A Houston man earned a succinct lesson in gun safety when he played Russian roulette with a .45-caliber semiautomatic pistol.

Rashaad, age nineteen, was visiting friends when he announced his intention to play the deadly game. He apparently did not realize that a semiautomatic pistol, unlike a revolver, automatically inserts a cartridge into the firing chamber when the gun is cocked. His chance of winning a round of Russian roulette was zero, as he quickly discovered.

At the same time, something strange is happening to executioners manning the gallows in Malaysia. Three people in the last two years have accidentally hanged themselves while clowning around. The most recent mishap occurred when the executioner prepared for an upcoming sentence and slipped the noose around his neck. Apparently he wanted pictures taken of himself standing on the gallows when the trap door gave way, breaking his neck instantly. (Official Darwin Awards Website, www.darwinawards.com, January 29, 2001)

Believe it or not, these are award-winning acts. Not winners of Oscars or Emmys or Golden Globes or Purple Hearts or Medals of Honor, but instead -- "Darwin Awards." Named in honor of Charles Darwin, the father of evolution, Darwin Awards commemorate those people who improve our gene pool by removing themselves from it.

This is horrible humor, isn't it? It's "gallows humor," quite literally. So please don't call the church on Monday morning with a complaint. It's clear to every one of us that ANY loss of life is awful -- a terrible tragedy.

But you've got to admit it: These extinctions are oddly amusing.

The Darwin Awards commemorate individuals who eliminate themselves in an extraordinarily idiotic manner. When people do this, they improve our species' chance of long-term survival. In other words, Darwin Awards are cautionary tales about people who kill themselves in really stupid ways, and in doing so, significantly improve our common gene pool.

Some other examples:

In September 1996, a man was crushed to death on a stairway at the Sammis Real Estate and Insurance office in Huntington, New York, while he was stealing the office's 600- pound safe. He apparently violated that cardinal rule of hauling massive objects: Never stand on a step lower than the one the safe is on.

Adding insult to injury: The safe was empty at the time of the incident.

And from the world of the Bible: "Prophet marries prostitute." This would appear to qualify as Darwin Award material. We know that anyone wanting to retain a place in the gene pool is going to marry someone who will give him children, but Hosea goes another direction. Obedient to God's call to take "a wife of whoredom" (1:2), he marries the prostitute Gomer, and she bears three children -- none of them fathered by Hosea (2:4-5).

The names of these kids are descriptive, and depressing: Jezreel, Lo-ruhamah, and Lo- ammi. The last two, in particular, are not going to bring a smile to any parent's face. It's no surprise that David and Sallie McLain did not consider ANY of these when Lacy was born. Lo-ruhaman means "Not pitied," and is a reminder that the Lord no longer has pity on the house of Israel because of its sin. And Lo-ammi means "Not my people," a stark sign of the breaking of the covenant relationship between the Lord and Israel (1:4-9).

So what's up with this outwardly self-destructive behavior? It turns out that the prophet's personal life is an illustration of God's redeeming love -- Hosea deals with the prostitute Gomer just as the Lord deals with unfaithful Israel. Although Gomer abandons Hosea and goes after her lovers, Hosea publicly brings her back and takes her again to himself.

This sanctified soap opera is an illustration of the unfaithfulness of Israel and the faithfulness of God. The prophet predicts that Israel will suffer public shame like a harlot, because it has committed adultery with the gods of Canaan. But God will lure Israel back and renew his relationship with her, taking Israel as his wife "in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love, and in mercy" (2:19).

This isn't Darwinian -- it's divine.

We can be thankful that the prophet Hosea did not behave like a recent Darwin Award winner from Buenos Aires. During a heated marital dispute, a 25-year-old man in a working-class neighborhood picked up his 20-year-old wife and threw her off their eighth- floor apartment balcony.

To his dismay, she became tangled in the power lines below. He immediately leapt from the balcony and fell towards his wife. We can only speculate as to his reasons. Was he angrily trying to finish the job, or was he remorsefully hoping to rescue her? He did not accomplish either goal. He missed the power lines completely, and plunged to his death.

Fortunately, the woman managed to swing over to a nearby balcony and was saved.

Hosea was not like this incensed and insane 25-year-old Darwinian. He did not try to annihilate his wife when she abandoned him. Instead, he reached out to her and received her back. This is a clear and convincing illustration of God's unconditional love, revealing that God ALWAYS loves the people of Israel, even when they turn to other gods (3:1). In the end, Hosea predicts that the Israelites will again be given the gracious and glorious name "Children of the living God" (1:10).

Rejection is never the last act of the divine drama. It's always reconciliation.

So, what are the stupid things we do to put distance between ourselves and God? Since the beginning of time -- since well before Gomer chased after her lovers -- we have unfaithfully worshipped other gods.

Remember that it didn't take long for the Israelites at the base of Mount Sinai to turn away from the way of God. When Moses delayed coming down from the mountain with the two tablets of the covenant, the people gathered around Aaron and said to him, "Come, make gods for us." So Aaron gathered their gold rings and cast them in the image of a calf, and together they worshipped it and sacrificed to it and said, "These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!" (Exodus 32:1-8).

Don't we do the very same thing when we worship wealth, and make an idol of material prosperity? It is so tempting to put our faith in something we can see, like a paycheck, or something we can hold in our hands, like a brokerage statement. But as the recent economic instability has revealed so clearly, these are golden calves that cannot deliver us out of captivity or bring us to the Promised Land.

God alone deserves our worship, because God alone has power to provide for us. God alone deserves our trust, because God alone always loves us and always takes us back, even when we have wandered and lost our way. The great wonder of baptism, which we witnessed again this morning with Lacy Bishop McLain, is that it is a visible sign of God's complete acceptance of us. It is a reminder that God is always with us, and that there is nothing in all creation that can separate us from God's love.

As Ed held Lacy in his arms, he called her "child of the covenant, child of God." Lacy is now a Child of the Living God, in a covenant relationship that will last forever. We can be thankful that wherever her life takes her, she will not be able to stray from the generosity, the love, the forgiveness, and the acceptance of Almighty God. As Hosea reminds us in today's Scripture passage, "in the place where it was said to them, 'You are not my people,' it shall be said to them, 'Children of the living God'" (1:10).

By focusing on our Divine Lord, we stand the best chance of avoiding a Darwin Award. By studying and following God's way, we lower the risk of eliminating ourselves in an extraordinarily idiotic manner. By seeing ourselves as Children of the Living God, we take a position that has an incredible benefits package -- in this life and the next.

God is always faithful to us, and is always working for reconciliation. The Lord wants us to live for him and with him, eternally. Not to suffer an oddly amusing extinction.

Let us now take a moment of Sabbath Silence, to allow God's word to take root in our hearts. Amen.