Love
came down at Christmas #3: scandalous love
Reinbeck
UMC 12/14/14
John was home alone with the
kids while his wife Doris was at the beauty shop. John was a pretty engaged
father and he loved the times when his wife was gone and he had the kids to himself.
The baby was kind of cranky,
but who wouldn’t be if they had diaper rash? John was looking for the ointment.
He couldn’t find it. He looked in all the logical places like the diaper bag,
the changing table, the drawers in the baby’s room and the medicine cabinet. He
was sure they had some around. He finally went to Doris’ closet because she had
the other diaper bag in there.
That’s when he found the
shoebox tucked behind everything else, filled with a whole bunch of letters. He
couldn’t help but notice that they were obviously love letters… and they
weren’t from him. Curious he read a couple of the letters.
They were from a man named Stan.
Stan was writing love letters to John’s wife. The top ones were dated as recent
as a couple of weeks ago. The bottom ones were dated 7 years ago, shortly after
John and Doris were married.
What’s more, these letters
were not from an admirer from afar. They were the kind of letters written from
one lover to another. There was no mistake about it. Doris was having an
affair, and she had been most of their married lives.
Tears started to roll down
his cheeks. Anger started to boil up inside of him.
John was startled by
Kortney, their oldest daughter, saying, “What’s wrong daddy?” But he didn’t
know how to explain, and didn’t think it was for children’s ears anyway.
Suddenly John realized that he couldn’t even be sure that the girl standing in
front of him was his child. He mumbled something about going to check on her
brother, but he himself couldn’t move. He was paralyzed.
His mind fixated on the
letters. John couldn’t stop reading them.
One referred to her beauty
in a particular red dress… that John had bought for his wife for a special
occasion.
One referred to being in
Aspen. Now he knew that she wasn’t really tired when she sent him skiing
by himself that day.
Everything was a blur when
Doris returned home and he confronted her. She didn’t deny it. The conversation
turned from tears to yelling and screaming. Yelling and screaming gave way to
threats to leave, until John packed his stuff and went to stay with a friend.
One day John and Doris went
to his pastor and told the whole story.
The pastor listened intently
and finally turned to John and asked, “What do want to do next.”
With tears in his eyes, and
a lump in his throat, John replied, “I want to win my wife back.”[1]
My first reaction to that
story is, “Really? You want her back?” And listen to what he said; “I want to win my life back”
In most circles, a story
like this would become fodder for gossip and whispering behind John and Doris’
back.
This is the kind of thing
that, if John and Doris were famous, would be snatched up by the National Enquirer
and turned into a scandal. The story is disgraceful, it is shocking, and it is appalling.
Most people would say the
scandal is that Doris had a 7-year long love affair. I say the scandal is
John’s decision to “win his wife back?”
You might expect to see that
story made into a hallmark channel tearjerker, but you wouldn’t expect to find
it in the Bible. Hosea’s story, however, is a lot like it, and is no less
scandalous.
Hosea was a prophet in the
last years before the Assyrians invaded Israel. God often had the prophets do
strange things to make a point. However, this took the cake. God spoke 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.
Now, I know that we are not used to hearing these
kinds of words in church, but there is no nice way around this story. God tells
Hosea to go to the seediest part of town, find himself a prostitute, and marry
her. God send Hosea after a bimbo, or a floozy, or a woman of ill repute, or whatever
you want to call her.
Hosea goes downtown and
finds a prostitute names Gomer. When is the last time you knew someone who
named their daughter Gomer? Maybe Gomer was a prettier sounding name in Hebrew.
Hosea courts Gomer and
eventually pays the marriage price to her father who was only too happy to have
someone marry his daughter who had gone down the wrong path. I don’t know if Hosea
and Gomer were happy together or not. Unfortunately, Gomer didn’t just walk
away from her lifestyle. She continued to have relations with other men, but
Hosea didn’t divorce her.
Soon Gomer started having
children- of course; no one could be sure who the father was.
The first child was a boy so
God commanded that he be named Jezreel because “I will soon punish the house of
Jehu for the massacre at Jezreel, and I will put an end to the kingdom of
Israel.” Jezreel was a terrible bloody place where Jehu killed both the king of
the northern kingdom and the king of the southern kingdom in order to take the
throne himself. Jezreel is a very strange name for a child. It has been said
that it’s like naming your child “Auschwitz.”
That was bad enough, but it
gets worse. The next child is a daughter. Hosea is commanded to name her “Lo-Ruhamah”
which means “Unloved.”
What a sad name for your
daughter. “Unloved.”
But it gets even worse. The
third child was a boy who was named “Lo-Ammi.” Which means “Not Mine.” God said
this was because, “you are not my people, and I am not your God.”
That was Hosea’s family, his
wife Gomer, and his kids, Auschwitz, Unloved, and Not Mine.
Even after the kids came,
Gomer was more and more, turning her back on Hosea. In chapter three God tells
Hosea to go down to the market again to get her back. “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.”
Therefore, Hosea goes to the market, finds Gomer, and,
as if he was one of her customers, actually pays to have her back. “So I
bought her for fifteen shekels of silver, and a homer of barley, and a measure
of wine.”
·
That’s just not right that Hosea would have to
pay the prostitute’s price to have his wife back. That is scandalous.
·
That’s just not right that John has to feel like
he needs to “WIN his wife back.” That is scandalous too.
A scandal is something that one person does that
violates the expectations of how think they should behave.
Our culture is one that eats up scandals. People love
to hear how the mighty have fallen. Think about the Kennedy assassination, Jim
and Tammy Baker, Bill Clinton, or Bill Cosby.
Hosea’s story and John’s story are both as scandalous
as any of those stories. I tell them, however, because they are parables of the
divine scandal. Do you know the scandal about God? The Christmas story is a
scandalous story. Let me tell you what I mean.
·
It just is not right that after everything we
have done,
o after
all the sin people have committed,
o after
all of our unfaithfulness and
o Running
after other Gods- it’s just does not seem
right that God would put on skin and move into the neighborhood. It is
scandalous!
·
It just does not seem right that, that after
everything we read in the Old Testament, God still loves us. It is scandalous!
·
It just does not seem right that after all that,
God was still willing to pay any price necessary to get us back from our sin
and guilt. It is scandalous!
The love that came down at Christmas was a scandalous
love.
Jesus’ love was a scandalous love. Just think about
the whispering in the corners and in the Sanhedrin.
·
“Look, he eats with sinners.”
·
“Look he is hanging out with tax collectors.”
·
“Look he is healing that leper.”
·
“Look at the way he says that sometimes gentiles
see the kingdom of God before the Jews.”
·
“Look at
the way he talks to those women.”
·
“Look at the way he argues with the scribes.”
·
“Look at the way he calls himself God.”
… The list could go on and on. To the people in Jesus day, it just
was not right. It was scandalous.
Just as scandalous as John taking Doris back, or Hosea
taking Gomer back, In Jesus Christ, God was making the move to get us back from
our spiritual adultery.
·
Did we deserve it? Absolutely not.
·
Did we earn it? Are you kidding, no!
·
Did God have to give us any more chances?
o No,
but there is something about God’s character,
o There
is something about God’s nature, which made God want to give everything for
you.
·
Why didn’t God give up on us and walk away? I
don’t know.
·
Why didn’t John walk away from Doris?
·
Why didn’t Hosea have Gomer stoned for adultery?
I guess the only answer is LOVE. God’s love for us is such that there
is
o nothing
we have ever done,
o nothing
we are doing now, and
o Nothing
we can ever do, that will keep God from loving us.
As I am fond of saying “Nothing, nothing, nothing, can ever separate
us from the great love of God in Jesus Christ.”
And God will do Anything, Anything, anything, to have
you love him back.
That is the scandalous message of the love that came
down at Christmas.
SO… What does God’s scandalous love say to us?
It says that
o If
you feel like you don’t deserve God’s love.
o If
you feel like you can never do enough,
o you
are never good enough,
o you
are never strong enough,
o you
are always feeling guilty,
o Or
judged.
God’s
scandalous love is for you.
The scandal is that you’re right-
o you
can never do enough,
o you
will never be good enough,
o You
will never be strong enough to earn God’s love. BUT GOD LOVES YOU ANYWAY.
That is the
scandalous Love that came down at Christmas.
·
Emmanuel. God with us even though we don’t
deserve it.
·
Emmanuel. God with us even though we don’t
understand it.
·
Emmanuel. God with us even though we are
sinners.
·
Emmanuel. God with us even though we are at
times as unfaithful as Doris or Gomer.
·
Emmanuel. God with us always.
·
Emmanuel. God with us everywhere.
·
Emmanuel. God with us in the baby
·
Emmanuel. God with us in our lives today.
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