Narrative Lectionary Key Verse for Today
“If a man divorces his wife
and she goes from him
and becomes another man’s wife,
will he return to her?
Would not such a land be greatly polluted?
You have played the whore with many lovers;
and would you return to me? says the Lord.”
NL Daily Devotion for Monday, November 23, 2020
by Daniel D. Maurer, Clergy Stuff
I’ll be the first to admit that I believe today’s metaphor for Israel is nothing short of terrible. As a guy, yes, I’ll admit . . . I find the image above attractive and sexy. As a believer, the comparison of Israel’s wandering faith as a whoring sexpot is not only patriarchal as all get out, but it’s largely lost on today’s world.
But, there is lots of stuff in the Bible that might have made sense back then, but much less so today. That’s the nature of the canon of scripture—it’s frozen in time, and some metaphors are never to be gained again.
Maybe you disagree with me. Maybe the idea of God as our spouse and our idolatry as sexual wandering kinda makes sense. To each their own.
One thing is for sure, to return from such wandering, we, as the “spouse”, have to accept our shame and place ourselves once again in an unequal relationship. Maybe this makes sense, on one level. God is, after all, God. We’re not God.
But there are plenty of other metaphors of God’s relationship in the Bible (even negative ones), that don’t take such patriarchy to heart. Take John, for example: we’re called “friends.”
What’s your view? Is it possible to still grow in faith with such outmoded forms?
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