PlayNtheGray

Conviction comes in an assortment of flavors to suit even the strangest appetite. I read through Jonah and had to check myself. This will be short. We all know that game of hide and seek that he decided to play with the Lord. However, at the end of this tale his maturity seemed to have drowned in the sea that previously engulfed him. The Lord relented  from bringing calamity upon Nineveh  after Jonah proclaimed divine warning and the people changed. “But this was very displeasing to Jonah, and he became angry. He prayed to the Lord and said, ‘O Lord! Is this not what I said while I was still in my own country?…I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in love and ready to relent from punishing. And now take my life from me for it is better for me to die than to live.” Jonah 4:1-3 NRSV. Unless I am reading this wrong, the prophet would have been pleased with punishment for the people of Nineveh. Jonah stuck out a full bottom lip to God’s grace to “others”. It’s almost laughable. As ministers don’t we desire repentance and restoration for our congregations and communities? Most likely…but what about other countries or people groups that are our deemed our “enemies”. When we pray for them and are aware of their misdeeds and the consequences to follow do we really want them to experience God’s grace after they turn to Him or would we rather that God “stick it to them” and show them who’s boss? Oh, dear church we are all a moment away from falling. We were all one painful instant from denying Christ as Lord. In our sin we were all His enemies. He relented from bringing calamity and destruction. By the love present in His life, death and resurrection we are called friends of God…sons and daughters. Have mercy.

The bliss of sweet ignorance has no place in seminary. I had to leave it at the door in August 2008. Sometimes I miss it dearly…when I am listening to a sermon at church, ministering alongside others and especially when I read scripture. The prophets…oh the prophets. I just do not know what to think of some of them but I will say this much; I am grateful that God is willing to use us in all of our imperfections and odd proclivities. Now that I have a better grasp on the historical context of ancient Jewish culture I can see the nuances of personality and experience peek out in scripture. Hosea puzzles me though. I will have to read this book a few times before I can reconcile with the purposed use of prostitution as a demonstration of the nation’s condition by the prophet himself. In the NRSV Hosea 1:2-3 says, “When the Lord first spoke through Hosea, the Lord said to Hosea, ‘Go, take for yourself a wife of whoredom and have children of whoredom, for the land commits great whoredom by forsaking the Lord.’ So he went and took Gomer daughter of Diblaim, and she conceived and bore him a son.” Gomer bore 3 sons for Hosea giving them names of significance that spoke directly to the Israelite nation. Hosea 3: 1-3 says, “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.’ ²So I bought her for fifteen shekels of silver and a homer of barley and a measure of wine.^{* 3}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.’”.  As the NRSV reads it seems as though these are 2 different prostitutes/adulterers. Forgive me but the whole idea of  a prostitute being purchased by a prophet (or sequestered if you like) renders me uneasy and a bit disgusted. It is against God’s law. You know that whole one man, one woman marriage thing and how God detests sexual immorality; yeah, that. Leviticus 19:29 says this of the law of Moses, “Do not profane your daughter by making her a prostitute, so that the land may not become prostituted and full of depravity.” Therefore, why is prostitution and adultery on the side of Hosea (a man) justifiable? Easy…”God told him to”. Case closed. The Book of Hosea has been romanticized and I am not sure why…at least entirely. There is some great stuff in it. Chapter 8 and Chapter 11 are moving and veracious. Books like “Redeeming Love” by Francine Rivers come to mind and I am befuddled. (I love that book!) Hosea just seems like a prophet who also had a thing for prostitutes and was able to use that to preach from. At the end of the day prostitution and adultery are still vilified but Hosea gets off scot-free. Of course I’m sure this would never be accepted in today’s pulpit (insert sarcasm here).