egg, will give [her] a scorpion?” Just as we love our children obsessively, to the point of distraction, so God loves us in the same way. “Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you.” We learn what God is like by looking at our own families. It’s no wonder that Jesus teaches us to begin our prayers with the words, “Our Father.”
Now this is not a complete picture of God. Moses emphasizes—as do all the prophets—that God will judge us for our behavior. But the picture of God as our judge can get out-of-hand. My Presbyterian grandfather—the son of immigrants from Belfast—thundered constantly about God’s fearsome judgment on our unworthy souls. My grandfather’s mentality seems to have infected even some quarters of the Episcopal Church recently. We hear Episcopalians quoting Leviticus at us, invoking God’s anger at gay people. Against all this—against judgmental Hebrews of his own time, against my grandfather, against all our new Episcopal nay-sayers—Hosea confronts us with his realization: God loves us just as the prophet loves Gomer. She’s not worthy of anybody’s love. Yet Hosea loves her, and God loves us in the same way. It was a necessary correction in Hosea’s time. And it may be a necessary correction in ours.
The next time you hear someone invoke God’s ire, think of Hosea. Think of the God who says, “When Israel was a child, I loved her. I taught her to take her first steps. Whatever she’s done, I love her still.” Whatever they do, we continue to love our children. Whatever we do, God continues to love us.
In some ways it’s a dangerous message, for it could lead us to think that whatever we do doesn’t matter. But if we’re faithful Christians, Hosea can inspire us to another conclusion. If God loves his children to distraction, if God loves us so much, then we want to live in such a way as to be worthy of that love. May you and I take heart from Hosea, and may we resolve this morning to become more and more deserving of that love, the love of the One we call “Our Father.” Amen.
