August 30, 2009 — 8:53 PM
Can we say that in church?
Texts: Song of Songs 2:8-13; Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23
So, the Song of Songs. Here we have a book of secular love poems about a heterosexual, erotic, passionate relationship. A book where there are no direct references to religious, ethical, or national values. A book where God is never directly mentioned! What is this book doing in our Holy Scriptures?!
No, seriously. What is it doing in our Scriptures?
Have you ever heard a sermon based on any passage from this book? Have you ever heard any reasons why this book was included in the canon? Anyone want to venture a guess as to why first the Hebrew and then the Christian religious leaders decided to include this in their sacred writings? Why is it in the Bible?
[get comments from congregation]
Many religious scholars believe that this book first made it into the Hebrew canon because it was seen as an allegory for God’s love for Israel. It was most likely written following the return of the exiles from Babylon. This was a time when the Hebrew people renewed their covenant with God and renewed their faith in the God of their ancestors – who had repeatedly been described as the God of steadfast love. These people had been conquered, separated from each other and removed from the land that God had given them. Now that they had returned, they were struggling to reaffirm their belief that they were God’s beloved, chosen people. I can see how reading these love poems through the lens of an allegory of God’s love would be of great comfort and strength to the Hebrew people. It was in that context that the book of the Song of Songs was brought into the sacred writings of the Israelite people.
And the Christian religious leaders drew on and expanded this line of thinking when they were making their own decisions as to which books should be officially accepted into the canon of sacred Scripture. No longer was this seen as an allegory about God and God’s love for the chosen people – that was too exclusive – now it was about God’s love for the Church through Jesus Christ. The faithful, passionate love expressed by the lovers in the Song of Songs provided great imagery for new Christians for how God loves them and how they should love God in return. We see this type of thinking really fleshed out in the writing of the mystics like Julian of Norwich, or Teresa of Avila, or John of the Cross, or many, many others.
So, an allegory for God’s love for God’s people or the Church. Hmmm. I can see it. But it’s a stretch. That’s not really there in the text. A leap has to be made to get to those allegorical meanings.
If we just take the text as it is and honor what is written without reading into it, what are we left with?
We have a celebration of adolescent love. Love as its own justification. Love – the highest and fullest expression of the human heart.
And what’s so wrong with that? Why are we so quick to move on from that topic? Why are we all to ready to make that leap to the allegorical meaning? Why does it feel wrong to talk about passionate love in church? Or, do you not feel there is any problem here? Does anyone care to offer any thoughts about why we skip over or rush through this book so often in our reading of the Bible?
[get comments from congregation]
Three people or peoples stand out in my mind as highly influential for the American Christian’s understanding of the body and how it should be regarded: Paul, St. Augustine, and the Puritans. All three of these had an almost Gnostic understanding of the body, or flesh, as being bad in comparison to the spirit within which is seen as good. While the Gnostic duality of bad flesh vs. good spirit was ultimately rejected by the Early Church leaders, that idea still seeps into our thinking today – often without us even realizing it.
But the creation stories in Genesis and Jesus’ teachings would have us believe otherwise.
The creation stories show the human body and sexuality as healthy, joyous gifts from God. God create a human and proclaimed him “Good.” Then God created a partner, different from but complimentary to that first human, and also called her “Good.” And they were created to enjoy one another. And that was equally as good in God’s eyes.
But then came the fall.
Ah yes. The Fall.
With this great fall entered the idea that flesh = bad. Because the flesh craved the apple and the power that the apple represented the flesh then became a bad thing. It was the flesh that was covered up to hide what had been done. It was the flesh that was punished for the disobedience that had been demonstrated. Flesh = bad automatically from here on out because of what we call “original sin” – that tendency to want to do our own thing instead of following God that is in each of us from birth.
And yet, Jesus pointed to another cause. In the passage from the Gospel according to Mark for today Jesus says:
“For from within, out of your hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. All these evils come from inside and defile you.”
The heart – the seat of human will and character – the heart is the problem. Not the flesh.
Okay. I’m sure we can all nod our heads in agreement with Jesus’ statement. We get that. I’m sure we have a great many anecdotes or examples of ways that thoughts from within have defiled us or people we know. It’s the heart that takes pure, innocent, passionate love like that described in the Song of Songs and turns it into something darker and not so pure.
What effects does this turning from innocence have on us as people and on our society as a whole? Are there things that you can think of and name that we can see on a daily basis that come from seeing flesh as bad and letting evil thoughts come from our hearts as Jesus warns? How does the flesh = bad idea influence how we live and act in this world? Any thoughts?
[get comments from congregation]
Words are important. How we describe things is important. Whether we recognize it or not, how we describe the world around us greatly influences how we interact with it.
For me, it shows up in simple ways like how we value or don’t value one another as human beings. When we fail to see that God created each of us and called us “good” then it’s easier to put less value on each of us as human beings. And from there I see how we easily can get to human trafficking and the sex trade.
When we fail to see that God made us as sexual beings and that was a good thing then we don’t value sex. And when we don’t value sex then things like rape, prostitution, and a general degradation of the human being aren’t that hard to get to. And women are disproportionately affected in this. Everyone suffers under this framework, mind you. But women and non-straight men suffer most directly the ill consequences of this thinking.
God created sex and God called it good!
Can we say that in church?
We can and we should. I think a big part of our problem with how we regard sex and our bodies comes from the fact that we don’t talk about it. And we especially don’t talk about it in church. When something becomes taboo and can only be talked about in hushed tones, then there becomes something nefarious about it. And then, if it begins to be twisted or not understood in healthy ways, there is no good way to correct it. When we can’t talk about something openly, there is no way to talk about the ways in which it can and often does go awry. And then it ends up a headline in the newspapers. That’s not a healthy way to deal with this topic!
So let’s listen to this passage from the Song of Songs again. [read it again]
Here we have the young female lover telling how her male lover comes to her just before dawn and beckons her to come out with him to the blossoming springtime fields.
Can you imagine the thrill in her heart to see him coming, trying to get a glimpse of her over the wall and through the lattice? Can you imagine her pulse quickening when she hears his voice floating to her across the still morning air? Can you imagine her yearning to go and join him running through those fields?
God created us to feel all of these emotions. God created us as passionate beings. Our sacred Scriptures begin with this very idea: God created a couple with a great love story – an innocent and perfect love between equals.
That is what God envisions for all of us.
Because of our propensity for sin, we cannot have that perfect love story on this earth. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try. A right love in God’s eyes is one that strives for that ideal. Too often the last quality – that of being equal or enjoying mutually of the relationship – is the one that is often missing. Too often power dynamics come into play and then the relationship becomes more about control and less about pure love.
God created each of us to be in relationships with others as well as with God. The first human was not complete until that perfect match of a fellow human was created. All the other creatures were not sufficient as companions for the human. Only another human was able to fill that role.
God desires shalom, or wholeness, for every one of us. And part of that wholeness comes from meaningful relationships – with family and friends but most especially from a perfect love between equals. May it be so for each of us. Amen.
