Falling in Love

Scripture.  Song of Solomon 2:8-13   (NRSV)

8 The voice of my beloved!
    Look, he comes,
leaping upon the mountains,
    bounding over the hills.

9 My beloved is like a gazelle
    or a young stag.
Look, there he stands
    behind our wall,
gazing in at the windows,
    looking through the lattice.

10 My beloved speaks and says to me:
“Arise, my love, my fair one,
    and come away;

11 for now the winter is past,
    the rain is over and gone.

12 The flowers appear on the earth;
    the time of singing has come,
and the voice of the turtledove
    is heard in our land.

13 The fig tree puts forth its figs,
    and the vines are in blossom;
    they give forth fragrance.
Arise, my love, my fair one,
    and come away.

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Message:   Falling in Love

When I saw that the Song of Solomon was one of the readings for today, I really couldn’t help myself. I mean, when is the last time you heard a sermon on the Song of Solomon?  It is a rather explicit love song, after all. I thought it would be fun, and an opportunity to stretch our thinking.   It is always a bit tricky to select the scripture reading a month or so ahead of time.  You never know what will happen in between that time and the time the message is actually written.  Because, you know, I really thought that by July we would surely be back in the sanctuary for worship.  Smaller worship, shorter, with no singing and fewer people and masks. But  . . .

Here we are, still worshipping online.  I was listening to an interview with a musician whose band had just finished a gig that was live-streamed to the audience, and they talked about how difficult it was to perform in an empty room. They are used to feeding off the audience, getting energy from the response . . . . I can relate.  And I am sure the Quarantine Qrew can also - like me, they are performing all by themselves in their homes, and Jordan puts it all together in 4 part harmony and everything.  I gotta say, they are an amazingly talented group of people, and a blessing to work with.

Anyway, when I selected this passage and the music to go with it I was thinking I’d be preaching on doing this new thing - that the winter of our quarantine was ending and a new reality, a fresh beginning, was springing up in its place.  As it became painfully clear that my thinking was definitely wrong, I needed to look at this passage in a different way.  

So I read commentaries on the Song of Solomon, and one of them stated that this book is intended to point singles to patience, married couples to each other, and everyone to Christ.  Although I continued reading, I had to object to that writer’s third point.  This did not point to Christ, because it was written about 950 years before the birth of Christ.  Solomon was not pointing ahead to a future Messiah, but speaking to his present reality.   

It made me think of Timmy.  Timmy was an adorable young boy in the first (and only) Vacation Bible School class I taught.  I was quite surprised to realize that the children and I had very different ideas about what VBS meant.  I thought it was Bible School.  They thought it was Vacation.   We were studying Genesis, and every time I asked about a new character we had read about, like Adam or Abraham - Timmy would always identify the new character as Jesus.  And I’d say something like, No, Timmy, Jesus wasn’t born yet.  This went on all week.  It’s not uncommon for Christians to look back at stories in the Hebrew Bible and say “This is about Jesus,” reading the Hebrew Bible through the lens of the New Testament, instead of the other way around - the way it was actually written.  Without the Old Testament, much of the New would have been completely incomprehensible to the people for whom it was written - Jewish Christ followers in the first Century after the birth of Jesus.  Yet, I know Christians who think we don’t need to know anything about the Old Testament, the Hebrew Bible, because the New Testament superseded it.  That is not correct.  If we are to understand Jesus, we really do need to study the Hebrew Bible.

To be more nearly accurate, this love song, this rather explicit and sensual song about a couple pretty much besotted with each other, one of whom is clearly a king, would have pointed the reader to God, whose relationship with Israel was often described as a marriage.   Solomon, with his 700 wives and 300 concubines, knew something about the relationship between two people in love.  As king of Israel, and the son of David whom God dearly loved, he also knew something about the relationship between God and God’s people.  He was perfectly situated to write this love song - maybe for the Queen of Sheba, as some commentators think, but certainly for God - with God as the king, the bridegroom and Israel, the bride.

The idea of being in love with God as one might be in love with a spouse, is kind of foreign to our way of thinking.  For us, Protestants in America, any openly sexual conversation is sort of frowned upon in public, and certainly in church.  That would be one of the reasons The Song of Solomon is so rarely preached. It is, if not explicitly sexual, then certainly extremely sensual.   It’s hard to deal with that imagery while keeping the sanctuary “pure.”  We giggle and fidget uncomfortably.   But consider - how might our lives change if we looked at our relationship with God as if we were lovers,  two people desperately in love with each other?  

We are taught to look at God as Father, Lord, Creator, Judge, King - but not as lover.  We think of ourselves as God’s children, servants, subjects, slaves even.  We talk about loving God, and being obedient to God, and being in awe or fearful of God.  We even talk about owing God certain behavior out of gratitude for all the gifts we are blessed with, for all the grace that falls upon us.  But we rarely speak about being in love with God.   What would it be like, I wonder, if we were in love with God?

When we are in love with someone, we want to please them.  We buy them gifts.  We prepare their favorite meals, and bring them chocolate on the tough days.  We do all the little things that make their eyes sparkle.  Not because they expect it of us, not because it is their birthday or our anniversary, or because we owe them somehow.  But because it’s Tuesday.  Because it makes us happy to make them happy. We think about them all the time, so much so that we sort of lose track of whatever it was we were supposed to be doing.   We are so distracted by our love that our friends will tease us.  If you have been in love, you know what that is like.  If you have not yet been in love, you have great joy to look forward to.    And sorrow, because when they hurt, we hurt with them.  We hate to see them unhappy or suffering for any reason.  We would do anything to save them pain, and to make them feel better.  We want to be with them every minute - even if we are introverts and need our alone time.  As long as we know they are right there if we reach out, we’re good.  When we are in love, we talk about being soul mates and two halves of a whole.  We want to create things together - a new life, a home, a family.  When we are in love, we cannot imagine ever separating ourselves from our beloved.  

And it goes both ways . . .all of that, goes both ways.

What if this described our relationship with God?  

And God’s relationship with us? 
What if we were in love, desperately, passionately, in love, with God? 
How would our lives, our behavior, our attitude toward God and life, change?

God does love us that way.  And waits, for the winter rains to bring new life into our hearts, and new love into our lives.  And then, when we are ready to love God as God loves us,

    Look, he comes,
leaping upon the mountains,
    bounding over the hills.

My beloved speaks and says to me:
“Arise, my love, my fair one,
    and come away;

Arise and awake, and come away, with your God, your beloved, 

who loves you, madly, desperately, passionately.  

Always has, and always will.