9th Sunday after Pentecost (C)

August 6, 1995

How Does God Feel About Me?

(Hosea 11:1-11)

The honeymoon's over. How many times have we heard that expression? What does it mean exactly? Does it refer to the time when you get back from that trip you take after you are married? No. It generally refers to a time when you begin to experience friction, difficulty, or reality in your marriage.

Sometimes the honeymoon ends very innocently. "Honey, you burned the eggs." "Well," she replies with tears in her eyes, "I guess the honeymoon's over." "Darling, will you please pick up your dirty underwear off the floor?" "Gee," he snorts, "You didn't care about such things when we first got married."

Sometimes the honeymoon ends more tragically. "I thought I loved you when I married you, now I am not sure." "What do you mean your old boyfriend is back in town?" "It was just a one night fling."

Most of the time, you're not quite sure when the honeymoon ends. Like most things in life it ends gradually. As you become more and more used to each other, you take each other for granted. "You don't bring me flowers," a popular song lamented a few years ago. "You don't say you need me," came the reply. The wife quits putting on makeup on Saturday, the husband quits shaving. The wife takes so long on her hair, the husband quits doing sit-ups. The kids demand more and more attention. One day, the man looks up from his newspaper and asks the woman sitting across the table, "Do I know you?"

"Do I know you?" Israel asks God. Long before the New Testament called the church "the bride of Christ," the prophets likened the relationship of God and Israel to that of a marriage. Hosea himself married a prostitute, only to see her return to her trade, in order to visualize the troubled marriage between God and Israel.

"Do you know me!" replies God. Don't you remember when I led you out of Egypt? Don't you remember the intimate relationship we enjoyed in the desert of Sinai? Don't you remember how I asked you to be my people and you said, "I do"? Can't you open your eyes and see how I have faithfully loved you? No, I guess you can't. You're too busy lusting after your neighbor to notice that the one who really loves you has been with you all along.

When a marriage turns rocky, often the children act out their hurt and anger. They grow rebellious, belligerent, and more independent. They raise their defense shields so as to protect their vulnerable psyches. Hosea shifts from a marriage image to a parent-child one.

We know Hosea had two sons and a daughter. If the children were born at the earliest part of his prophetic work, and if this material comes from the middle years of Hosea's ministry, this would mean that Hosea's children were just beyond their teenage years. As Gomer went back to her life of prostitution for a while after the children were born, Hosea was a single parent for a time. Might the imagery of verse 11:3 arise from Hosea's own experiences as a parent? He taught his children to walk, he helped them grow strong, now they are turning rebellious. Hosea uses images drawn from his own family life to describe the relationship of God and Israel. God freed Israel from slavery, He protected them, He loved them, He healed them; now they rebel against Him.