August 30, 2009 - Proper 17, Year B (RCL)
This week
our Old Testament readings
turn in a new direction.
For the last couple of months
we’ve been following the story
of King David and his son Solomon.
Now we move into the broader category of what we call
wisdom literature.
It includes poetry, proverbs,
and kind of more general philosophizing.
Some of it seems like common sense;
other parts are clearly inspired by God.
A lot of it has Solomon’s name on it, Solomon, the king who was given the gift of wisdom by God.
He didn’t actually write it down;
that happened long after his time;
but sayings associated with him were passed down
from generation to generation
like the stories that come down in families,
words of wisdom
from our great great grandparents.
And today is our first taste,
as we read part of the book, the song of Solomon
or Song of Songs as it’s often known.
And this is the only time in our whole three year cycle of Sunday readings
that we get to hear any of this particular book in our Sunday services.
The Song of Songs is one of those bits of the bible
that most people wish weren’t there.
In fact, it was one of the last books to be included in what we know today
as the Bible,
and tradition held in ancient Judaism
that one could not read it until one reached the age of 30.
It was just too difficult.
So, you might ask, what was the problem?
Well, it’s not because it says something offensive,
and it’s not even because it’s too demanding.
As far as I can tell, the main reason
is because its about one of those things
we don’t really like to talk about in church,
love.
That might surprise you. After all, love seems to be a word that Christians throw about a whole lot.
“Love one another as I have loved you,” Jesus said. “They’ll know we are Christians by our love,” the chorus goes.
We’re kind of good about talking about love, if by that you mean
some sort of spiritual and emotional commitment to God;
we’re even reasonably good about talking about it
when we mean a kind of nebulous good will
towards other people;
but we’re not very good
about talking about traditional human sexual love,
the love that we celebrate
in marriage.
That
kind of love
you hear a whole lot less about in church
than pretty much anywhere else.
After all, if you’re in Chicago in November
you can go to a consumer trade show event “crafted
specifically to provide a positive and fun environment to showcase love.”
Or this Fall, you’ll be able to choose between “Till Death” on FOX and “How I met your Mother” on CBS - or watch both of them,
or any number of cable reruns of dating shows.
Or turn on your car radio and be serenaded by the 1964 top 100, including the Beatles with “She Loves You”
Ray Charles and “Love me with all your heart”
and the Supremes, with “Baby Love.”
There’s plenty of talk about love outside these doors,
but here
in the church,
it’s something we tend to neglect
except on wedding days,
and even then we like to confine it to some sensible principles at the beginning of the service
and a reading, most often,
from 1 Corinthians 13. Love is gentle, love is kind, and so on.
But there’s a whole lot more about love in the Bible,
love that is passionate, faithful and self-giving,
and part of the picture comes
from the Song of Songs.
It’s a book of poetry, at its heart,
a book of poetry not about God and our relationship, like the Psalms,
but a book of poetry
about love.
The kind of thing
we might expect to hear from Juliet on her balcony,
calling to her Romeo
or might be tempted to remove from our pre-teen children
if we caught them reading it
under the bedcovers.
But don’t worry about your children’s tender ears, not here, at least. I’m not going to give a detailed verse by verse discussion of the details from the pulpit, just an introduction. You can go home and read it
for yourself. And in fact, for the most part, it’s a whole lot less explicit
than your average children’s movie...
What it is
is a beautiful celebration of the wonder of human love.
The picture is one
of two people whose whole world looks different
through the eyes of love. Not because they are blind to reality,
but because their eyes are opened
to the reality around them, the scent of spring blossoms, the lushness of spring growth, the joyfulness of a bird’s song. It is as if the whole world has joined them in celebration.
It’s a celebration of the goodness of God in all creation, in human bodies, in the joy of love.
This love is not to be wasted, not to be abused. It’s not to be played with, or thrown aside, not to be demeaned
not to be cheapened.
Instead, it is to be celebrated, and it is to be honored.
We’re not always very good at this. In the church, or anywhere else. In fact, the message of this book was so uncomfortable
that it was re-read
as an expression of the love between humans and God. And that’s an incredibly powerful reading. It suggests that we as humans
can have a rich and joyful relationship with God, one as good as the best of human love.
But if that’s the only way we read this, then we’re missing out on the most obvious way to read the Song of Songs, as a celebration of human love.
And what it’s place in our scripture says, is that this love
is God given,
this love is precious,
this love is to be celebrated —
and that that is part of what it is to be humans
living life
as the people of God.
That following God
is not, as some would have it,
about putting aside worldly love,
but about infusing, filling that love
with the love of God, so that it becomes richer, stronger, fuller.
We could do worse
than to make reading this bit of the bible
part of the requirements for marriage preparation,
part of the way we celebrate our anniversaries,
part of the way we teach our children about healthy relationships.
And even for those of us who are single,
we can read it and pray it
for our friends.
That’s what it is
to be the body of Christ,
caring for
and supporting
one another.
And you know, there is a sense in which
this is all connected with our New Testament reading today.
“Be doers of the word,” says James, “and not just hearers.”
It’s relatively easy to come here on Sundays and listen to the readings and sermon, and then go home and forget about it all until the next week. We hear, but we don’t always act on what we hear.
James wants us, God wants us, the writer of the Song of Songs wants us
to have a faith that doesn’t just appear on Sundays,
but that carries us through the rest of the week,
a faith that affects our schedule not only from 8 to 9 or 9.30 to 10.30 this morning,
but 24/7.
It’s about living the faith
that we believe,
about moving beyond out heads and hearts
into our hands and lives.
Sometimes
making the connection between hearing and doing
is relatively straightforward.
Sometime there is a direct command in scripture, and its easy enough to obey. Sometimes.
But more often
it’s a little more complex. Trying to work out
what it means to be a servant,
trying to figure out how to be quick to listen, slow to speak, how to be slow to anger,
how, all in all
to follow Jesus
in our lives Monday through Friday and not just Sunday morning.
But the gift of Song of Songs
is the reminder
that God is present in every part of our lives,
that it’s not so much about obeying commands,
as about living life tuned in
to God,
turning,
and recognizing what has always been true,
that God is at work in us and through us,
and is continually transforming us.
It’s about opening our whole selves to God,
and letting God fill us and shape us,
in our speech and actions
and even
in our loving.
© Raewynne J. Whiteley 2009