A Parent's Embrace

For all of our parents out there this passage from Hosea is for you. The image that is portrayed is God as a parent and Israel as God’s child. Now this imagery isn’t foreign in the Bible, as we see God talk about Israel as God’s son elsewhere, but there are other metaphors used as well and so we might not always have this parent imagery of God in the forefront of our minds. But let me tell you if you have, probably no matter how old they are, a stubborn child, then I’m telling you, this passage should probably be bookmarked for you to read when you wake up and, for those of us who are still raising our children at home, after you put your children to bed.

One of the things that has really helped me lately with being a parent has been to watch a TV show. We watch this show as a family and we only watch it as a family. The show is called “Nicky, Ricky, Dicky, and Dawn”. It aired several years ago on Nickelodeon and is about a family that has quadruplets. The show takes place when they are 10 years old and the mom and dad run a sporting goods store. I really enjoy the show because it allows me to laugh at all the crazy things that the parents go through with having quadruplets.

The pilot episode centers around the fact that the kids get in trouble all the time, they can’t ever work together, and don’t take any of their responsibilities seriously. That comes into full view when the kids want to adopt a dog. The kids are given a chance to prove they can take care of the dog. On the last day the dog pees on their dads newly acquired signed jersey and spend the whole day trying to cover it up which ends up very badly for them as you can imagine. They end up washing the signature off the jersey and getting caught by their parents. The only thing the kids can think about is how all of their lying and covering things up has ruined their chance to adopt the dog.

Honestly this isn’t too far from what Israel has been going through in our text today. Last week we talked about the contest between Elijah and the prophets of Baal and how the people returned to their faith in God. Well now things have swung back the other way and this is probably the height of Baal worship not just in other countries but also in Israel. The image God uses through Hosea is that of a child who is being called and yet the child just keeps running off to do other things that they think are more interesting than listening to their parent. Then God continues to lament of the fact that God taught them how to walk, used to lift them up in God’s arms, used to care for them when they were hurt, fed them and so much more and yet they don’t even realize it. They don’t even pay attention to the One who has been caring for them and nurturing them this whole time.

So after all this time trying to raise Israel the right way they have gone and done things themselves. They have fought and bickered with one another and now they have been caught by their parent and there is going to be consequences for their actions. This is Hosea’s prediction of the Assyrian Exile. But I don’t want us to focus too much on the fact that the exile is going to happen. I have said this many times before and I will keep saying it: we tend to focus on the negative actions by God and ignore the immense grace that occurs. Here’s a quote from the TV show I talked about from that same episode that I think will help us see what God is getting at in Hosea’s prophecy. After the kids get caught they confess they spent the whole day working together to cover things up. The mom, who’s name is Anne, hones in on the fact that the kids worked together all day long and praises the kids for it. The kids are obviously confused and they get excited for a brief moment that they have avoided getting in trouble to which she says, “Oh no you’re in big trouble for that!” Yet at the same time she relents and lets them keep the dog for all the ways they worked as a team despite the fact that they didn’t get along for the entire week like they were supposed to do.

You see God is so frustrated with the ways that the people of Israel have constantly turned back and forth between loving God and loving other things and will allow Assyria to conquer the land. Yet at the same time God looks back at God’s own love for Israel and remembers the covenant that God made with the people. God cannot let the punishment last forever. God cannot turn God’s back on what God has promised for Israel and we see such warm and tender words from God despite all the frustration and disappointment that exists. Even though the punishment according to human standards would likely lead to death, God cannot do that for Israel. God cannot, and God won’t. God realizes God’s ways, God’s standards aren’t the same as human standards. So instead, God promises relief from judgement.

In fact, God promises to be with them in exile. God won’t just send them off and leave them alone but God will be with them when they are no longer in their land. And as I alluded to before, God even says that God will return them to their homes and to the land that is theirs. These promises actually come in verses 10-11, which come right after where we stopped our reading today, but they just drive home this image of how compassionate and loving God is.

Even though I started out by saying that this was a great passage for parents to read to themselves, this is a passage that we should really read or think about all the time when we see or experience the ways that we and this world make decisions that bring grief to God. For we see how God shows divine love and divine compassion in the midst of frustration for God’s child Israel. So when we do things and we look back and realize that we walked away from God instead of toward God we can know that God’s arms are always wide open waiting to take us up into God’s arms, to lift us up to God’s cheek, that God wants to bend down and feed us with all the good things of this life and the life to come. It reminds me of Psalm 30:5 “His anger lasts for only a second, but his favor lasts a lifetime. Weeping may stay all night, but by morning, joy!” While we walk away from God we might experience the night, we know that the moment we turn back to God and run into God’s loving arms we will experience the joy that is the light of God’s presence. So may you never forget the lovingkindness that is our God who Jesus taught that we could call Abba, Father, so that we may never forgot how much God embraces us each and every moment of our lives. Amen.