| We will look at three verbs of great worth and interest to God's people in "YHWH's Originary Love for Israel" - Walter Brueggemann. We will do this by looking take a look at love and today we will look at the 2nd cluster of uses for this love.
Second, the prophet Hosea, ostensibly out of personal experience, articulates YHWH's love for Israel like no other love: "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," (Hosea 3:1); "When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son" (Hosea 11:1). The first of these texts voices the undeserving status of Israel in relation to YHWH's love. The second used the verb with reference to the initiatory event of the exodus rescue.
This is a love that goes beyond anything that would be considered good advice. This is how this God loves. Even when the people have abandoned the way of the one who loves them, God continues to love her knowing that such a people may only know how to be adulterous and not faithful. The actions of the people do not have an impact on the love that God has for God's people. It is so easy to think that these stories of Israel are all about Israel - not so. The stories are about the God of Israel - the God who initiates a relationship and will not abandon that relationship. This is a love story of God who will forever attempt to woo this people into a relationship in which their life will reflect the love of this eternal lover. When Israel trust in other gods - the power of the world - the weapons of the world - the wealth of the world - their standing in the world - all the worship and words of pious people cannot remove the fact of their unfaithfulness that they seem to slip into so very easily (like all of us, I must say). And yet, God's love is always an "initiatory event" of rescue - never to be doubted and never to be abused.
Connection: As readers of the prophets and people standing on the sidelines in another time, we must learn to cheer on those words of this loving God who used ordinary people to bring to life the light that is comes when a people are beloved of God. Prophets are unnecessary if the people are faithful. O God, whose love become the power to shape us, continue to woo us with your love and remind us of how you persist and will remain our God in and through all times. Amen. |
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