(Please read this Scripture passage first, before the homily.)
In ancient times men more or less owned their wives. They paid a dowry, which was for all practical purposes, if not in reality, a purchase price for the bride. The men had great control over the lives of their wives. It was a sign of poor manhood for a man not to be able to control his household.
Today’s reading from Hosea is about marriage and the roles of husband and wife. Here it is the Lord who assumes the male role of husband. It is the people, women and men included who have the female role of wife. God allures us out into a desert. God reminds us of how long ago he brought us up from the land of Egypt into baptism, how throughout our lives God has saved each of us, sometimes in spectacular ways, other times in ways more common. God wants us to remember those occasions and to return with us to those days of joy and tranquility.
When we do this, we, the people of God, whether male or female, will no longer look upon God as Boss, but as Ardent Lover.
In the Scriptures, the Church is a feminine noun: men must give up manhood and become with the women a feminine Church. Our strength lives in this being other, not being in control. Just as in communion at Mass, we have to become they, “those who are called to supper of the Lamb”, so in Hosea, men and women must become wife of God because God wants to have charge of all our lives.
God wants a loving relationship with each of us. God wants to relate to us parent to child, as spouse to spouse, as fear friend to dear friend. God does not want to relate to us as a bossy husband. God promises to marry us forever in righteousness, in justice and in faithfulness.