A Word from Joel - July 23, 2025
“Go, take for yourself a wife of prostitution and have children of prostitution, for the land commits great prostitution by forsaking the Lord.’ So he went and took Gomer daughter of Diblaim, and she conceived and bore him a son.”
Hosea 1:2-3
As a symbolic act of Israel’s unfaithfulness to God for seeking other nations for deliverance, God tells Hosea to marry an unfaithful woman. It is often noted by Biblical scholars that Hosea moves Israel’s understanding of God from divine parent to beloved spouse. This is a significant leap forward. Richard Rohr writes,
Hosea is the first prophet to clearly move the tradition from law to heart, from the parent-child dynamic to spousal intimacy…This is a God in love. A God who wants to show us how he loves by sending Hosea back to Gomer, his unfaithful wife, again and again.
Hosea’s love for Gomer is intended to help Israel confront their own shadow, but unfortunately, Gomer is scapegoated and shamed in the process. We should note that the Hebrew word for “prostitution” can perhaps better be translated, “promiscuity.” Men throughout history often label women as prostitutes who in fact were not. Whenever women don’t conform to men’s ideals, they are often labeled harlots and sluts. This is a strategy used to control and diminish women, rather than describe them. But thankfully, God’s love is not like that. God loves fiercely, freely, and promiscuously. Womanist scholar Wilda Gafney points out how we can see God in Gomer as well:
Gomer is a representation of God to me. She shamelessly mother-loves her children no matter how their names are rightly or wrongly tarnished. She loves those who others say don’t matter. She loves the folk some preachers count out as dirty, soiled, ruined. And she loves promiscuously. God’s love is promiscuous. She just can’t keep it to herself. She loves wildly and widely, freely and without fetters. She loves those who have been deemed unlovable, illegitimate...God loves with a flagrant love those who have been told they are or unworthy because of who or what they are, who they love, how they love, what they have done, or even what has been done to them. God’s love is insatiable.
The truth is that we can see God in anyone or anything. Like Hosea, God is a faithful husband, but unlike Hosea, God doesn’t deal in shame. We can also see God in Gomer, as one whose faithfully loves her children even in the face of slander. God is always more than our categories and conceptions and can be seen everywhere. If we can learn to see God in everyone, including those deemed unloved and illegitimate, then the scapegoating can stop. We can look in the mirror and in the eyes of the other and see both our shadow and those whom God loves with an insatiable love.
-Rev. Joel Esala
Hosea 1:2-3
As a symbolic act of Israel’s unfaithfulness to God for seeking other nations for deliverance, God tells Hosea to marry an unfaithful woman. It is often noted by Biblical scholars that Hosea moves Israel’s understanding of God from divine parent to beloved spouse. This is a significant leap forward. Richard Rohr writes,
Hosea is the first prophet to clearly move the tradition from law to heart, from the parent-child dynamic to spousal intimacy…This is a God in love. A God who wants to show us how he loves by sending Hosea back to Gomer, his unfaithful wife, again and again.
Hosea’s love for Gomer is intended to help Israel confront their own shadow, but unfortunately, Gomer is scapegoated and shamed in the process. We should note that the Hebrew word for “prostitution” can perhaps better be translated, “promiscuity.” Men throughout history often label women as prostitutes who in fact were not. Whenever women don’t conform to men’s ideals, they are often labeled harlots and sluts. This is a strategy used to control and diminish women, rather than describe them. But thankfully, God’s love is not like that. God loves fiercely, freely, and promiscuously. Womanist scholar Wilda Gafney points out how we can see God in Gomer as well:
Gomer is a representation of God to me. She shamelessly mother-loves her children no matter how their names are rightly or wrongly tarnished. She loves those who others say don’t matter. She loves the folk some preachers count out as dirty, soiled, ruined. And she loves promiscuously. God’s love is promiscuous. She just can’t keep it to herself. She loves wildly and widely, freely and without fetters. She loves those who have been deemed unlovable, illegitimate...God loves with a flagrant love those who have been told they are or unworthy because of who or what they are, who they love, how they love, what they have done, or even what has been done to them. God’s love is insatiable.
The truth is that we can see God in anyone or anything. Like Hosea, God is a faithful husband, but unlike Hosea, God doesn’t deal in shame. We can also see God in Gomer, as one whose faithfully loves her children even in the face of slander. God is always more than our categories and conceptions and can be seen everywhere. If we can learn to see God in everyone, including those deemed unloved and illegitimate, then the scapegoating can stop. We can look in the mirror and in the eyes of the other and see both our shadow and those whom God loves with an insatiable love.
-Rev. Joel Esala
Posted in Belonging, Love, Loving, Prophets, Family, Mother, God
Posted in Hoesa, Prophets, prophecy, Love, family, Richard Rohr, Prostitution, slander, wife, family dynamics, unconditional love
Posted in Hoesa, Prophets, prophecy, Love, family, Richard Rohr, Prostitution, slander, wife, family dynamics, unconditional love
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