Allegory of Unfaithful Jerusalem

When gays sift through Scripture hunting with no avail for support for their sexual practices and marriage to each other, the big one that is skipped over is male/female and husband/wife imagery for spiritual truths that is everywhere, from the story of Creation to the final judgement. In the Old Testament a major theme is God's relationship with Israel, as husband and wife, and in the New it is Christ the loving bridegroom and the believing Church the bride.

This morning I was looking up a reference that Martin Luther had made to a passage in Ezekiel about caring for your neighbor in times of the plague (he's writing in the early 1500s when this was a big concern), and read the entire Ezekiel 16. I'm sure in conservative churches, Americans hear this passage often as an allegory of what has happened to the United States and her abandoning Christian roots, but it wouldn't happen from the pulpits and classrooms of UALC where I'm a member. Given that this is the day before we elect new leaders, throw the bums out, pass or toss bond issues, say yes or no on various issues from water rights to street lights, it's an amazing read. Take it to the polls instead of that guide your party has printed up so slick and pretty.

I'm not going to reprint the entire chapter because it is easily available on the internet. I use almost exclusively the NIV, although for "English as it was never spoken," I use NASB, because it is so literal with little attention to the beauty of our language. Regardless of the translation/paraphrase you use, the message is the same.

God's spokesman, "Son of man," begins in verse 1 with a description of a female baby of mixed ethnicity being thrown away; then God finds her in the trash still with the umbilical cord uncut, cleans her up, and says, LIVE. He then provides her with the finest of everything. She grows up and becomes beautiful. They make a covenant (marriage). But then she uses her beauty, fame, wealth, everything God gave her, and even the abundant food, to go a whoring--making sacrifices to foreign idols. This ungrateful wife even sacrifices her own children to idols, and forgets her youth when she was naked, bare and kicking about in her own blood when rescued by God. Here's the passage, however, that really struck home for me as an allegory of our country at this time.

Ez 16:32-35 " You adulterous wife! You prefer strangers to your own husband! 33 Every prostitute receives a fee, but you give gifts to all your lovers, bribing them to come to you from everywhere for your illicit favors. 34 So in your prostitution you are the opposite of others; no one runs after you for your favors. You are the very opposite, for you give payment and none is given to you."