God Our Lover” Wayne Mclaughlin September 2, 2018 Song of Songs 1 (Selected Verses); 2.8-13
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“God Our Lover” Wayne McLaughlin September 2, 2018 Song of Songs 1 (selected verses); 2.8-13 First Reading Song of Songs 1 – selected verses (Contemporary English Version) She Speaks: Kiss me tenderly! Your love is better than wine, and you smell so sweet. All the young women adore you; the very mention of your name is like spreading perfume. My darling, I love you! My king, while you were on your couch, my love was a magic charm. My darling, you are perfume between my breasts; you are flower blossoms from the gardens of an oasis. He Speaks: My darling, you are lovely, so very lovely— your eyes are those of a dove. 1 Second Reading: Song of Songs 2.8-13 (Contemporary English Version) She Speaks: I hear the voice of the one I love, as he comes leaping over mountains and hills like a deer or a gazelle. Now he stands outside our wall, looking through the window and speaking to me. He Speaks: My darling, I love you! Let’s go away together. Winter is past, the rain has stopped; flowers cover the earth, it’s time to sing. The cooing of doves is heard in our land. Fig trees are bearing fruit, while blossoms on grapevines fill the air with perfume. My darling, I love you! Let’s go away together. SERMON TEXT: A Fragrant Book The Song of Songs is eight chapters of erotic poetry. It’s about a man and a woman who are lovers. They describe each other’s body, using Middle Eastern imagery that doesn’t sound all that erotic to our Western ears. The book is filled with aromas, fragrances, aphrodisiacs. 2 Saint Bernard gave eighty-six sermons from the Song of Songs—totaling around one thousand pages. He preached straight through, verse by verse, but only got to the third verse of chapter three. (There are eight chapters.) How in the world did this fragrant little book get into the Bible? Well, the rabbis who came to a consensus on which writings should be officially accepted as Scripture felt that poems about love could function on two levels. One as a celebration of human love; and two, as a story of the romance between Israel and her Covenant Partner, God Almighty. Later, the Church would read the Song of Songs as the Romance between Christ and his Bride, the Church. The Bible uses various human analogies to speak of God. God is presented as a King, as Lord, as Shepherd, as Mother, as Friend, as Rock, as Midwife, as Light, as Fire, etc. But I would submit that the central analogy for God in the Bible is as Spouse or Lover. The Vow There is a phrase that runs like a thread through the Bible, and it sounds like a marriage vow. It’s a phrase connected with the making of a covenant. (And of course, marriage is a covenant relationship. When we marry another person we are entering into a covenant with that person.) There are variations, but the basic phrase goes like this: I will be your God, and you will be my people. A marriage vow. I will belong to you, and you will belong to me. We will be partners/spouses. I have found this phrase with slight variations twenty-five times in the Bible. I may have missed one or two somewhere. This phrase, I will be your God, and you will be my people, expresses the binding of two parties together in an intimate relationship. I call it the Vow. Close to the end of the Bible, in Revelation nineteen, we read: Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb (19.9). Oh! The marriage supper. Then, in chapter twenty-one we read: I looked and saw the Holy City coming down out of heaven like a Bride prepared for her husband. There is definitely a wedding about to take place. Then these words: 3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “See, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them; and he will be their God (Rev. 21.3).1 Did you hear the Vow? They will be his peoples…and he will be their God. The Bible ends with a marriage ceremony. And marriage vows. God and God’s people are joined together in an eternal partnership. The two become one. The whole story of the Bible is about us becoming one with God. A Romance It’s important that we not read the Bible as a rule book. Nor as a book of dogma. The Bible is a romance story. It’s about love, intimacy, giving and keeping promises. It’s about faithfulness. The Bible invites us into a close relationship with God. You married folk—do you remember what it was like when you first started dating the person who is now your spouse? Didn’t you want to be with him or her all the time? You may have spent time talking on the telephone (if you’re older); or texting a lot (if you’re younger). Do you remember the excitement of your first kiss? (I’m going to stop there.) Toward the beginning of the Book of Revelation there are seven letters to seven churches. One is to the congregation in Ephesus. The Holy Spirit compliments the church about some aspects of its congregational life. But then the author says, But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first (Rev. 2.5). In other words, The romance has gone out of our relationship. How do we keep up our romance with God? How do we develop intimacy with God in the first place? Let me suggest four ways to be intimate with God (or Jesus or Christ or the Spirit). 1 The last phrase is in a footnote in the NRSV as it is found in some ancient manuscripts. 4 Conversation There is a little book titled, Practicing the Presence of God. In 1632 in France, a young man named Nicolas Herman looked at the trees in winter without leaves. And he began to meditate on the cycle of seasons; how in the spring little buds appear on the branches, and those buds become leaves and flowers. Then they fall off in the autumn. And the cycle continues. The young man ruminated on God’s creativity and God’s faithful maintenance of nature. It changed his life. The wonder of the cycle of life, all pointing to God’s providence, brought a freshness to his mind and heart. This young man joined a Carmelite monastery in France and was given the name Lawrence of the Resurrection. He is known today as Brother Lawrence. The book, Practicing the Presence of God, contains conversations and letters by Brother Lawrence. He was a happy person; a simple person; uneducated. People were drawn to him were drawn to him, not because of some great intellectual knowledge, but because his life was full of joy. Brother Lawrence was in love with God. He once said: I turn the cake that is frying on the pan for the love of God. And when that is done, I lie on the floor and worship God. Afterwards I rise happier than a king. It is enough for me to pick up but a straw from the ground for the love of God. Another time he said: There is not in the world a kind of life more sweet and delightful than that of a continual conversation with God. This is my first suggestion, coming from Brother Lawrence. In order to become intimate with God, we talk to God. We have conversations with God. We will be like those people we see walking down the street with their Bluetooth connection, talking seemingly to no one. We know they are talking on their phone. We can do that too. Except, we will be talking to God (or to Jesus). I like to talk to Jesus; it seems more concrete to me. All through the day, silently or out loud, we carry on a conversation with the Lord. God is with us, you know. People in love get to know each other by talking and listening. Let’s talk to God. Let’s talk to Jesus. Let’s talk to Christ. Christ is in love with us. Silence My second suggestion comes from the Christian mystics. We cultivate our love for Jesus by entering into silence. Regular time spent meditating in silence without distractions leads to a deeper relationship with Jesus. As we meditate on his loving embrace, his willingness to sacrifice for us, and his love of us, we begin to feel his infinite love enveloping us. 5 St. Theresa of Avila, a 16th century mystic, wrote: When He touches me I clutch the sky’s sheets, the way other lovers do the earth’s weave of clay. Any real ecstasy is a sign you are moving in the right direction, don’t let any prude tell you otherwise.2 St. Clair of Assisi (13th century), the friend of St. Francis of Assisi, expresses her relationship to Christ like this: Draw me after You! We will run in the fragrance of Your perfumes, O heavenly Spouse! I will run and not tire, until You bring me into the wine-cellar, until Your left hand is under my head and Your right hand will embrace me happily [and] You will kiss me with the happiest kiss of Your mouth.3 For Christian and Jewish mystics, the Song of Songs was their favorite book of the Bible because it expressed their experience of God as Lover.