God, the Jilted Lover: Lessons in Love from Hosea the Prophet
by Ken Wilson
Listen to your life, that's the deceptively plain message of the Bible. Yes, listen to your life.
The God of the Bible reveals himself through flesh & blood. The Bible is a book, after all, written by human beings inspired by the Spirit. Not inspired by the Spirit in only the narrow ways that we think: Eyes closed, beatific look on face, then zap, I'm inspired. Yes, that way once in a while. But often in other ways.
Like the stuff we go through in our lives that is really-really hard stuff. Kid, job, marriage, money problems--all that goes under AA slogan sanitized for tender ears: Stuff Happens. God comes into messy parts of our lives, planting seeds that sprout into an awareness of who he is, and yes, how he feels. Because God does have an emotional life.
Take Hosea the Hebrew Prophet. A contemporary of Isaiah. Living in a dark time in history of Israel. When the people of God hitched their wagon to false gods. Worship of YHWH mixed with worship of Ashur, Molech, Ishti, and the other seven dwarves. Trusting in alliances with the powers & principalities of Assyria one day, Egypt, the next.
Nation divided: the northern Kingdom, Israel; southern kingdom, Judah, home to Jerusalem and temple. Isaiah, the major prophet from South; Hosea the minor prophet from North. Both speaking by the Spirit, but the Spirit inspiring Hosea in mysterious ways.
Like this: Hosea's personal life. He marries a woman named Gomer. He's led to marry this woman. Even tho she has a storied past. And by this woman, Gomer, he had three children. But sure enough, after a period of faithfulness, Gomer's heart is attracted to other lovers. There sits Hosea, poor man. Hosea, the Jilted Lover.
Today, set scene for this remarkable book, so we appreciate how it is God speaks to us sometimes. Hosea 1
Keep in mind: Hosea writes this (or shares it, and it's written down by others) in all likelihood, after these events have taken place.
After his marriage, birth of his children, the betrayal by his wife who left him for others, and then God telling him to take her back.
While it comes to us distilled, as a prophetic lesson, Hosea had to actually live through it, to experience it.
"The relationship of Hosea's private life to his public ministry is too complex for neat analysis. The two co-exist: at one time the image of the home is distinct and that of the nation is blurred; at another time the reverse is true." J.B. Hindley, The New Bible Commentary: Revised
As J.B. Phillips said, "It is not always clear whether the prophet's experience with Gomer is teaching him about God, or whether he is learning about his wife from his understanding of Israel. The two run on parallel lines and flash a meaning across to each other."
This happens. We're running along the track of our lives, keeping in touch with other story line, God & his people. In our story some painful thing happens. A child distances. Ouch. Then, flash of mean-ing from parallel track--God's hx with his people, flashing it's meaning across to us. Our pain makes room for his in our understanding.
Ever been jilted by one you loved and thought loved you? One day you're apple of their eye, hand in hand at their side; next, chocking on their dust--left behind. Alone. Sad. Mad. Wounded. Reeling.
Loving them still. Then hating them, no, loving them. Then hating yourself for loving them. Then wishing them back, then wishing them dead. Hearing their voice, seeing their face in your head. Slapping their face in your head. Then slapping yourself for being such a fool.
I was not a Player in High School. Debbie Brown? Phone, letters. Bus, visit. Then I hear it thru grapevine, she's annoyed I haven't made move to kiss her. I picture her mocking with her friends--Wilson obviously hasn't made out with a girl yet; I've got a real stud-muffin on my hands. Then the dear John letter arrives, "Dear Ken, This is so hard, I think you're swell, but my old boyfriend's back in town…"
Ken, the Jilted Lover. Age 16. Never been kissed except by his mom and a few aunts. So maybe not the Jilted Lover, but Jilted, nevertheless: hurt, wounded, reeling. Beatles released Sgt. Pepper Lonely Hearts Club Band, so something to drown my sorrows in.
And I pulled through--older, wiser, the scars of unrequited love adorning my soul.
I'm thinking maybe Hosea, the prophet, Jilted by Gomer his wife and real time lover and mother to those three kids….had it even worse?
Only in 8th century B.C. limited options for drowning of sorrows. No video games, Internet. Limited pharmaceuticals. Not many addictive agents---pagan worship, but Hosea was a good Jewish boy who knew enough to stay away from the shrines on high places, parents having warned him, like mother cat to kitten: "Bad things happen when you're high. The falling is fun; it's the landing that hurts."
And so Hosea, we infer, opened up his wounded heart to the Spirit.
Took that pain-agony, mixed emotions swirling simultaneously, before the Lord. Knowing the Lord was a rock, safe haven. Knowing the Lord to be one who could handle the good, the bad and the ugly. Knowing the Lord was not one to dissect your emotions saying, This one is correct, that one incorrect. This one is good, that one bad: Gold Star for the good feelings, shame on you for the bad ones."
Knowing instead that we are made in his image & likeness. Which says as much about God as it does about us. Knowing that God must sympathetically understand us, knowing we are but dust, and to dust we shall return.
A big God, not a small God. Unafraid of human emotion. Able to stand alongside us, even when we're throwing a hissy fit.
[Mother on plane from D.C. with screaming-thrashing infant]
Hosea must have been the baby on the plane through the anguish of the jilting. And God the mother, holding him until it landed.
And then, Hosea listened to his life, and Hosea understood something he hadn't before. Understood God as he hadn't understood him before.
He understands God as the Jilted Lover. And he speaks words in the voice of God, the Jilted Lover.
First, like a Jilted Lover, the words are angry, lashing out: 2: 2-4
But then, like a Jilted Lover does, he imagines a day when he takes her back: 2: 7, 14-23
Not some prophet thundering denunciations & hopes in the abstract.
Hosea understanding God from the inside because his own insides have been turned inside-out.
Momentous word, understanding. 2 kinds of knowledge. One a form of mastery. "I know thus & so….have it nailed." Over-standing People with that kind we call blowhards, even as we appreciate their expertise.
Another knowing: Heb., "yada." Not knowledge at a distance, in abstract. But knowing something in dynamic process. Experiencing something. Knowing pain, knowing grief, knowing love, knowing someone, knowing God. Understanding.
In NT, Paul said, "Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known" Gk, epiginosko: to know, recognize, realize, come to understand.
Important distinction. When people think religious knowing is first form knowing, overstanding, they become truth experts, claiming absolute certainty in a realm of seeing-thru-a glass darkly.
But we all know premature certainty obscures understanding: think you know me, got me down, over-stand me, having analyzed me, can finish my sentences for me, I want to pull pack from you. Your premature certainty obscures understanding.
What is more precious in life than to be understood? To be under-stood is a deep human craving. (Because it is a deep craving in the heart of God in whose image and likeness we are made.)
God wishes to be understood. Sympathetically understood. Deeply understood. As Hosea came to understand God through Hosea's painful experience as a jilted lover.
And now we have the book of the prophet Hosea, which could have been titled with a little help from a publisher: God, the Jilted Lover.
But, more than that, we have an understanding of how it is God speaks to us. Through our lives sometimes. Through the pain of our lives sometimes.
So: listen to your life. Your life is speaking to you sometimes, leading you in a mysterious way to a deeper understanding of God.
Listen to the joys; listen to the desires; what do they tell you of God?
And listen to the sorrows, anguishments, pains.
Rather than ignore them or run & hide from them, turn & face them. With God at your side; his story running parallel to yours.
"But I feel absolutely hopeless about this thing, why face it? I'll only get more depressed!"
Because otherwise you're alone with it. And that loneliness is a deeper distress than the thing itself.
"But I've asked God to take it away and he hasn't!"
Yes, we do that sometimes, and he doesn't sometimes.
So that's the pain, the anguish. That's your Gomer-moment. Turn & face it, God at your side. There may be a flash of meaning from across tracks. Something of his parallel story--God's life with his people story--will flash over to you. Something in your experience of pain will provide good soil to understand something of God's pain.
"God has pain? I thought he was above that!"
"And God saw all the violence on earth…and his heart was filled with pain." (Gen. 5)
Jesus had the pain of being misunderstood: "How much longer must I endure this generation?"
Jesus felt pain of failure: parable of sower, how often the seed didn't take. He knew futility-failure in his sowing, not just success.
Jesus, felt the pain of betrayal hopelessness. "Eli, Why have you forsaken me?"
"Why is God's pain important to me?"
Because God is a relational being. God wants to be understood.
And when, in our pain, we understand his….in that moment, God is not alone and we are not alone.