Sadder But Wiser

Sadder But Wiser--September 26, 2016

"The Lord said to me again, 'Go, love a woman who has a lover and is an adultress, just as the Lord loves the people of Israel, though they turn to other gods and love raisin cakes....'" [Hosea 3:1]

There is no doubt about it--it takes great courage to risk restarting. We risk our already-tender hearts, which may still bear the scars from past breaks.  God knows.

There is a song, early on in the classic Rodgers and Hammerstein show, The Music Man, where the male lead, "Professor" Harold Hill sings that he doesn't want to get caught up with any romantic entanglements with a girl who has never had her heart broken before. Rather, he sings that it's "the sadder-but-wiser girl for me. No bright-eyed, blushing, breathless baby-doll baby. Not for me.  That kinda child ties knots no sailor ever knew...the sadder-but-wiser girl's the girl for me."

You could take that as either cynicism or defensiveness, or maybe both at the same time.  Hill is a con man who makes his living blowing in to town one day and then blowing out of town the next, and he knows he is going to break more hearts along the way.  Maybe he is still reeling from his own wounds from past relationships that ended, and he has just learned to avoid commitment in order to avoid the complications that come with it.  You can't get tangled up in all the messiness of matrimony if you keep things casual and expectations low from the start, right?  Don't make any commitments and don't let yourself get reeled in to any actual on-paper promises, and then you are free to bail out when it's time to bilk the next town full of dupes.

That kind of honesty from a character is, I guess, both refreshing and horrible.  On the one hand, at least he's honest in recognizing that he has no intention of ever really loving somebody else, just having a good time until it gets hard or stops being fun, and then he is free to bail out because he tells himself he never made any official promises to stay.  Call that honest, if you like.  But of course at the same time, that's pretty awful--just sort of looking for a way to rationalize and justify using people without being vulnerable.  The whole mindset arises out of its own selfish logic that just because he's had to break things off before, he should never make big promises again so he doesn't have to deal with the inevitable hassle when the next fling ends.

Or maybe to boil it down to its essentials, it comes down to the question, "Why should I put everything at risk by making the big promises again if I've been hurt before and don't like the idea of getting hurt again?"  Harold Hill's solution to that problem is simply that he just won't ever make the big promises again--he'll look for flings without strings and relationships without requirements, and he'll never get caught putting his commitments in writing so he can't ever get snagged in a breach of contract. (This is the hallmark of the snake-oil salesman, by the way, so as a general rule, be wary of anybody who only talks in big, splashy generic talk of how "great" they can make things for you, but who will never be held down to any particular commitments.  These people are con artists, aka slimeballs.)  Hence, his wish for the "sadder-but-wiser girl," the romance who won't ask him to make big promises anymore because she has been hurt too many times before, too.

Well, we've taken this stroll through the early scenes of a Broadway musical here because the same dynamic is raised between God and God's people in the story of Hosea.  God calls the prophet Hosea to live out a sort of walking, talking object lesson in his own marriage to a woman who has cheated on him and ended up stuck in prostitution.  Hosea has seen his marriage fall apart and is watching his three children grow up wondering where mommy is.  And surely, there was some part of Hosea that was not interested in making the heartbreak worse by taking her back and remaking his vows to her all over again, running the risk that she would cheat again and he would be hurt worse than before.  Hosea has had his heart broken before, and common sense (and sheer self-preservation!) would tell him not to go back into any situation where he could get it trampled on again. He is on the verge of becoming the sadder-but-wiser prophet, afraid of making any big promises or vows again because he has had someone else treat those promises as flimsy and unimportant before.  I get it--you can certainly understand why he would be hesitant to sign up for the chance of more heartbreak again.

Why not just a future of no-strings, no-commitments, no-hassle, and no-vows arrangements?  Sort of a no-contract, pay-as-you-go deal like you might have for a cell phone, but with people?

Because, Hosea decides in the end, that's not how God's love works.  And Hosea sees that his own love is meant to be a reflection of God's love--that is to say, vulnerable. 

That is surely the most radical, surprising thing about God's love: it is vulnerable.  When God starts over with us--as God keeps doing, rather than putting up walls to avoid being disappointed again--God runs the risk that we will break God's heart all over again.  And yet, God risks it anyway.  And so God has chosen, it would seem, not to hold anything back or minimize the risks.  God says from the outset, "I will keep making the promise.  I will keep running the risk.  I will be vulnerable."  Common sense would tell any conventional deity to keep some leverage: "Don't promise to love your people unconditionally!  They might turn away and worship their money, or their armies, or the next Professor-Hill-type who blows through town promising to make Israel great!  Don't risk loving them that way, God--you'll get your heart broken for sure!"

And that's just it: God knows it will mean heart break.  God knows it would be less painful from the divine side of the relationship to keep us at arms' length, or to make a new start conditional on our showing some improvement first.  It is always a risk to put your heart out there with a promise, because there is always the fear that the promise could be broken or disregarded.... and yet that is exactly how God's love works.  God doesn't keep cards close to the vest that way, or say, "Let's just do this on a trial basis, and see if it works..." and God doesn't say, "How about I love you, but we won't get entangled with obligations or commitments or vows because it might hurt..."  Instead, God's love gets played out in the living object lesson of Hosea reconciling with his wife as a way of showing us a love that is vulnerable enough to really start over.

Today, for us, the vision is that kind of love--love that vulnerable enough to really start over, love that is willing to put itself out there, love that will not treat people as pay-as-you-go cell-phone customers, but love that is still willing to deal in promises, with all the complications that come with promises.  Today, the vision is not the cynical wish for "sadder-but-wiser" people who have already been disappointed enough by life never to expect real love anymore, but the hopeful vision of a God who is willing to risk us breaking the divine heart and still to love us anyway.

That's what it means to say that grace starts over with us--God is willing to start over with us in the strongest terms possible and to promise that the new beginning is real, and that the love is unconditional.  How can we be people who live like that kind of love is real? Who will you tell today?

Lord God, love us in all your reckless vulnerability, and we will share that love with everyone we meet.