God the Mother?

By Matt

I read: Hosea 11-13

I hate to say it, but God comes across as kind of bipolar. The last few chapters of Hosea have been God railing against the people of Israel and Judah, just absolutely pissed off. Then you get to chapter 11 and it's an incredible about-face:

How can I leave you to be ruined like Admah,
devastated like luckless Zeboim?
I can't bear to even think such thoughts.
My insides churn in protest.
And so I'm not going to act on my anger.
I'm not going to destroy Ephraim.
And why? Because I am God and not a human.
I'm The Holy One and I'm here--in your very midst. (11:7-9)

Wow, like I said, quite a change of tune right there. But that's not the most amazing thing about this chapter even! I began reading Hosea because I was fascinated with the idea of God the lover as being an analogy for our relationship with God, but right here, smack in the middle, I ran across the other big analogy: God the parent.

How many people hesitated there when I said "God the parent" instead of "God the father"? God the father is what we're used to hearing and we see it played out in many different ways throughout the Bible (the father of the prodigal son, for example). But, what struck me about this chapter, is that the imagery that surrounds God is not that of a father (well, it could be I suppose), but of God the mother. Observe: "Then I lifted him, like a baby, to my cheek, that I bent down to feed to feed him." Doesn't that sound fairly motherly?

I find this interesting because so many of the images we have of God are masculine. However, I think it's safe to say that God isn't tied down to one gender and it's apparent that he has traits common to both genders, these verses being a good indication of that. In fact, I'd say we get a fuller picture of God when we can imagine him both as mother and father. But none of this is the point: God loves us with an unconditional love to which our own relationships with our parents can't even hold a candle. It's a fierce, protective love that he has for us, no matter how we've wronged him. When he sees us, he doesn't see a sinner but rather the child that he brought into the world for whom he cares very much. You want to talk about good parenting? All of us have it from the very best.