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The
Thirteenth Sunday After Pentecost
Proper 17
Sunday,
30 August 2009
The Rev’d Lloyd Prator
New York City
Song of Solomon 2:8-13
James 1:17-27
Mark 7:1-8, 14 – 15, 21 – 23
The church has changed its lectionary recently, introducing
a system of readings, which we share in common with several
other Christian churches. For the most part, this new lectionary,
or system of readings, makes changes in the Old Testament
cycle of readings. The new lectionary introduces us to several
books, which we have not often heard in the Church. This morning,
we read from one of them, the book called the Song of Solomon,
also Song of Songs.
The Song of Solomon is, frankly, a collection of love songs
or love poems. It is attributed to Solomon largely because
of the way the first verse introduces the book—calling
it Solomon’s Song, a few other internal references,
and a claim made in First Kings. And, if that was the case,
it was written sometime between 967 BC and about 920 BC. As
to where it was written, or a precise date, those facts are
cloaked in uncertainty.
Throughout the chapters, all eight of them, a delicate mood
of love and devotion are outlined. There are lines from a
woman, and from a man, and they delight in each other. Their
poems reflect desire, admiration and even boasting. Each delights
in describing quite vividly the physical charms of the other.
In our church, this particular reading has come to be used
frequently in marriage ceremonies, however it is useful to
note that the idea of marriage only occurs once, and it might
be equally as well taken to be a paean to the glory of the
love and passion in a more general way. It is likely that
these songs or poems were originally oral compositions and
came to be used in weddings only as a later application.
This is a very, very interesting reading largely because of
the way in which it augments our thinking about God, and the
nature of God’s relationship to us. We often speak of
God as the creator, the one who makes covenant with us and
renews that covenant whenever we return to him. We speak of
God as the one who entered the human scene and fixed things
when we had distorted them and made them go horribly wrong.
We sometimes speak of God as the indwelling spirit, which
moves inside our souls, imparts wisdom to us, and strengthens
us for life in God.
And these are good things. Each of them, and the sum total
of them, speaks of the Trinitarian God whom we know as father,
son and Holy Spirit. And each of these images is accurate
and important.
But one great gift of reading different books of the Bible
is that we sometimes get different picture of God, or different
images of the process of God’s redeeming us. It is not
that we get a picture of a new God, but that we see more images
and dimensions of the same God we know in other parts of tradition.
And the picture of God we get in the Song of Solomon is that
of God the passionate lover. After all, as the reading puts
it, he comes leaping over the mountains like a gazelle or
young stag, so eager to get to his beloved that he leaps in
boundless energy. And, to get a candid, unposed view of the
beloved, the lover peers at her through the lattice and peeks
through windows, to get a candid view of his lover. And his
love is so powerful that it is mirrored in creation, with
the end of winter and the onset of spring and the renewal
of flowers and doves. And the lover’s thought is, finally,
arise, my love and come away with me.
God ‘s love is a powerful love. For Christians, that
power is shown on Good Friday and Easter when God overcame
death. But that power has been going on during the whole scope
of salvation history, from the moment of creation, to the
call of Abraham and the birth of Isaac, to the escape of Israel
at the Red Sea, to the return from exile and finally in the
life and ministry of Jesus.
God’s love is a love that delights in little things
about us, as might a lover who beheld us peering through a
lattice covered with wisteria. The little wonderful things
about us, our abilities to write and to think, the lovely
graceful things about our bodies and our faces, the inner
beauties of soul which allow us to do acts of grace and charity—all
these things are things at which God delights.
If you have followed this line of reasoning and engaged this
somewhat different fix on the nature of God, you may wonder
if I have taken romantic leave of my senses and taken up citizenship
in a world unlike ours where nothing ever goes wrong. A rosy
view of the world goes a little like this bit of doggerel
by Dorothy Parker, the great New York humorist: “Life
is a season of unending joy / a medley of extemporanea / Love
is a song that can never go wrong / And I am the Queen of
Romania”.
There is a power associated with this loving God, and it is
a power that the writer says is analogous to the power of
the renewal of the earth in the spring. You may live in a
world where love seems distant, hope seems faded, and your
faith seems dry and brittle. Not everything can ultimately
be fixed. We live in a fallen world where the limits of creation
and the power of sin still hold seemingly inexorable sway.
Israel knew this; Solomon knew this too. But to the uncertainty
of the life around us, the Christian faith offers the hope
of love. Love just like the most powerful we have ever felt,
and love which is so powerful that at the end of the day,
it can overcome even death.
Today when you receive the body of Christ in your hand and
sip from the chalice of his life giving blood, recall that
you are receiving within you the power of love, love which
is like the best of earthly love, but more powerful and more
complete. Rejoice in that, and bless the Lord,: Father, Son,
and Holy Spirit.
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