The Oldest Profession in a Time of Crisis

Psalm 101, 109:1-4 (5-19) 20-30 • Psalm 119:121-144
Hosea 4:11-19 • Acts 21:15-26 • Luke 5:27-39

“One of the hidden assumptions that contemporary people have about the Bible is that every text is meant to be uplifting, edifying, or admired,” writes Corrine L Carvall in her essay “The Challenge of Violence and Gender under Colonization.” Hosea is a doozy of a prophet. His prophetic action was not to preach naked for years like Isaiah or cook his food over fuel made from human poop like Ezekiel, but to marry a prostitute and detail what it was like for him and for his people who were brought low by defeat and deportation by Assyrians.

It is easy to read this book as slut-shaming, but the surge of bodily and religious prostitution in Hosea points to deeper issues. Usually women turn to sex work for economic or security reasons. Carvall points out that the term “prostitute” gives a false sense of agency and choice to Israel’s situation. Hosea, for example, talks about how his wife Gomer’s lovers give her food and clothes with the implication that he could not afford to buy them himself. 

Prophecy like this give us much to think about on many levels. Hosea asks us to consider the shame, disgust, and poverty we feel when our lives take a turn for the worst. Hosea knows that a mixture of personal, societal, and uncontrollable outside forces can come crashing down upon us. He shows us what happens when we are vulnerable. He talks about Israel abusing substances and sexuality and asks, “can the Lord now feed them like a lamb in broad pasture?” (Spoiler alert: Yes. At the end of the book, God promises to “heal their waywardness and love them freely.”) 

Written by Haley Hixson

There is a little joke in Education for Ministry about the difficult collection of essays that our Year One folks read every year. My main source today was from that famous collection, The Hebrew Bible: Feminist and Intersectional Perspectives, edited by Gale Yee.