Our Outrageous God
Hosea 3
Matt 20 vv 1-16
Have you ever noticed that people get to look like their pets?
It is said that a vet can tell a lot about a dog owner he has never met just by observing the dog. What, I wonder, does the world learn about God by watching us his followers here on earth?
If you watch the Simpsons you will know that Homer and Marge have a next door neighbour Maude Flanders who is portrayed as a born-again Christian. In one episode, Homer greets Maude “I haven’t seen you around in a couple of weeks. Where have you been?”
“Oh,” Maude replies cheerily, “I’ve been away at bible camp – learning how to be more judgmental.”
BANG
The scriptwriters anticipate millions of viewers around the world erupting with laughter because that’s so close to the truth as they see it. How come? How has the media stereotype of a Christian become someone who is a superficial hypocrite, pushy and moralising, and out of touch with real life?
Someone has said
The best argument for Christianity is Christians: their joy, their certainty, their completeness. But the strongest argument against Christianity is also Christians: when they are somber and joyless, when they are self-righteous and smug, when they are narrow and repressive, then Christianity dies a thousand deaths.
When a bomb exploded in Enniskillen in 1987, it could easily have been another brief news report that was quickly forgotten – one in a long series of bombings in N Ireland. What made it unforgettable was the response of one man, himself injured in the blast, and whose daughter died as a result of her injuries. From his hospital bed, grieving the loss of his daughter Marie, Gordon Wilson said this
I have lost my daughter, but I bear no grudge. Bitter talk is not going to bring Marie Wilson back to life. I shall pray, tonight and every night that God will forgive them”
The world listened and was flabberghasted . A newspaper said later “ No one remembers what the politicians had to say at that time. No-one who heard Gordon Wilson will ever forget…
When Jesus told the crowds Love your enemies, he gave a reason for doing so
Love your enemies said Jesus and pray for those who persecute you so that you may be sons of your father in heaven. And that’s the whole point. We have a God in heaven who loves his enemies. And in case we’re in danger of forgetting, lets just remind ourselves that each one of us at some stage has been the enemy of God. Unless we’ve embraced what Jesus’ death means for us, we’re still an enemy of God. That’s the bad news. But the good news is that God’s love is overflowing for his enemies. No matter where you are in your relationship with God, he will never love you more than he does now. And no matter how often we turn away, no matter how much we disappoint Him, he’ll never love us less. Because the bottom line is that God’s love for us is not dependent on our behaviour. It’s unconditional and unlimited. I’m quite sure I’ve made this point from the pulpit before and I’m not about to apologise for saying it again because I believe it’s a message that our hearts need to hear over and over again. I know it’s a message my heart needs repeated often. In a society where relationships are broken because people can’t forgive each other, where people are paralysed by guilt and feelings of inadequacy, this message is vital for our health and well-being. We need constantly to be reminding ourselves that although you and I are deeply flawed individuals, God’s love for us says nothing about how good we are and everything about how good He is. We often tie ourselves in knots as we try to earn His love by our acts of service. Any service we do for God is just that – it doesn’t affect His love for us which is constant. For many people this undeserved love is just too outrageous. They can understand that God might love nice middle-class people who behave in a certain way but surely there has to be a line drawn somewhere?
And God says – no line No one excluded This is for everyone
The story of Hosea is a love story and a picture of the grace of God. But it’s also a bit of a shocker. It was the talk of the town back in Hosea’s day and that’s what God intended. He wanted people to take notice.
In a nutshell, God told Hosea, who was the man of God, to go take himself a wife. Not any wife, Hosea was to take for himself and marry a prostitute, someone known to be promiscuous. And he was to have children with her. Hosea married Gomer and for a while all was well, but soon Gomer slipped back into her old ways and was unfaithful to Hosea, sleeping with other men. Surely at this point Hosea could give up on his cheating wife? No, said God, go and take Gomer back, show her love and forgiveness and accept her back as your wife. Love her – cherish her – deal with her tenderly.
This whole story seems outrageous to us – we can’t imagine anything like it. And it would have seemed outrageous to the people of that time, watching events play out before their eyes. You can imagine it in a place like Newport – people talking behind their hands – Have you heard what’s happened now? Unbelievable!
Yet this is the picture God paints of himself and his outrageous grace and love towards the people he has made – people who are not faithful to Him -people who have no time for Him
People who run after other gods – money, success, comfortable living, anything that will keep us too busy to hear God speaking to us.
How often do we recognise ourselves in Gomer? What a message of hope there is for us here – that God will not give up on us but will persevere until we slowly change to become more like His Son.
However we don’t all recognise ourselves in this scene – and certainly for many people the idea that God would extend his grace to murderers and adulterers is a step too far. The thief on the cross is a case in point. No time to make good. That surely can’t be fair. Why should he have got to paradise? We get hooked up on the fact that God’s love and grace is not fair. Of course it’s not! If we only got what we deserved we would be in a sorry state
The parable that we read about the workers in the vineyard is one that many people struggle with. I would guess that most people here this morning, when you read this story, would identify yourselves with the honest Joes who worked a full day and received the day’s wage. We can understand their indignation – why should the latecomers get a whole day’s wage and not just the appropriate fraction of it? It’s not fair!
But the truth of the matter is that we have to make a major shift in our thinking. We are not the ones who have been working since the early hours. We are the ones who have been taken on at the eleventh hour. We’re the ones who have done nothing to deserve God’s grace. We’re the ones who have benefited from God’s outrageous generosity. We’ve done nothing to earn God’s favour and we can do nothing – he accepts us because of who he is not because of who we are.
God says in Isaiah 55 As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts.
God’s generosity transcends human ideas of fairness. If we were treated only with justice, there would be no hope for any of us. We need the unexpected, undeserved mercy of God to have any hope at all.
This is the picture that God paints of Himself in the Bible. He is not some mealy-mouthed, tight-fisted dictator. He is an outrageously generous, loving and forgiving father who longs for his children to turn to Him and say thanks. Thanks for all you’ve done for me- thanks for all your forgiveness when I deserved to be punished, for your love toward me when I was not your friend, but your enemy, thanks for accepting me when I find it hard to accept myself.
Instead we’re often more like the Pharisees, taking God’s grace towards us for granted, and resenting that he offers his grace to people that we feel, quite frankly, don’t deserve it.
If any of you have been to see the musical Les Miserables, you will remember the scene early in the story when the ex-convict Valjean has been shown hospitality by a man of God.
During the night, however, Valjean sneaks out of the house with all the valuables he could lay his hands on. He’s caught by the police and brought back to the man of God’s house, to be accused by the man he has robbed. But there’s an unexpected twist to the story. So, here you are cries the bishop, I’m delighted to see you. Did you forget that I had given you the candlesticks as well? The bishop assures the police that the silverware was not stolen but given as a gift to Valjean, who is now staring at the bishop with an amazement no words can convey. This is the turning point of his life. He has been shown the grace of God through the actions of the bishop and his life takes a new direction. If you don’t know the rest of the story, I’m sorry I don’t have time now to fill you in on it but a little later Valjean says this; My soul belongs to God, I know, I made that bargain long ago
He gave me hope when hope was gone, he gave me strength to journey on……..
When people get a clear picture of the love and grace of God, it changes their lives. The man of God in Les Mis gave out a clear message of grace to a desperate man. Gordon Wilson’s words of forgiveness 17 years ago portrayed the grace of God more clearly than 1000 sermons
For those of us who claim the name of Christ this morning, we’re left with one question – what message is the world getting from our lives? Because we’re communicating whether we’re aware of it or not. Is it that God is critical and demanding or is it that he extends to all his love, his forgiveness and his acceptance. May each one of us take a good hard look at God, and a good look at ourselves and allow the Holy Spirit to be changing us to be more like Him Amen
