The Dating Game
Hosea 1:2-10
Hosea's marriage
1:2 When the LORD first spoke through Hosea, the LORD said to Hosea, "Go, take for yourself a wife of prostitution and have children of prostitution, for the land commits great prostitution by forsaking the LORD."
1:3 So he went and took Gomer daughter of Diblaim, and she conceived and bore him a son.
1:4 And the LORD said to him, "Name him Jezreel, for in a little while I will punish the house of Jehu for the blood of Jezreel, and I will put an end to the kingdom of the house of Israel.
1:5 On that day I will break the bow of Israel in the Valley of Jezreel."
1:6 She conceived again and bore a daughter. Then the LORD said to him, "Name her Lo-ruhamah, for I will no longer have pity on the house of Israel or forgive them.
1:7 But I will have pity on the house of Judah, and I will save them by the LORD their God; I will not save them by bow or by sword or by war or by horses or by horsemen."
1:8 When she had weaned Lo-ruhamah, she conceived and bore a son.
1:9 Then the LORD said, "Name him Lo-ammi, for you are not my people, and I am not your God."
1:10 Yet the number of the people of Israel shall be like the sand of the sea, which can be neither measured nor numbered, and in the place where it was said to them, "You are not my people," it shall be said to them, "Children of the living God."
Most of you are too young to remember “The Dating Game,” a TV game show of the 1960s and 70s wherein a female contestant quizzed three eligible male “dates” whom she could not see. After her inquisition, she chose one of them for a date, to be paid by the show. Most of the “dates” were to some expensive, exotic place, and some of the “matches” were obviously setups arranged to give the show some appeal. If it sounds contrived and a bit overblown (as were most of its contestants, bachelors, AND the pre-determined “questions” the contestant would ask from que cards), you might not be surprised to hear that it was dreamt up by none other than Chuck Barris, who would eventually host his final creation, the irreverent and absolutely whacky “The Gong Show.” Of course, without “The Gong Show,” the world would have never discovered Gene, Gene, the Dancing Machine…
Real dating was nothing like the TV show. In high school, most of my friends were looking for a much more shallow and lascivious weekend date than the well-scrubbed, auditioned “contestants” of “The Dating Game.” The young women of my era were largely looking for a handsome date and to avoid pregnancy, while the guys were wanting to push the envelope of the biological equipment of both sexes, either to just have a “good time,” or to snare an acknowledged “beauty” for bragging rights. I was one of a few odd balls in this game. Call me the Arnold Stang of the dating set.
I actually had great respect for the women of the “opposite sex” to whom I felt attracted—or I should more rightly say, “interested in.” I did not think of potential dates in a lascivious vein. Yes, I started by filtering out the ones I thought had some physical appeal, but found myself more interested in what THEY were interested in. I felt “attracted” to a few girls in my higher academic circle as identified by the school system as “gifted” in some way. I also was aligned more with those whom I met in similar drama and music circles, as well. If I could meet up with her in the library, or shared the treble clef, I was interested. My wide interests in high school, academically and socially, kept me in the mid-regions of the top 20% of the class, but I picked my dating candidates from the top ten (not percent!). I dated quite a bit, partly because I thought it safer, and would keep me from “settling in” to a “steady,” which I knew would be unsustainable, come college. Also, my interest in women was like my academic and artistic interests—quite wide ranging. There were many “flavors” and “colors” of young ladies in our class, and as long as they were smart, I was interested. My best selling points as a date were that I wasn’t just interested in jumping their bones, and that I was genuinely interested in learning more about the girl, so I used my best journalistic practices to quiz them about themselves. I also could make anyone laugh, and that was apparently a desired come-on, as my physical attractiveness did not accompany my brain to the top 20% of the class. I enjoyed dating, had many a wonderful conversation with delightful young peers, and was frankly a bit disappointed, years later, when finding out in my delayed “maturing” process, that a couple of those earlier dates were disappointed that I DIDN’T try jumping their bones. (I have remained happy that I didn’t; held out for a better, smarter woman, and wound up marrying the smartest woman I have ever known. She’s a “looker,” too!) One very personally edifying truth is that most of those early dates fostered an empathetic “pastoral care” heart in me. Because I so enjoyed getting to know my dates through questions (much better ones than the “dating game” scripted ones), I wound up as a kind of defacto “counselor” to many of them. Turns out, a number of the girls I dated back then were dealing with “life stuff” that benefitted from good conversation and “getting it out in the open,” so to speak. I enjoyed playing the Rogerian in the room. I suppose I should have known then that God had something beyond journalism for me. True confessions, though—during my senior year, I struck up my longest-term high school relationship with a new sophomore who came into the band, and her personality was not the first thing I noticed…
All this talk about dating comes from the totally bizarre text that is one of this weekend’s lectionary selections from Hosea. As seriously as I took SERIOUS relationships from my early dating days, and as SERIOUSLY as I took selecting the type of person I might like to invest my life with, I freak out every time I read this passage! "Go, take for yourself a wife of prostitution…”? Seriously? And supposedly from the lips of the Almighty? This whole idea is just nuts. Frankly, I cannot believe this story as anything but a parable or a crude object lesson. Tell me all you want that it is eventually a tale of how God can take something terrible and “redeem” it into something wonderful, and I will still balk. And while I DO believe God can and does do this all of the time, when it comes to matters of the heart, I do NOT believe God would ask a trusted servant to “marry a prostitute” to make a point. Now that I’m done pontificating about this, it dawns on me that my dating practices were a sort of “subset” of that? Several of the girls I dated were “from the other side of the tracks,” as my mother labeled them, and I dated them to hear their stories and to encourage them, knowing they were dealing with some rough spots in their journeys. Was I being a type of Hosea, here, more concerned with the personal and interpersonal, than with the “reputation” or history of these women? My “safety valve,” though, was my set-in-stone conviction that I was going to do NOTHING to encourage a long-term relationship, knowing that college beckoned, and that I did not want to go off encumbered by a “girl back home.” Hosea was told to MARRY a besmirched woman, and even to start a family with them. Great story, emblematic of a Shakespearean play, possibly, but not sounding like something that might emanate from a “just and benevolent” God. I suppose that a key thing about God we are to learn from this bizarre story is how much God loved God’s people, even willing to ask a loyal prophet to warp his whole life to make a point to them. Sounds really weird until you realize that this same love eventually caused God to send is “only begotten Son” into a hostile, hurting world to rescue it, including a willingness to be horribly murdered in the process!
Can we GET this message strongly enough? God DOES love humanity, and has been willing to sacrifice all kinds of things to prove it, and to keep us in a connected relationship with God. Someone has said that the Son of God will be “forever changed” to prove just how much God loves us. What a profound thought. That’s a lot to go through to be able to proclaim that we are all “Children of the Living God,” but aren’t we blessed and happy because of it? NOW maybe we can see why Jesus so passionately tried to get us to “pay if forward” by loving each other? Here we are, over two-thousand years later, still trying to get THAT right, and most recently, it seems like we are SO backsliding at it. Much, much work is left to do for we Christ-followers.
Like Hosea and his “object lesson” life, I have my own story to share. In offering my high school (and later) dates my ears and heart rather than the more widely utilized male parts, I developed both a love of persons’ stories and a willingness to offer my best counsel and encouragement on their journeys. Meanwhile, not being under some Monty Python-esque “command” of God to MARRY someone whose life was in moral disarray, I held out for the best possible alternative. 48-plus years ago, I married the best possible choice in my quest to “marry up.” She is the most intelligent, spiritually mature person I have ever known, and her high degree of organization and intellectual curiosity has enabled her to put up with my randomness and psychological “ADHD.” On my end, she is still the best thing I can possibly look at on a daily basis, and she still “trips my trigger” when she enters the room. However, the BEST thing about our relationship is that I have never run out of questions about her, and she still remains a mystery to me, just like God. There are many days when I think I know Jesus more than I know her, but hardly a day goes by that she doesn’t demonstrate that she loves me just like Jesus does—willing to forgive, redeem, and reconcile. I know that I’m being arrogant believing that I am blessed to share my life with the greatest woman on earth, but good luck proving me wrong. I SO feel sorry for Hosea in this text…ACCEPT that he seems to find himself blessed in the end, too. I suppose both of our scenarios are basically a GOD thing.
During my years in ministry, I have told many a teenage boy that unless God tells you directly something STUPID like God did Hosea, date the women that you respect and who make you curious about themselves. In this day and age, it is easy to date someone who just wants to “hook up,” and even to be seduced to BE that kind of person. But the truly Godly-loving person dates with a deep sense of interest and curiosity about the other life involved in any relationship, knowing full well that the One who created them loves them like a mother/father, and will not look kindly upon a dating partner who doesn’t respect this. The worlds greatest aphrodisiac is meaningful conversation born out of mutual respect for our common humanity. If you want to win “The Dating Game,” take each other’s lives and faith seriously, and don’t trivialize the relationship with an undue emphasis on sensuality. Friends ultimately make better lovers than premature lovers make friendships.
Hosea married a prostitute and had kids with her, or so the story goes, as a sign of how seriously God desired to rescue and reconcile Israel, even after they had “prostituted” themselves with other Gods and excessive self-interest. Think modern Israel could use another Hosea? Youbetcha!
For all the rest of us, reinvest in your most intimate relationships, as they can be the best metaphors of how much God loves each of you, if you do it right. It’s the only way to win “The Dating Game.” Shalom, Beloved! Amen.