Would You Do That?

Hosea 1:2-3; Jeremiah 27:1-7; Isaiah 20:1-6

Three prophets do extraordinary things, making spectacles of themselves--

Hosea marries a practicing prostitute fully acknowledging she will be unfaithful

Jeremiah straps on an ox yoke as a permanent wardrobe accessory

Isaiah foregoes clothes altogether, taking a bald stand before the Temple

Each of them is full of God, although I am sure there were others to label them full of something else. 

To repeat--they were full of God. Each action was an embodiment of God’s sense of our relationship to God--God’s perspective--that is an essential piece to note. God takes stock of our relationship to God and pronounces the assessment through these prophets.

What does God find?

Isaiah embodies life as it is apart from God. To forego the presence of God is to forsake our maker, reject redeeming grace, and to renounce God’s eternal providence. It is to head naked into the jungle that is life unprotected, without supplies, and without effective hope. John Lecarre, the famous spy novelist, noted that the British Secret Service had a name for the most dangerous assignments, those sou clandestine that there could be no backup, no outside support, and no chance for rescue should something go awry--”going barefoot.” That is life apart from God. So Isaiah walks naked through the city streets, unguarded, unkept, and totally vulnerable.

Jeremiah also embodies life apart from God, but not apart from a master. He wears a yoke because if we throw off the rule of God, we are simply giving ourselves over to another central control of our lives. It is a recognition of one of the most pervasive mythologies in human existence--that we are independent operators, capable of absolute, existential freedom, captains of our own destiny, and that we have complete control over our lives. From theologians like Paul Tillich to archetypal psychotherapists like Carl Jung to the Apostle Paul to Bob Dylan (“You Gotta Serve Somebody”), the actual study, experience, and work with human beings reveals something else altogether--every person who breathes has a central core by which they determine all choices, decisions, and priorities. No choice is completely free or undetermined. Jeremiah issues a living warning--be careful whom you serve. Some powers are absolute; some powers are consuming; and some powers devour lives. Ask an addict. Ask an abused spouse. Ask an impoverished person. Ask a cancer patient. The yokes are everywhere, ready for application. Be ready for them or suffer them.

Hosea embodies a slightly different tack, but one that flows from both Isaiah and Jeremiah. God is faithful. Scripture says too many times to be counted, “The steadfast love of God endures forever.” God is present. If you breathe, God is present, for God is life as God is love. God is present here and now, in every here and now. Yet, we live as if it were not so. From taking creation completely for granted--I never--never--begin a run without dodging trash along the roadside--to taking ourselves for granted--McDonalds is not going out of business--ever--to taking others for granted--other people are more often obstacles than gateways as we race stressed from place to place; we forsake the God who made us and is with us, completely ignoring the call to love God, love others, and love ourselves--yet, we expect God to be there when we actually need God and will wail and rail violently should we feel God’s absence, even when it is so surely and strongly we who are absent from God and not the other way around. So Hosea marries a prostitute.

Take a moment and let all of these prophetic displays sink into your being. 

Breathe them in. Ponder them. They are real.

Now, what to do with them?

Be mindful. Open eyes, ears, hearts, minds, and your whole being to the presence of God. The earth is the Lord’s--treat it as the gift of God it is. It is a treasure. It is also the only place we will ever live. Treat it as if that were so. Clean it up. Reuse, recycle, renew. You are part of that beauteous created order. You are a wonder--a unique act of God’s creative will. Treat yourself as such. You have a wondrous body capable of miraculous actions. Care for it so it can continue to do what it was created to do. You are a miracle of mind--use it. Wonder, imagine, and create. You are the image of God. Use it. Rejoice in it. You also live in community. There are seven billion neighbors around us. There is always somewhere near. Love them. Open to them. Welcome them. They are children of God--brothers and sisters--all of them. Love them. God is always faithful; here is our way to respond in kind, to love God, love others, and love ourselves.

Next, choose your master wisely. One of the most important lessons the Apostle Paul ever taught came in Galatians. He taught that we will order our lives by some wisdom, law, or central core of being. God alone offers Lordship that ironically frees all the servants. God is love. Setting God at the center of our existence is to set love at the center of our existence. Love at the center of our existence is an avenue to fully realizing the promise and potential of being made in God’s image. We can become all that God made us to be--persons connected, interdependent, fully realizing the power of love to fill us more fully than we have ever been. “Come unto me all of you burdened to breaking,” says Christ. “I will give you rest. My yoke is easy and burden light.” That is the miraculous power of serving love. We empty to become full.

Finally, don’t walk naked into the street. I have never been so embarrassed--nearly literally--as the morning I decided to run the recycling to the curb in the boxers I use as pajamas--who knew there was a traffic jam in front of my house at 6:05 in the morning? God is present every moment. You breathe; God is with you and within you. Clothe yourself in God. God’s saving grace is there for every misstep, mistake, and miscalculation. God’s providence is there to supply our needs, emotional, physical, and soulful. God’s life and love are there to see through all the moments of death, both literal and figurative, the moments of existential fear, doubt, and emptiness, and the little deaths of loss of connection, settledness, and sustenance, also physical, emotional, and soulful. 

So, three prophets, consumed by God, step into the world with seemingly bizarre steps. Yet each proclaims the good news of salvation, the hope of redemption, and clarity of being with God.

Would you do that?

Yes, we can.