CAN YOU LOVE THE UNLOVABLE?
Hosea 3:1-3
Pastor Jeremy Mattek – September 11, 2016
What if I told you that there is one thing parents can do that will give their children better than a 99% success rate in their marriage? In other words, they would have a less than 1% chance of getting a divorce or being unhappy. Would you believe me? That sounds pretty unbelievable considering that the current divorce rate in America is about 50%. But it is true. There is one thing parents can do that has proven to give their children an incredibly high rate of happiness in their marriage. Would you like to know what it is? Arrange their marriage for them. Decide for your children whom they marry.
You probably know that there aren’t too many places in the world these days where parents arrange their children’s marriages. But over 90% of all marriage are arranged by the parents in the nation of India. And not only do less than 1% of those marriages end in divorce, but according to many different surveys that have been done, these married couples in India are as happy as, or happier than, the average still-married couple in America, which is why 74% of 18-35 year-olds in India would prefer that their parents arrange their marriage for them.
I don’t know what percentage of 18-35 year-olds in America would want their parents to arrange their marriage for them, but I imagine the percentage would be much lower. They’d be a bit more skeptical. “How do you know if you’re compatible with the other person?” “How do you know if they’re your soul mate or your best friend?” “How do you know it’s going to work if you’ve never even met them until the day of the wedding?” “How do you know you’re not going to get hurt?”
Those are good questions. Important questions. Nobody plans to get hurt in a relationship, and yet so many do. The famous philosopher and theologian Mike Tyson once said, “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face.” No boxer plans on getting knocked down until someone inflicts pain on them. Just like no spouse plans on getting divorced, but it still happens. Just like children sometimes get hurt by their parents. Parents get hurt by the decisions of their children, employees get hurt by the arrogance of their boss, people get hurt by the indifference of their neighbors, friends get hurt by the selfish decisions of their peers, and students and citizens get hurt by the people responsible for protecting them. Think of all the different relationships in which you have one person who inflicts the pain and one person who feels it. Think about how much one person can hurt when that happens. And think about how easy it is for someone to lose hope in those situations. Hope that they’ll heal. Hope that it’ll be ok. Hope that they’ll ever again feel safe.
In the book of Hosea, God arranged a marriage, and one that would probably not be arranged by most parents. Hosea was a prophet, and God commanded him to marry a woman named Gomer who, by occupation, was a prostitute. God wanted a prophet to be married to a prostitute; a man of the cloth married to a woman famous for taking hers off; faithfulness married to someone who didn’t want to be faithful to anyone. He wanted holiness married to sin. Why? Because God wanted everyone to see what it is that gives hope to any kind of relationship, and any kind of person, who’s hurting.
1 The Lord said to me, “Go, show your love to your wife again, though she is loved by another and is an adulteress. Love her as the Lord loves the Israelites, though they turn to other gods and love the sacred raisin cakes.” 2 So I bought her for fifteen shekels of silver and about a homer and a lethek of barley. 3 Then I told her, “You are to live with me many days; you must not be a prostitute or be intimate with any man, and I will live with you.”
This isn’t the beginning of Hosea’s relationship with Gomer. That started already in chapter 1 when God gave Hosea the good news that he was to go and marry a prostitute. At this point in chapter 3, Hosea had already married Gomer, and Gomer had already left him. “Go, show love to your wife again,” God said. Sometime after their marriage, Gomer went looking for love in the arms of at least one other man (“though she is loved by another”) and cheated on him (“is an adulteress”). If you were Hosea, how eager would you be “show love to your wife again”? Many have been in that same situation and know exactly how hard it is to show love to someone who has made it clear that you don’t matter all that much to them. We don’t always feel very inclined to be very loving to those who throw the first punch and inflict the pain. But in God’s eyes, how you feel shouldn’t have any impact on whether or not you do what is loving.
God knew Gomer had been unfaithful. He knew Gomer had shared her body with another man (again). He knew how hurt Hosea must have been feeling. But he still told him to “Go, show your love to your wife again;” emphasizing what love is, according to God’s definition. Love is not a feeling. Love is not a reaction. Love is an action. It is a decision we make in our mind to do what is loving, whether or not the other person has been very kind. This doesn’t mean you need to stay in a relationship in which you’re not safe. It doesn’t mean you need to keep indulging a teenager who’s obviously very selfish. But if a person only shows love when it’s easy – when the spouse is real romantic, when they remember your anniversary, when they ask about your day, when the kids are obedient, when the boss lets you go home early on Friday, when your neighbor rakes up their leaves that fell into your yard, then they’re not really a loving person; not according to God’s definition. You’re not acting in love. You’re reacting to someone else’s love.
And keep in mind the reason God was telling Hosea to act in love toward this woman. It’s because he wanted everyone to see the kind of love God was planning to show to those who “turn to other gods and love the sacred raisin cakes.” We know what that first phrase means. Israel loved something else more than they loved God. The sacred raisin cakes probably need a little explanation. In the book of Jeremiah, the women of Judah baked raisin cakes as a way to honor a false god called the “Queen of the heavens.” In other words, they used their time, energy, talents, emotions and their resources to honor and be intimate with someone other than the God they had promised to be faithful to through anything. They broke their vow. They cheated on him. God wanted Israel to see themselves as Gomer. And it was up to Hosea to show them how God would respond to them.
So just think about how it went down when Hosea had to go and buy his wife. If he had to pay a price for her, it meant that she was for sale, probably in an auction, like they used to do for slaves. And don’t think that’s unusual, even today. Human trafficking, the buying and selling of humans, is a $32 billion-a-year industry today. That’s more than twice as much money than is spent on pornography every year. Sex trafficking brings in the majority of that money. Did you know that the average age at which a young girl enters the sex trade is 12-14 years old? Did you know that Milwaukee has one of the top five sex trafficking operations in the entire nation? And do you know what the average price is for a woman in today’s market? $90.
In the Old Testament, the monetary value on a woman’s life was 30 shekels of silver. In the book of Exodus, that’s how much you had to pay an owner of a house if your ox gorged a woman who lived or worked there. And that’s maybe where the bidding started – 30 shekels, the normal price for an average woman. But Gomer wasn’t even average. She was well-known. God wanted Hosea to marry someone that everyone would recognize as an adulteress. And they did. “Oh, that’s the one who’s been around the block, got married, and then went around the block again.” She was more the town joke than anyone’s prized possession.
And then there were her children. Chapter one tells us about Gomer’s children, who apparently did not belong to Hosea. And do you know who named Gomer’s children? God did. One of Gomer’s daughters he named Lo-Ruhamah, which means “not loved.” And one of the sons God named Lo-Ammi, which means “not my people.” So every time she called to her children by name, she was reminded how God felt about her life decisions. And that’s what they were. Nobody forced her to be unfaithful. That was her choice. And where did her choices get her? Up on a stage where the bidding started at the average price for a normal woman, but nobody was biting. “30 shekels,” the auctioneer says. Nothing. “25 shekels.” No one. “20 shekels,” he shouts, begging for someone to give something. But all he hears is silence. “I have 15 shekels,” someone shouts from the back. “Is that all anyone wants to give?” he asks. “That’s only half the normal price for an average woman.”
I doubt anyone here has been in that exact position. But can you imagine how Gomer felt standing there in front of everyone? When do you feel best about yourself? When everyone wants to spend time with you, or no one does? Is it when you look back on your life and are happy with your choices, or when you have regrets? When everyone knows you’ve been on your best behavior, or your worst? When everyone knows you’ve been thirsting for God, or for pleasure? If God were to name your children based on how faithful you’ve been to him, on how well you’ve loved others when it didn’t feel like an easy thing, what do you think he would name them? If your life were for sale today, and everyone knew everything about it, how much do you think someone would pay?
And how do you think Gomer felt when she was led down from the stage and discovered that the voice in the back of the room who purchased her was the one man she had been most unfaithful to? And then how do you think she felt as he walked up to the auctioneer and said, “15 shekels is all I have, but she’s worth far more to me than that. I know you normally only deal in silver, but I also have a homer and a lethek of barley. It’s worth 15 shekels.” When the auctioneer accepted, Hosea had payed full value for someone who was broken.
Maybe Gomer felt the same way God wanted Israel to feel when they looked at him; and the same way God wants us to feel when we consider the price God was willing to pay to bring us back to him. “It was not with silver or gold that you were redeemed from your empty way of life,” it says in 1 Peter chapter 1, “but with the precious blood of Christ;” blood that poured down a cross when God put into action a love willing to pay any price so that anyone who has ever felt ashamed and broken can know how it feels to be entirely loved and forgiven, and treasured by God more than anything. It was hard to show that love. But it was harder for him to live with the thought of what would happen if he didn’t.
You may know that there was a major earthquake in Italy a few weeks ago that killed nearly 300 people. Leo is the name of a black Lab rescue dog that helped police search for survivors. And Leo is given credit for finding the last one. He began sniffing around one certain pile of rubble, so his handlers started digging, found a little baby doll, and then found a 4-year-old girl named Giorgia who was still alive. Leo became an instant celebrity, so popular that he even got to meet the Pope. But you know who didn’t get to meet the Pope? The person who actually saved Giorgia. When they pulled Giorgia from the rubble, the rescue team first had to remove the body of her sister Giulia. By the way her body was positioned, the rescue team believes that Giulia wrapped herself around her little sister to shield her from the building that was falling on top of them. Giulia’s act of love saved Giorgia. But she didn’t know for sure that was going to happen. She only knew what would happen for sure if she didn’t try.
This is the last we hear about Gomer in the book of Hosea. There are 11 more chapters in the book, and it never tells us what happens next. We don’t know for sure if Gomer stayed with Hosea, if she stopped hurting him, or how she responded to his loving action. We only know what would have happened if he hadn’t shown any love at all. Nothing. Nothing would have changed.
When we think about the different relationships in our lives that are hurting, the different people who are causing us so much pain, we can never say for sure that showing love to them is going to give us every good thing for which we’re looking. Love simply always hopes that it will. And we can say what will happen if we don’t show love. Nothing. Nothing will change. Today isn’t the day to do nothing. Today is the day to do the one, sometimes-difficult action that actually can make the most powerful difference. And maybe someone who has hurt you in the past will finally see what Gomer did when Hosea bought her back again. “I will live with you,” Hosea promised. Whatever Gomer felt, what she saw was the one person in the world who had given her the best reason of all to stop hurting.
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