Christmas Is Not Your Birthday - Chapter 3 - "Scandalous Love"

How many times have you ever heard someone preach on a passage from the prophecy of Hosea? Not often, I expect, because in any translation words like "prostitute" and "whore" seem to make people squirm in their seats too much to even begin to hear what the prophet is trying to say. I expect that the four or five times that reading from this Old Testament book rotate into place, there are more attractive readings from the New Testament which tend to make the cut instead.

It's a very scandalous story, and Hosea's message is hard on many levels. First of all, God directs Hosea to marry and make a family with a person who cannot be trusted. It is our natural inclination to think that God will protect us from the difficulties of life. But this story shows us that sometimes God sends us into the fire, able to make it though only by trusting that in the melee we will not be alone.  Second, when we relate the characters in the story to our own lives, we realize that Jesus is the faithful husband and we are the unfaithful, unloving wife.

That is not what we want to see when we look in the mirror.  We want to see the good in ourselves.  We want to think of ourselves as faithful.  We want to be the hero. But that's just not the way things are. The remarkable part of the Hosea story is that God is honest about the struggles, and yet always receives the wandering souls back into the fold. Again and again, Hosea represents the relentless pursuing love of God. God loves us when we are unworthy - when we turn back to greed, materialism and self-indulgence. We think that "stuff" will make our lives better. Even when we give, we want to impress God with our generosity.

But all God wants from us is love. God wants us to respond to his offer of scandalous love with some of our own, demonstrated by how we treat those in need. God wants us to be aware of the needs of the people around us, and the needs of people who live far away. And God wants us to care about those things and find a way to help, in whatever way we can.

This will require several things from us.  First - to accept the passionate and unconditional love that God has for you. Sometimes we are so hard on ourselves or others that it's hard to believe that God doesn't care about that stuff in the same way we do. I remember vividly the moment when I realized that I was going to have to take a new path.  At 26, I was doing great, but the world's standards, but I was not joyful... I wasn't even happy. And this little voice kept saying "seminary, seminary". I tried to ignore it... I even tried to run away. I was offered a position as a blood bank supervisor at a hospital in Florida, which I accepted. Then I cried for three days. And a wise friend intervened, asking the most important question: "What if this isn't what God is calling you to do?"

That question changed my life. And sent me on a totally different path - the first of many different paths. And in this new life, I began to understand how scandalous this love of God really is. And I am where I am in my life because I pushed aside the fear of the unknown and trusted that God would be with me, no matter what. I have certainly not "arrived", but I continue to get glimpses of the world that God envisions for me and you. And as I continue to push away the expectations of those around me, and listen to the call of God, amazing things - some big, some small - continue to unfold around me, and I am blessed to be a part of this miracle of scandalous love.

Hosea's story - and God's story - are ones centered on the practice of forgiveness. Maybe the first step of living out our call to scandalous love is to ask for and receive the forgiveness that God models for us.  With that step, our hearts will be freed of the hurts and burdens that divert us from God's path, and allows us to pour out the love he created us for. That's what Christmas is all about... that is the incarnation of Scandalous Love.

So ask yourselves these questions: What does it mean to love others "scandalously"? How is that different from the safe, cautious way we often show the love of Christ in the world?  And what does that look like in our lives? Where is God calling you to show scandalous love this Christmas? And what needs to change in you for that to happen?

Jesus came as a tiny baby in scandalous circumstances to redeem and restore broken places and broken hearts. That is the love we celebrate at Christmas, and it is that kind of love we are called to show in return (pp. 53-54).

Peace, Deb

Here's what others are talking about this Advent:

11 Ways to Be the Christ in Christmas
http://fatpastor.me/2013/11/15/11-ways-to-bechristinchristmas/

God, Santa & Gifts: talking to your preschoolers
http://sojo.net/blogs/2013/12/09/god-santa-gifts-and-story-preschoolers

And here's a helpful tool to help greet people during the holidays...