“Passionate Love: The Song of Songs”
A sermon by Lanny Peters
Pastor,
September 3, 2006
In a moment you will hear some readings from one of the most ignored books in the Bible, the Song of Songs, sometimes called the Song of Solomon, though he probably did not write it. In fact, Song of Songs is the only biblical book in which the main voice is female. In all of scripture, it is the only place that a woman speaks directly to the reader and not through a narrator. She is the only woman is the Bible who describes herself in her own words. Renita Weems, a professor of Hebrew Bible at the Divinity School of Vanderbilt University, has written a beautiful commentary on Song of Songs from which I will draw heavily. The New Interpreter’s Bible, Volume 5, pp. 361-435.) She builds a strong case that the author was a female sage, noting, “In Song of Songs where more than fifty-six verses are ascribed to a female speaker (compared to the man’s’ thirty-six), the experiences, thoughts, imagination, emotions, and words of this anonymous black-skinned woman are central to the book’s unfolding. Moreover, the protagonist is not merely verbal; unlike many of the women in the Bible, she is assertive, uninhibited, and unabashed about her sexual desires.” (Weems, p.364)
Song of Songs and the book of Esther are the only two books in the Bible where God is not mentioned. Esther does refer to prayer and fasting and Jewish rituals, at least giving it some traditional religious focus. But Song of Songs does not mention God or anything traditionally religious, but is a celebration of human sensuality and sexuality, which explains why the church has ignored it. Or the church has tried to make it all symbolic and allegorical, saying it is all about Christ’s love for the church or the individual’s soul. When you hear it read, you will see how preposterous that is.
Since we have had several services lately where the Bible texts might be rated PG, I should say a word about children. Unless children are not allowed to watch television or even have friends who do, they are constantly exposed to a lot of unhealthy stuff about sexuality. Why not let the Bible open up a good conversation about this important area of our lives at church and at home afterwards!
As you hear Song of Songs read, one question to ponder is how this made it into the Bible and why. It reads like a private journal, or letters between lovers, or even pillow talk not intended for anyone else’s ears but their own. How is this so sacred that it made its way into Holy Scripture? I’ll return to that question afterwards.
The three-year lectionary cycle includes “Song of Songs” only once, on this particular Sunday, and limits the reading to five fairly tame passages. As pastor of Oakhurst, I try not to hide you from the whole truth, and so here is a more complete reading of the Song of Songs. (Adapted slightly using NRSV and NIV)
Our readers (and selections read) today were in order of appearance,
(1:2-11) Kimberly and John Starbuck, who have been together 17 years
(1:1:3-2:7) Carolyn and Billy Hall, who have been together 33 years
(2:8-10) was used as Call to Worship)
(3:1-5; 4:1-7) Deborah and John Medearis, who were met at Oakhurst and were married here five years ago and included selections from Song of Songs in their ceremony
(4:9-5:1) Pat Craft and Carolyn Connor, who have been together 17years.
(5:2-7; 7:1-9) Karen and Lanny Peters, who have been together 30years.
(5 10-16) Richard Cruce whose partner Matt is not here today. They have been together 28 years.
8:-6-7 Kimberly Starbuck
Well, I expect you have never heard folks read like that in church! And I bet for sure that you have never heard such words from a Baptist pastor and his wife from the pulpit! As you listened, some of the words from this ancient poem, Song of Songs, were no doubt strange to you. Comparing someone’s hair to a flock of goats and their teeth to a “flock of sheep just shorn, coming up from the bath” reminds us that beauty is in the eyes of the beholder and that some expressions of love and sexuality are culture specific. Other parts translate quite well! Either way, I hope you felt a deep connection to two people who are trying to describe the mystery and beauty of human attraction and love.
As you listened, you may also have experienced some of the discomfort and even embarrassment that the church has experienced over the years with the blatantly sexual tone of this book. Fundamentalists who take great pride in being biblical literalists suddenly abandon that approach when they read this. The lone book in the Bible that celebrates human sensuality and sexuality has been turned into an allegory of our relationship with God or Jesus. Which is rather ridiculous when you really listen to it. After all, it begins with “Let me kiss him with the kisses of my mouth.” If that’s about “us and Jesus,” then The Da Vinci Code, is mild stuff in comparison.
The Bible is not a rulebook as much as it is a dialogue and this little book was included to add something vital to the conversation. In the scriptures, there are a number of texts about how the human body is problematic, especially women’s bodies. To offer an alternate view to counter that, Song of Songs offers us “an entirely new bodily theology, one that acknowledges and celebrates the bodily self as an integral part of what it means to be human.” (Weems, p. 408)
There is a lot of literature that is full of religious talk about God but really is not all that spiritual. And there is literature that does not mention God that is deeply spiritual. This helps to explain how Song of Songs made it into the Bible. It celebrates the human body and the mutual blessedness of human sensuality and sexuality as gifts from God. It invites “humorless religious types to get back in touch with the playfulness of the human spirit and the intensity of religious longing.” (Weems, p.390)
It is also about how the human heart loves whom it loves despite the objections of the society around it. The woman who speaks in Song of Songs is in her own words, “black and beautiful.” She compares herself to the dark curtains in Solomon’s palace, inferring that her dark color is one of distinction and nobility. With confidence, she defends herself against those who she sees as prejudiced against her.
Here we see the age-old problem still with us today. What is it about the color of a person’s skin that can create animosity and even hatred? In countless permutations like a deadly cancer, color prejudice has been a virtually universal mode of discrimination throughout the ages and around the world. From the context, it seems that the woman’s lover is not black, causing some to judge their relationship as inappropriate. Song of Songs, “with its response to color prejudice, taps into our deepest cultural prejudices by making us confront the way they keep us from seeing certain people as individuals with needs, desires, ambitions for love, and intimacy like ourselves.” (Weems, p.384)
Song of Songs is about how the human heart loves whom it loves despite the objections of the society around it, which is why it was appropriate to have some of the texts read by same sex couples. The church over the centuries and in our time has spent a lot of time and energy trying to exercise power over whom we can love. It was the church in the south that was a main force behind outlawing interracial marriages and has transferred that animosity today to same sex couples. “The church’s sometimes hysterical outbursts against sexuality frequently completely miss the point. Sex is a physical reenactment of our emotional, physical, cognitive, and spiritual need to experience intimate communion with others. Making love involves partners exploring and searching for their own expressions of love for each other without the detraction of naysayers, without the diminishment of oneself in order to enhance the other, and without being forced to live up to or according to predetermined roles.” (Weems, p. 422)
The Song of Songs sees sexual love not as a problem but as a blessing. Song of Songs does not deny us our need for physical contact and communion. But it is at the same time it is much more than that. It is about commitment though thick and thin and growing together in love.
Karen and I last month celebrated our 30th
wedding anniversary. There is no other place in my life, including the church,
where I have learned as much about myself, what it means to be human, to love and
be loved, and the pleasures of the body, as in my marriage. In 2001, our family
spent a month in
Finally, Karen said quietly, “Where are we?” I responded, “I don’t know.” Then it came to us that we were back home in our own bed and we realized someone was knocking at the window. It was our oldest son who was hoping to sneak in late but had forgotten his key. Back in bed, we just sat there and laughed and laughed. There have been so many times in our lives together that we needed each other to figure out where we are and where we are going. Without her, I would be lost!
Renita Weems summarizes it beautifully when she writes, “In this case the cliché that deserves repeating is: Human beings are born to love and to receive love. We are our happiest, our strongest, our most creative and forgiving when we are in love. We are also our most confident and secure about ourselves as individuals when we are loved unconditionally. Our ability to love is what makes us most like God. Part of what it means to be created ‘in the image of God’ is to be capable of transcending oneself and loving another person unconditionally. Small wonder is it that at the center of both the OT and the NT is the repeated reminder that being a covenant people means loving God with all that is possible.” (Weems, p. 390)
Just as my marriage is one of the most wonderful things in my life, it is also one of the most challenging. Song of Songs also reminds us that nothing “prepares us for love’s rocky journey. It is a journey filled with valleys and peaks, requiring of lovers enormous patience with and commitment to each other. Love is something that must be worked at and fought for. …Our ability to love is the very quality that makes us most like God. We learn what it means to go to extraordinary lengths to reclaim our lovers. The search for a lover reminds us who read this poem with theological eyes how very precious love is. When you find it, do everything in your power to keep it. God, which is love, has created us to be able to give and to receive love.” (Weems, p. 398)
Or as the black skinned poet says, “Set me as a seal upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm; for love is strong as death, passion fierce as the grave. Its flashes are flashes of fire, a raging flame. Many waters cannot quench love, neither can floods drown it. If one offered for love all the wealth of his house, it would be utterly scorned.” (8:6-7)
I want someone else to close this sermon. As I contemplated the texts for today, what came to mind was a poem that Kathe Swint shared with me over a year ago, after her beloved (and ours as well) Jake died on June 11, 2005. It was a poem that Kathe wrote to Jake on the occasion of their 25th wedding anniversary. Given the time of year, it is entitled, appropriately enough “September.” Kathe was delighted to be asked to read it today and reminded me that this Thursday, September 7, is their 60th wedding anniversary. We both agreed that the Spirit was working!
As you will see, Kathe’s poem shares much in common with the woman’s poetry in Song of Songs. Both of them are strong, loving women who express themselves well with poetry. And both of them see a deep connection between the blessings of nature and the blessings of human love. Neither Song of Songs or Kathe’s poem mentions the name of God, but both are infused with divine grace.
September comes in mistily with birds,
Allowing weeks of grace before the winter’s show,
And I am taut to put the scene in words
When morning sun bursts through to light below
The sapphires hedging in the glistening dew.
My heart explodes in gratitude; all this—and you.
The pine trunk’s tracery of moss, a giant snake.
Ivy coverlets drape the wall n darkest green,
The spider lilies lift their fists beside the gate,
Sultana clothes the slope in polka dots
And sedum clumps its hoary pink among the rocks.
You till the soil and on your knees feel hope
That beauty can prevail against the creeping weeds
And rustful waste which life enforces so
Tenaciously. For our good years, at least,
We’ll have this place of rest to prune, and when
Remembering is our best course, have it still then.
Like jewels sparkling in the sprinkled dew
My heart explodes in gratitude; all this—and you.