Hosea 11:1-11
If you’re going to the beach soon or just need something light and fluffy to read, an Old Testament prophet is a good way to go. There is much adventure and juicy drama. The oracles are written in beautiful poetry that just drips with rich metaphors. God is like a steadfast husband, Israel is like a faithless wife, God is like a loving mother, Israel is like a rebellious son. God chases and pursues relentlessly. Israel turns and runs away. We are in suspense as we wonder if Israel will safely return, or if she will continue to lead a life of recklessness. We wonder if God will just give up on the wayward child and abandon him. And God wonders these things right along side of us, caught up in the suspense with us, wondering if God will finally abandon the people (us) who really do deserve it after all.
In this robust passage of Hosea, the prophet takes us on a walk down memory lane, sharing early memories of childhood: teaching us to walk, kissing our cheeks, bending down and lifting us up. The focus is not on us, not how cute we were, but how loving God was, patiently guiding us, teaching us, loving us. Moments we cannot remember because we were too young and naïve (self centered?), but God has not forgotten our babyhood. But this sweetness doesn’t last, we children grow up and are no longer as cuddly, as dependent, as loving. We think we no longer need God, and go in search of other ways to nourish our souls and beings. We no longer depend on the face and hands of God. And God laments at the difficulty of maintaining this deep love and devotion in the eye of such unfaithfulness.
In Hosea’s time, the kingdom of Israel had divided between North and South. God refers to the Northern Kingdom of Israel, as Ephraim. God compares Ephraim to a child he has taught to walk and taken in her arms. God led these people with “cords of human kindness, with bands of love.” She was like a caregiver who lifts an infant to her cheek, who bends down to them and feeds them. God, as a mother, as a father, as an aunt or uncle, as one who cares for small children, remembers how God cared and tended. This is a God who is accommodating, who sacrifices and humbles Godself to be known to us—an almighty, all powerful God, who is humble enough to brush crumbs off of our chins when we are not able to do this for ourselves. When we don’t even know what is happening to us. As Hosea says: “They did not know that I healed them.” God cares for us and provides even when we are unaware. The founder of Methodism Anglican priest John Wesley, referred to this as “Prevenient grace”: of God’s mercy that precedes us, that goes before us, that is at work long before we are aware of it, or even aware of our need for it. God takes care of us even when we don’t know it, preparing a way for us without our awareness or permission.
And all of that love and tender care turns out to be a waste of time, when we repay God by turning away. Hosea outlines the particular punishment that Israel faces: returning to Egypt, the place of slavery, the place that God previously liberated them from. Turning away from God, we all face a return to our previous conditions of sin, of separation from God. Israel faces loosing their nation and being ruled by the neighboring nation of Assyria. God had secured them land and freedom and will take it away and give it away. But God is not comfortable with this decision, God remembers how God took such great pains with Israel, how God loves and tends to us and asks: “but how can I really give them up and hand them over” says God, dangling the child over the pit of destruction, coming just this close to walking away, then realizing that God can’t do that, won’t do that.
The best parents will tell you that no matter what you will always love your kids. If they disobey, talk back, get arrested, marry someone you hate, etc, you still help them, defend them, love them. And this love is completely natural, automatic. Conventional wisdom backs this up, that this parental love comes with the territory, and we’re biologically rigged to always love our offspring.
But reality tells us that parents do not always love their kids, well or sometimes at all. Children are abandoned, physically or emotionally, are abused, are endangered, are not shown love, all the time. The news tells us this is true. Some of our own stories of our upbringing or experiences with our children tell us that this is true too.
God knows this, so in the midst of a parent-child relationship description, God turns and expresses a desire to abandon the child Israel, but makes the point that God will not do this simply because God is God, not a human, not mortal, and therefore not tempted to not love. After considering all the various ways of destroying us, God’s compassion kicks in and grows and God vows to bring us home.
The extent of God’s mercy does not end with Prevenient grace. We cannot rely on God to always take care of us with no effort on our own. As we mature, as we become alert to God’s actions in our lives, to the need that we have for God, as we realize that God has been helping us walk all along, then we realize our own shame and we return home, we “shall go after the Lord, who roars like a lion; when he roars, his children shall come trembling from the west . . . and I will return them to their homes, says the Lord.”
