March 11 - Gomer

Gomer was the wife of Hosea, an Old Testament prophet. She was your typical, promiscuous, unfaithful bad girl. He was the faithful husband, forgiving her over and over again and even taking her back after she had turned completely away from the family. From their relationship Hosea draws an allegory of God's relationship with the Jewish people, who also had strayed with other gods/religions. As Hosea stayed true to Gomer, even to the point of buying her back when she fell to the slavery, so, too, has God stayed true, even to the point of buying us (extending the covenant past the Jewish people) back through the life and death of Jesus.

Much is made, by some commentators, about the horrible threats mentioned in Chapeter two- for all I know standard punshment for adultrous women.  Some dwell on the question of how historically true is the story of Hosea and Gomer. Some focus on the words describing Hosea's intended wife - was she a prostitute? just a little loose?  Maybe just from parents who were 'loose'?  Some focus on the perceived abuse Gomer suffered.

I don't know if our defensiveness around this story is because we don't want to seem too bad, or whether we caught up in Women's rights and so are offended by the politically incorrect words used to describe Gomer, but we seem all too ready to be distracted from the point of the story. Just as salvation is not really about us, in some ways - we can do nothing about it on our own - so too is this story not really about Gomer or how bad or misused she was.  This is all about God and how, even though we keep doing things to make ourselves unworthy of a relationship with our creator, God keeps forgiving us, giving us opportunities to come back into relationship, and wanting to be with us.  Even though we deserver punishment, we get loving acceptance.

This is the story of Gomer, a woman who, like all the rest of us in the human race, make a lot of poor choices and bad mistakes.  She was loved, taken in and given status as the wife of a prophet, squandered it and, instead of dying as was the law, was redeemed to her husband and family and status.  Let us take from this, not the horrors of patriarchal law, but the wonder of God's faithfulness and never ending patience with our poor choices.  God is good and has given us so much, let us respond with greatful faithfulness.