Crazy Love (Faith Rx'd Baltimore)

I would like to invite you for a tour of one of the most important religious sites in our metropolitan area… [W]e are going to venture to one of this culture’s most common religious sites and observe it with eyes that are focused on the religious aspects of its rituals…As we’re still off at a distance, I want you to notice the sheer popularity of the site as indicated by the colorful sea of parking that surrounds the building. The site is throbbing with pilgrims every day of the week as thousands and thousands make the pilgrimage. In order to provide a hospitable environment and absorb the daily influx of the faithful, the site provides and ocean of parking. But the monotony of black tarmac is covered by dots of color from cars and SUVs lined up, row by row, patiently waiting as the pilgrims devote themselves to the rituals inside… Religious sites of this kind almost inevitably emerge on the suburban edges of our cities—areas planned around the automobile and generally suspicious of pedestrians… The design of the interior is inviting to an almost excessive degree, sucking us into the enclosed interior spaces, with windows on the ceiling open to the sky but non on the walls open to the surrounding automotive moat. This conveys a sense of vertical and transcendent openness that at the same time shuts off the clamor and distractions of the horizontal mundane world. - James K. A. Smith, Desiring the Kingdom

Crazy Love - /23/11

The Perils of Prosperity

Theme: The sacrificial love of God in Jesus Christ is a love that will not let us go.

I’m currently reading a book by philosopher James K. A. Smith titled, Desiring the Kingdom. He says it’s the first of three planned volumes in what he’s calling a comprehensive theology of culture.

He makes the point in the introduction that all of life is liturgical. That is, all of life involves worship. His core claim “is that liturgies—whether “sacred” or “secular”—shape and constitute our identities by forming our most fundamental desires and our most basic attunement to the world.”

Let me give you an example of what he means by claiming that all of life is liturgical. Let me read this description he gives and see if you can figure out what he’s talking about. He says,

“I would like to invite you for a tour of one of the most important religious sites in our metropolitan area… [W]e are going to venture to one of this culture’s most common religious sites and observe it with eyes that are focused on the religious aspects of its rituals…As we’re still off at a distance, I want you to notice the sheer popularity of the site as indicated by the colorful sea of parking that surrounds the building. The site is throbbing with pilgrims every day of the week as thousands and thousands make the pilgrimage. In order to provide a hospitable environment and absorb the daily influx of the faithful, the site provides and ocean of parking. But the monotony of black tarmac is covered by dots of color from cars and SUVs lined up, row by row, patiently waiting as the pilgrims devote themselves to the rituals inside… Religious sites of this kind almost inevitably emerge on the suburban edges of our cities—areas planned around the automobile and generally suspicious of pedestrians… The design of the interior is inviting to an almost excessive degree, sucking us into the enclosed interior spaces, with windows on the ceiling open to the sky but non on the walls open to the surrounding automotive moat. This conveys a sense of vertical and transcendent openness that at the same time shuts off the clamor and distractions of the horizontal mundane world.”

Any idea what he’s describing?

It’s a perfect description. Talking about our experience inside of the Mall he says, “As we pause to reflect on some of the icons outside of one of the chapels, we are thereby invited to consider what’s happening within the chapel—invited to enter into the act of worship more properly, invited to taste and see.” We might take this as playful tongue and cheek, but he’s serious in describing the generic suburban mall as a religious site. And as a religious site it is formative. To be more precise, it is informative, forming us on the inside.

That is the point of contact with our text for this morning.

We are defined by what we love. Whatever has control of our heart shapes and forms us. That’s how God made us. So, we’re compelled to look at cultural institutions (including CF) with religious eyes to see how we’re being formed for worship.

Hosea 3:1–5 ESV

1 And the Lord said to me, “Go again, love a woman who is loved by another man and is an adulteress, even as the Lord loves the children of Israel, though they turn to other gods and love cakes of raisins.” 2 So I bought her for fifteen shekels of silver and a homer and a lethech of barley. 3 And I said to her, “You must dwell as mine for many days. You shall not play the whore, or belong to another man; so will I also be to you.” 4 For the children of Israel shall dwell many days without king or prince, without sacrifice or pillar, without ephod or household gods. 5 Afterward the children of Israel shall return and seek the Lord their God, and David their king, and they shall come in fear to the Lord and to his goodness in the latter days.

Israel in Hosea’s day was uncritically formed for worship by the cultural influences around her. The Lord says in v. 1 that the children of Israel turn to other gods and love raisin cakes. Nothing wrong with raisin cakes of themselves. It was an expensive nourishing delicacy; a nice sweet dessert back in the day. What Hosea is talking about is how the people at them in the observation of Baal worship. So this crazy love is twofold. It’s the crazy love of the people in rejecting the Lord and loving false worship, worship of the cultural institutions and influences around them. Then, even more astounding is the crazy sacrificial, inexplicable love of the Lord for unlovable people. That’s the love that dominates this text. So, we’ll focus on God’s crazy love by talking about Undeserved Love (vv. 1), Sacrificial Love (vv. 2-3), and Transforming Love (vv. 4-5).

Israel in Hosea’s day was uncritically formed for worship by the cultural influences around her. The Lord says in v. 1 that the children of Israel turn to other gods and love raisin cakes. Nothing wrong with raisin cakes of themselves. It was an expensive nourishing delicacy; a nice sweet dessert back in the day. What Hosea is talking about is how the people at them in the observation of Baal worship. So this crazy love is twofold. It’s the crazy love of the people in rejecting the Lord and loving false worship, worship of the cultural institutions and influences around them. Then, even more astounding is the crazy sacrificial, inexplicable love of the Lord for unlovable people. That’s the love that dominates this text. So, we’ll focus on God’s crazy love by talking about Undeserved Love (vv. 1), Sacrificial Love (vv. 2-3), and Transforming Love (vv. 4-5).

Undeserved Love

Once again, Hosea’s life and marriage with Gomer serve as an object lesson for the nation of Israel. When last we saw Hosea reference his wayward wife, he was speaking to his children in 2:1, saying to them,

“Plead with your mother, Plead! For she is not my wife and I am not her husband.”

We talked before about how Gomer was a sick woman, inexplicably driven by a self-destructive sexual lust that caused her to leave her family and return to a life of prostitution. Now, Hosea speaks again at the beginning of this chapter and tells us,

“The Lord said to me, ‘Go again and love a woman who is loved by another man and is an adulteress.’”

Do you remember the beginning of the book? The first thing that the Lord said to Hosea was, “Go. Take for yourself a woman of prostitution and children of prostitution.” What did Hosea do? He went and he married Gomer. Now she’s left and returned to her life of prostitution. She’s forfeited any right she had to be called his wife. She’s not referred to here as the children’s mother, nor by her name, Gomer. She’s just called ‘a woman.’ She has forfeited her identity through her adultery. It must’ve been difficult having her leave like that. But you would imagine that the though settled in Hosea’s mind,

“OK. This is just how it’s going to be. Me and the kids. We’re done. She has decided to prostitute herself and live with another man.”

Then the word of the Lord comes. Here’s what any man would want to hear, “Condemn her. Divorce her. She’s shamed you, so you shame her. Deny her.” Although she is deserving of all that and more, and no one would say that Hosea is being unkind or unjust if he did any of those things, God says, “Hosea, I want you to go again and love this woman.” Speaking in terms of marital relationships, you cannot get a stronger picture of undeserved love.

Verse 1 is not a suggestion. Why would the Lord command Hosea to do something so crazy (v. 1)?

This is not a suggestion. He doesn’t say, “Hosea, if you feel like you can handle it, go get your wife back.” No, he says, “Go.” And it’s not, go and tolerate. It’s go and love. She doesn’t deserve it. She’s not asking for it. But you do it. Why this command? Because, the Lord says, “This is just like the situation with me and Israel. I love them, though they turn to other gods and love raisin cakes.”

“Hosea’s devotion to God was tested again, for Gomer left him for a lover. Hosea may have felt some relief at this, but God was not through with his prophet. The analogy was not yet complete, and God was yet to act in greater grace on behalf of his people, for Hosea’s sacrificial love would reflect that grace in concrete terms. Hosea was to take Gomer back and continue to love her by showing tender care to this brazen woman.”

Hosea’s undeserving love towards Gomer is a picture of God’s undeserving love towards people who have declared that they are his enemies. Whether that declaration is by word or by action or both. Just like Gomer, by her actions could no longer claim the title, “wife of Hosea,” Israel could no longer claim the title, “people of God.”

We can wrongly believe that we have a right to God’s love because we don’t view ourselves rightly. There is not one person walking this earth who, of themselves, has a ‘right’ to God’s love. Yet, Jesus can come on the scene speaking boldly, unashamedly, and authoritatively about the love of God for the enemies of God (John 3:16-18).

John 3:16–18 ESV

16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. 18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.

The undeserved love Hosea showed Gomer ultimately points us right towards the undeserved love that God shows us in Jesus Christ. If you’re married, even if you’re not, imagine that you are and your spouse has gone off to live with someone else in a life of prostitution. The thought of bringing that person back into your home makes you recoil. If this were you, you might even get physically ill. But somehow we can have a disconnect, miss the analogy, and think that God ought to love us. No. His love is undeserved. Not only that, it’s sacrificial.

“For God so loved the world,that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. ( ESV)

The undeserved love Hosea showed Gomer ultimately points us right towards the undeserved love that God shows us in Jesus Christ. If you’re married, even if you’re not, imagine that you are and your spouse has gone off to live with someone else in a life of prostitution. The thought of bringing that person back into your home makes you recoil. If this were you, you might even get physically ill. But somehow we can have a disconnect, miss the analogy, and think that God ought to love us. No. His love is undeserved. Not only that, it’s sacrificial.

Sacrificial Love

Hosea gives us his response to the Lord’s command in vv. 2-3. He says,

So I bought her for 15 shekels of silver and five bushels of barley. I said to her, “You must live with me many days. Don’t be promiscuous or belong to any man, and I will act the same way toward you.”

What is going on in vv. 2-3?

On its face his response is ridiculous. She’s living with a dude who’s basically her pimp. And Hosea shows up at the door. And he has to work out the purchase price. This combination of both money and barley suggests that Hosea had some struggle coming up with the money. What he paid for her cost him dearly. It wasn’t some easy financial transaction. It was sacrificial. He brings her back home, she’s disgraced. How’s he going to treat me? What’s he going to do to me? He’s bought me, just like the other men. I know what they wanted. What does he want? But God’s charge to Hosea was love. Hosea brings her home and says, “Listen, you’re going to live with me many days.” That “many days” is a metaphor for an indefinite period. Not only that, but you’re not going to be promiscuous or belong to any man. He’s telling her, you’re cheating days are done. You’re not going to be prostitute anymore. You’re not going to be intimate with any man.

Then the last part of v. 3 is the kicker. HCSB translates Hosea as saying, “I will act the same way toward you.” The ESV translates Hosea as saying, “so I will also be to you.” The NIV says, “and I will live with you.” These translations are taking Hosea to be saying to Gomer in the Hebrew text, “I’m going to take you back into my home. You’re not going to be intimate with any man. That includes me. We’re going to live together, but our days of intimacy are over.

You can probably tell by my bringing this up that I’ve got a different take on the translation of Hosea’s words. And I’m not on an island as the only person who translates the text this way. But as I working through the translation I immediately saw this text as a reversal of what the Lord said when the third child, “Not My People,” was born.

Name him Not My People, for you are not My people, and I will not be your God. ( HCSB)

If you remember, I told you that in the Hebrew text it literally says, “you are not My people, and I will not be not yours.” Here, Hosea is reversing that. He’s saying to Gomer, “you’re not going to belong to another man. I, then, will be yours.” Yes, the “many days” is a picture of a “probation” period when she comes back home (we’ll see that in a little while), Hosea’s promise is of a restored intimacy and a sacrificial commitment of himself to his wife.

It doesn’t take much for us to see the analogy of God’s sacrificial love for us in sending Jesus Christ to die an undeserving death on the cross in order that, through faith in Jesus, we may be restored to intimacy with God.

In this picture of sacrificial love, God exposes us to his heart. Yes, the Bible says () that we are all naked and exposed to the eyes of the Lord. We can’t hide anything from him. But God reveals his own heart here. And I’m talking specifically about how we think when it comes to marriage and divorce.

This is sort of an aside, but not really. It’s an implication, I think, of this text. Hosea is a real man. Gomer is a real woman. They have a real marital crisis. In fact, you’d be hard pressed to imagine a worse marital crisis. What God tells Hosea to do for his wife is incredible. His buying her back is surely a picture of Christ purchasing our salvation on the cross, but it’s also instructive for marriage on a horizontal level. It’s instructive, but not prescriptive. What I mean is that we don’t have a command in this text saying, “thou shalt never get a divorce.”

Clearly we see in both the Old and New Testaments, the Lord giving his people valid reasons to seek a divorce. Those reasons are adultery and abandonment (; ; ; ). But if God would have his prophet go to the man who is prostituting his wife. Not beat him down, but take his own money and grain to pay him to get her back, what Christian marriage is beyond redemption? What, then, would be the unpardonable sin in Christian marriage?

I’m not trying to put all marital problems into the same category as if there was one prescription for how to fix and deal with all issues. I’m addressing the way we can be influenced by our culture. Just like the mall can be a place of worship, so can the courts. Once things aren’t working out, you’re no longer happy. He or she isn’t who you thought they were, the societal message is, “get outta dodge.” Even as Christians we can have this syncretistic worship where we pull from the societal influence and merge that with biblical reasoning so that we can get outta dodge. This isn’t new. When Jesus basically nullifies the popular cultural attitude towards divorce in , the disciples say in v. 10, “If this is the case with a man and his wife, it’s better not to get married.” In other words, if we can’t get divorced for whatever reason we want, it’s better not to get married in the first place than be stuck in an unhappy marriage.

You can’t look at this text and come up with a case where reconciliation is impossible. God specializes in reconciliation. You think that he can reconcile us to himself and not to one another? Here’s why this issue is not an aside to our text. We see the Lord command Hosea to exhibit a sacrificial love for his wife because he is a God who exhibits sacrificial love for his people. And those who receive that sacrificial love are transformed by it. How long does it take? I don’t know, but the sacrificial love of God is a transforming love.

Transforming Love

When we receive the sacrificial love of God, it changes us.

The first part of what Hosea says to Gomer is a parallel with what will happen to Israel. He says to her, “You must live with me many days. Don’t be promiscuous or involved with any man.” We’re given the analogy between her and Israel in v. 4.

“For the children of Israel will live many days without a king, and without a prince, and without sacrifice, and without pillar, and without ephod or household idols.”

What v. 4 describes is Israel’s prostitution and confusion. They had this mix of using the symbolisms God gave them for authentic worship for their false worship. We talked about it last week, when we saw that they were still celebrating the feast days the Lord had given them while they were at the same time worshipping Baal. Desiring to be ruled by a king could be OK if it’s a king who will follow the Lord. Sacrifices to the Lord out of a broken heart were OK, but not sacrifices to Baal. Jacob set up a stone pillar to the Lord in , but they were setting up stone pillars to pagan gods. The ephod was given to the priest to wear in his temple service, but the people loved their household gods. It was the epitome of syncretistic worship.

“And just as Gomer’s relationship with Hosea lost its intimacy, so the loss of sacrifice and ephod, symbols of Israel’s access to God, would affect Israel’s intimacy with [the LORD].”

“The analogy between Gomer’s probation and Israel’s is complete. Gomer is to abstain from prostitution and even from sexual relations with any man, but this does not mean that after the probation she can resume prostitution. She can, however, return to true conjugal love with her husband. By analogy Israel will be for a time without monarchy, priesthood, and idols. When her probation ends, idolatry will never return, but a purified monarchy and true worship will return.”

What is the picture given to us in verse 5?

That is the picture given to us in v. 5. The sacrificial love of God is a transforming love that will turn the hearts of the people back to the Lord. That’s the goal. Heart transformation.

“Afterward, the people of Israel will return and seek the Lord their God and David their king. They will come with awe (trembling) to the Lord and to His goodness in the latter days.”

Those words “return” and “seek” are words that indicate repentance. In this last verse, Hosea and Gomer fade into the background. The primary point becomes this turning and seeking the Lord and his King. Remember, Hosea is from the northern kingdom of Israel and is prophesying to Israel. Israel has rejected the Davidic monarchy. They’re not looking for a king to come in the lineage of David. Judah to the south is, but Israel has broken ties with David. The Lord is like, “I don’t care. There’s only going to be one king for my people.” He already declared it in 1:11 when he said that the children of Judah and the children of Israel shall be gathered together, and they shall appoint for themselves one head.” The one head, the King is Jesus.

This is a description, not simply of ethnic Jews turning to the Lord in repentance. It is a picture, a foreshadowing of the gathering of all who turn to the Lord, who have been transformed by his sacrificial love in Jesus Christ, and so seek him with their whole hearts, coming to him in a reverent fear, returning to his goodness.

God’s love for us in Jesus is a crazy love. Crazy because it’s undeserved. Crazy because it’s sacrificial. Crazy, but necessary because it’s the only type of love that can transform our hearts and continually reorient our desires.

, shall we be saved by his life. More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.

Because we are defined by what we love, and we are formed by what we worship.

Testimonies

Gathering Song:

Call to Worship – Taken from

Minister: Sing to the LORD a new song; sing to the LORD, all the earth. Sing to the LORD, praise his name; proclaim his salvation day after day.

People: Declare his glory among the nations, his marvelous deeds among all peoples.

Minister: For great is the LORD and most worthy of praise; he is to be feared above all gods.

All: Worship the LORD in the splendor of his holiness; tremble before him, all the earth.

Invocation & Opening Hymn, Praise Song, Praise Song:

Renewal

Prayer, Offering, Doxology, Reading: ESV

Song of Preparation:

Sermon Text: (HCSB)

Then the LORD said to me, “Go again; show love to a woman who is loved by another man and is an adulteress, just as the LORD loves the Israelites though they turn to other gods and love raisin cakes.”

So I bought her for 15 shekels of silver and five bushels of barley. I said to her, “You must live with me many days. Don’t be promiscuous or belong to any man, and I will act the same way toward you.”

For the Israelites must live many days without king or prince, without sacrifice or sacred pillar, and without ephod or household idols. Afterward, the people of Israel will return and seek the LORD their God and David their king. They will come with awe to the LORD and to His goodness in the last days.

Commitment

Confession of Sin & Silent Reflection

Minister: Father in heaven, we confess to you this morning that you have sent your Son to establish your kingdom here on earth.  

Congregation: And we need your kingdom.  Our city needs your kingdom.  Our world needs your kingdom.  Yet we resist your rule at every point.  We are constantly trying to limit your kingship.

Minister: Father, you have said that your Kingdom makes all things new.  

Congregation: Prove it to us.  Prove it in us, we pray.  Be our Lord; reign with your loving power over us.  Meet us where we are and enter our lives, our city and our world.  We ask this not because we deserve it, but because Christ has earned it for us on the cross.  Amen.

Silent Confession

Words of Assurance & Encouragement –

For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.