Hosea and Gomer, Father and Sons, God and Me and You

Some highlights from this past Sunday. We started off with a brief overview of the story of Hosea and Gomer. Hosea was a prophet, called by God to marry an unfaithful wife. Hosea's story is so earthy and sad and his relationship to Gomer is meant to reveal the relationship between God and humanity. At one point, Gomer goes so far as to become a prostitute and Hosea must do more than take her back, he must buy her back, like any other john. It is a humiliating look at forgiveness. God who sent His Son, Jesus, to pay the price for us.

We listened to a song by Pedro the Lion (Of Minor Prophets and Their Prostitute Wives) as we watched a series of sketches by Anna Grainer. Everyone found the sketches to be very moving. The line that stands out in the song (a love letter from Hosea to Gomer and God to man) is "I treated you as if you were my princess, you treated me like a cop."

Went from there to look at the story of the Prodigal Son. A younger son asks his father for his inheritance, so that he can go live the life he always wanted. The father grants the request.

Interesting to note, the inheritance would have been land, family land, a part of oneself. The son would have had to sell this part of himself for money, just like Gomer does.

The son goes and squanders his money. His party friends disappear. He's starving. He decides to head home to see if he can get hired on as one of his father's workers.

When he is still a long way off, the father comes running to him. Another humiliating act of forgiveness in a culture where fathers would never have shown such disregard for propriety. The son is welcomed back into the family.

We listened to Truman sing the song Wedding Dress, which reflects on Gomer and the young son and acknowledges that we're all whores and prodigals. That we all need to put on Christ like a wedding dress. That we're all still tempted by "lovers less wild" than Jesus.

In the end, we celebrated the Lord's Supper (really celebrated, not just said "and now we celebrate..." in a solemn voice), treating the bread and the wine as the feast they are meant to be. We hugged each other and offered peace to each other and sang Amazing Grace together.

It was a good reminder of who we are as people and who we're called to be. Whores and prodigals, willing to sell ourselves out for the next good time, called home by a loving Father who wants nothing more than to celebrate our return and reinstate our positions as sons and daughters.