Hosea 3:1-5
March 21, 2010
The Lord said to me again, ‘Go, love a woman who has a lover and is an adulteress, just as the Lord loves the people of Israel, though they turn to other gods and love raisin cakes.’ So I bought her for fifteen shekels of silver and a homer of barley and a measure of wine. And I said to her, ‘You must remain as mine for many days; you shall not play the whore, you shall not have intercourse with a man, nor I with you.’ For the Israelites shall remain many days without king or prince, without sacrifice or pillar, without ephod or teraphim. Afterwards the Israelites shall return and seek the Lord their God, and David their king; they shall come in awe to the Lord and to his goodness in the latter days.
I need to apologize to all of you this morning. I have to apologize because several weeks ago, when I talked about the prophet Jeremiah, I said that he was the strangest prophet of all of them. I now realize that I was wrong. After having spent the past week studying Hosea, I now realize that Hosea was much stranger. Jeremiah was plenty strange, but not when you compare him to our prophet for today. Hosea is a weirdly fascinating prophet.
Unlike most prophets, who are known for what they say, Hosea was known as much for what he did. You see, he used his life as a grand metaphor for what was going on in the nation of Israel, and what he did shocked people, as you can tell from our passage above.
Let me give some background to Hosea to help you get a sense of his life and ministry. Hosea lived and prophesied in the last two decades of Israel’s existence. Again, let me review what I’ve spoken about several times in talking about the prophets. If you remember, Ancient Israel was one nation under kings Saul, David, and Solomon, but after Solomon’s death it became divided in two. Around 922 B.C., the northern half became a nation called Israel, while the southern half became a nation called Judah. The capital of Judah was Jerusalem, and the capital of Israel was Samaria. The northern nation of Israel lasted almost exactly 200 years until the Assyrians attacked it and destroyed it in 722 B.C. The nation of Judah lasted until the Babylonians destroyed Jerusalem in 597 B.C. Hosea was a prophet of the northern nation of Israel in its last days, and he preached a message that the Assyrians were going to destroy Israel according to God’s will.
The funny thing about Hosea is that he had a funny way of prophesying. He didn’t start his ministry by going out and preaching. Instead, he let his life become a metaphor for Israel, and then later he preached to Israel, using his own life as an allegory for the state of Israel’s relationship with God. The primary problem for Israel was that the kings and the people, afraid of the Assyrians who demanded that they worship the Assyrian fertility god, Ba’al, as their price for independence, were now worshiping Ba’al. And the worship of Ba’al was diametrically opposed to the worship of Yahweh, or God. While the worship of Yahweh centered around making sacrifices in the temple in Jerusalem, or one in Samaria, there was also an emphasis that real worship meant living according to the law. The focus of Jewish life was faithfulness in all things to Yahweh. The worship of Ba’al was different. The focus was on fertility rituals, which meant worship where priests and priestesses copulating in worship services was the center of worship. What the Israelites tended to do, in order to hedge their bets, was to worship Yahweh throughout the year, and then to engage in the fertility rituals of Ba’al in the spring. Hosea stood against the worship of Ba’al, so his life became a metaphor for God’s relationship with Israel, and their fascination with Ba’al—what Hosea called Israel’s adultery.
Hosea was instructed by God to find a prostitute and marry her. At least that’s what our modern translations of Hosea says—that she was a prostitute. The translation isn’t quite accurate. Hosea didn’t just go out and find a prostitute. He married a woman named Gomer, who was a particular kind of prostitute. She was employed in the service of the temple of Ba’al in Samaria. Her role was to be available to act out the fertility rites of Ba’al. She was sort of a temple concubine whose role it was to be available to men chosen to engage with her sexually in order to entice Ba’al to bring fertilizing spring rains.
Hosea marries her and instructs her to no longer be in the employ of Ba’al. This is an allegory for the fact that Israel has been unfaithful to God, but God is willing to call them back and love them, as long as they stay faithful. Apparently Hosea loves Gomer very much, and they have three children. Hosea is led by God to give the three children very strange names. The first boy is named Jezreel. That doesn’t seem so strange, but you’ll see why it is in a moment. The first girl is named Lo-Ruhamah, which means “Not Pited.” The second boy is named Lo-Ammi, which means “Not My People.” What odd names to give them, but there’s a reason.
He names the first boy Jezreel because it was in the village of Jezreel that great violence took place 100 years earlier. Israel had been ruled by King Ahab and his queen, Jezebel. Both had driven the nation of Israel to worship Ba’al, and the great prophet Elijah, had challenged them by showing up the priests of Ba’al in a duel. The duel took place on the top of Mt. Horeb, where Elijah built a fire and had the priests of Ba’al build a fire. All 400 priest called on Ba’al to magically light their stack of logs, but nothing happened. Elijah poured buckets of water on his stack of logs, and then called on Yahweh to light his fire. The fire roared to life. This angered Jezebel and Ahab, who tried to kill Elijah, and intensified their persecution of Jews who insisted on worship of Yahweh alone.
The grip of the house of Ahab was broken at the village of Jezreel. God anointed a new king to rise up. His name was Jehu, and he was a leading commander in the army of Ahab’s son, Ahaziah. At Jezreel, Ahaziah was killed, and Jehu went on to kill Jezebel and all of her 70 sons. Jehu restored a worship of Yahweh alone, and for many years afterwards Israel was faithful. But over time Jehu’s descendents moved back to a worship of Ba’al. By calling his son Jezreel, Hosea was saying that a massacre of Israel was coming.
He named his daughter Not Pitied as a way of saying to the people of Israel that when the massacre comes, they will not be pitied. They will suffer for their infidelity, and God won’t pay attention to their wailing.
Finally, he named his other son Not My People as a way of telling them that while he had chosen the Jews to be God’s people, they would no longer be the chosen ones. God would choose another people, and they would be left to suffer life without God’s blessings.
Over time Hosea used his family as an example of Israel, showing that God had taken back Israel after its infidelity under Ahab and Jezebel, but they had persisted in pursuing other gods. He preached about how the Assyrians would be God’s sword, how God would turn away from them as they suffered. This is what we think of as the classic Old Testament wrathful God who is willing to destroy people who have been sinful or unfaithful.
The problem with this view is that it really isn’t complete. Yes, God often speaks through the prophets as the wrathful, vengeful God, but in the end the prophets almost always return to speaking of God as a softie. God may judge us, but in the end God always turns around and treats us with gentleness and compassion.
As the Assyrians stand poised on the border ready to destroy Israel, God has Hosea speak a new message. He tells him to say that Jezreel no longer means a coming massacre, but now means a restoration of the relationship between the Israelites and God, just as Jehu restored Israel to a worship of God. The name “Not Pitied” will now mean “Pitied,” for God will look upon the people of Israel and love them. And the name “Not My People” will now mean “My People,” for God will always look upon the Israelites as God’s chosen.
Then we get to our passage for this morning where God has Hosea demonstrate the love God will show them. We are left to understand that Gomer has gone back into the employ of the temple of Ba’al. She does so not because she is hungry or poor. Hosea has provided for her. But she misses the finery of the temple. There she wore beautiful robes. She had sparkling jewelry. And she loved the taste of the sweet raisin cakes. Those raisin were an especial abomination to the faithful of Israel because they were baked in the shape of a phallus. Hosea goes to the temple and actually purchases his wife back by paying the price for a slave, which was fifteen shekels. He also adds a barrel of wine and a bushel of grain. When he brings her home he tells her that she is not to be sexually active with other men or with him. He will love her, but she has to prove that she is trustworthy. Much like Israel shall be without a king, she will be without someone to love her. But if she proves she is trustworthy, then she will be loved again. This becomes an allegory of God with Israel. They will be tested, but in the end God will love them. This leads Hosea to say the following right before the nation is attacked and destroyed by the Assyrians:
I will heal their disloyalty;
I will love them freely,
for my anger has turned from them.
I will be like the dew to Israel;
he shall blossom like the lily,
he shall strike root like the forests of Lebanon.
His shoots shall spread out;
his beauty shall be like the olive tree,
and his fragrance like that of Lebanon.
They shall again live beneath my shadow,
they shall flourish as a garden;
they shall blossom like the vine,
their fragrance shall be like the wine of Lebanon.
The story of Hosea is a story of judgment, but also a story of love. Hosea we get three basic messages from Hosea. First is a message of love. No matter what we do, including our rejectingGod, God will always love us. That is fundamental. Even when we think that God is going to turn away from us, or we believe that God has turned away from us because of the life we are living, God hasn’t. God will always turn back. I’m not sure we always believe that. There are many among us who believe that they’ve done terrible things in their lives that God will never forgive. Hosea reminds us that, yes, we’ve all done terrible things that deserve God’s judgment, but God always has a soft heart. God will always be there to love us, if we are willing to return to God. And even though God will allow us to suffer the consequences of our actions, God will always work to redeem our lives
A second message is that the worship of other gods is always the path to ruin. This isn’t only a message from Hosea, but also one from most of the other prophets. And you see it in life today. The difference is that today the other gods we worship aren’t Ba’al. Our gods are things like money, possessions, power, politics, fame, celebrities, and sports. You can see how powerful the worship of money and power is. We all have dreams that if we can just live the lottery we would finally be happy. But if that’s the case, why do the majority of people who win the lottery end up unhappy? They get all their possessions, and they become miserable. You can see how powerful the worship of fame and celebrity are by the most popular magazines out there. They are magazines like People and Us. Millions of these magazines are sold each week, magazines that profile the rich and famous. And we can’t get enough. But reading them is also a shallow affair. It’s mindless while killing the spirit. Also, we worship sports, devoting so much of our lives to games that in the end don’t mean anything. Don’t get me wrong, I love sports. I cheer on the Steelers and Penguins as they win championships, and I take pity on the Pirates. I love Pitt football and basketball. I love sports, but not to the point at which they rule my life. We let sports now rule our lives. Think about when you were a kid. It used to be that sports didn’t start until after church. Now you have to fight your kids over whether to go to church or to a practice or game on Sunday morning. And too often sports win. We worship these gods, and just as the worhip of Ba’al led people away from God, these modern false gods lead us away from God.
Finallly, Hosea has a message of commitment. By taking his wife back he is telling us that ultimately commitment is the path to both God and happiness. This is a tough message for modern lives. We are an incredibly commitment-phobic people, and we are getting worse every year. For example, look at the state of community service organizations such as Kiwanis, the Elks, Boy and Girl Scouts, and many others. They all have suffered major losses in membership over the years because no one wants to make a commitment to organizations. Look at the state of marriage. At present, 57% of all marriages will end in divorce. So what do people do to prevent the potential of divorce? They move in together. The problem with that is that 80% of all relationships where couples move in together end up in a split, and that includes those who end up marrying each other. They have an 80% chance of divorce. We see the fear of commitment in the church. When I started as a pastor over twenty years ago, if a person visited a church six times, she or he would join. Now, people don’t join until they’ve been visiting for over three years, and many never join. Heck, you’ve experienced this lack of commitment whenever you’ve invited people to a party. How many of you have asked people to rsvp, only to find that very few do. Why don’t they rsvp? Because they don’t want to make a commitment to your party in case something else comes along. We are commitment-shy.
This lack of commitment kills us spiritually, but being willing to make a commitment is the path back to God. Hosea reminds us that God has made a commitment to us, and that God will always honor God’s commitment. The question is to what extent will we make the same kind of commitment to God?
Hosea has a lot of messages for us, but three stand out. If we are willing to return to God, no matter what we’ve done, God has a soft heart for us. But we have to be willing to give up all those other gods that we worship—false gods like money, possessions, power, celebrity, and sports. And the path back to God comes from our commitment to God. When we make a commitment to God, our lives become blessed with love.
Amen.
