“What it is to be Human”

Karen Sloan 09/07/2023

Readings - Of Love” by Mary Oliver

I have been in love more times than one,
thank the Lord. Sometimes it was lasting
whether active or not. Sometimes
it was all but ephemeral, maybe only
an afternoon, but not less real for that.
They stay in my mind, these beautiful people,
or anyway beautiful people to me, of which
there are so many. You, and you, and you,
whom I had the fortune to meet, or maybe
missed. Love, love, love, it was the
core of my life, from which, of course, comes
the word for the heart. And, oh, have I mentioned
that some of them were men and some were women
and some—now carry my revelation with you—
were trees. Or places. Or music flying above
the names of their makers. Or clouds, or the sun
which was the first, and the best, the most
loyal for certain, who looked so faithfully into
my eyes, every morning. So I imagine
such love of the world—its fervency, its shining, its
innocence and hunger to give of itself—I imagine
this is how it began.

-Mary Oliver, from Red Bird (Beacon Press, 2008).

 Matthew 11:16-19

‘But to what will I compare this generation? It is like children sitting in the market-places and calling to one another,
“We played the flute for you, and you did not dance;
   we wailed, and you did not mourn.”
For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, “He has a demon”; the Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, “Look, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax-collectors and sinners!” Yet wisdom is vindicated by her deeds.’

Song of Solomon 2:8-13

Springtime Rhapsody

The voice of my beloved!
   Look, he comes,
leaping upon the mountains,
   bounding over the hills.
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.
My beloved speaks and says to me:
‘Arise, my love, my fair one,
   and come away;
for now the winter is past,
   the rain is over and gone.
The flowers appear on the earth;
   the time of singing has come,
and the voice of the turtle-dove
   is heard in our land.
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.

Sermon

You may think that after 2 weeks away in sunny Queensland my sermon today might have that flavour, and maybe it does a bit.  Taking time away, playing and enjoying the company of others is always a good thing. 

But it’s what I read while away that has influenced this morning.  I read a wonderful book called the “Bookbinder of Jericho” by Pip Williams, and  many of you may have already found it.  She also wrote “The dictionary of lost words”. While not wanting to get carried away, the story is about a young women Peggy, before and during WW1 in Oxford England, where she works as a book binder for the Oxford press.  But she craves for so much more, reading many of the books she is supposed to be binding.  Her mother brings home those books where the binding is broken or malformed, so that their little canal boat they call home is full of them. Sadly her mother dies young and leaves Peggy and her twin sister Maude to be supported by other women, friends, neighbours, and her mothers partner Tilly. A beautiful part of the story is her care of a Belgium soldier, sent to Oxford to recuperate, and how she loves him with all her heart and her body, but also needs to be who she needs ultimately to be, in a world where for women it is a monumental challenge. She, in fact, wants to become a writer.

The book, like Williams’s previous one, is about women, lost women, lost lives and how through the ages women have had to fight for their role in society over and against the rules of society, mostly formed by men. 

But this is not a sermon about women’s rights but about how we have been conditioned in the church to see our tradition one way.  And to ask a question,  is it the way Jesus saw it? Someone who ate with sinners, drank with tax collectors, and introduced quite a bit of humour in his stories, stories often about real life.

We heard Jesus talk about Sophia or Wisdom in the reading from Matthew, a female presence found with God since before creation and reflected in the wisdom literature of proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Job, some Psalms and James.

In the Bible, it is Sophia who is first given the task of calling God’s people out to play, and to dance, and even to mourn. Jesus knew the tradition of Sophia calling people out into the world, because he did the same thing. Jesus saw that we are gloriously and wonderfully made, and calls us to be in relationship with one another in love. As is said the reading, wisdom is vindicated by her deeds. Jesus is vindicated by the life he led.

Yet this is not where my focus will be.  You may have noticed I have put in a reading from the Song of Solomon, or the Song of Songs, which is not really set for today.  It’s set for next year, but I got confused, and did not want to change!  Rarely do you hear this reading in church, and it’s usually the only reading from the book. Why?  Probably its deemed as too saucy, too provocative, too erotic!!  Yep it certainly is that. 

 So I want to examine the Song of Songs more closely…

I am using work by Lisa Wolfe, a New Testament scholar, to help me.

The Song of Songs, regarded as poetry, rather than song, dates between the Persian and Helenistic periods (538 BCE to 63BCE) and is unlikely to have been authored by Solomon. It is a beautiful balanced poem about desire, but also about pain of separation, of missed meetings and of absence. 

If you were to read the book in full, it’s absolutely amazing it ended up in the bible at all  or managed to be so popular in religious circles. Perhaps because, firstly it’s is linked to King Solomon, but more importantly,  throughout history it’s been interpreted allegorically, both by Jewish and Christian scholars, which circumvents the  problem of its sexual poetry about an unmarried couple. 

An allegorical interpretation means that the lyrics about a man and a woman’s romantic union represent the spiritual unions of God and the believer, Yahweh and Israel or Christ and the church.  The Jewish liturgy assigns the song reading to Passover as a celebration of God’s love for the Hebrews in the saving act of the Exodus.

Early Christians, rather than saving it for weddings as we do, penned numerous sermons  on the song.  During the early centuries and into the middle ages, Christian interpreters wrote more books on the song of songs than on any individual book of the old testament. 

Origen from the 3rd century, explains the song as a marriage song, which Solomon wrote, even though it doesn’t say the people involved were actually married or that Solomon was the male lover.  He was certain the meaning of the song was utterly spiritual and only the most mature bible readers were to study the book, as it was potentially dangerous! Urging and egging on the reader to fleshy lust.

Bernard of Clairvaux from the 11th century enlisted this allegorical method in his 86 sermons on the Song of Songs, while some of the greatest mystics of our tradition embraced this understanding.  People like Teresa of Avila, John of the Cross, Gregory of Nysa, and more recently Thomas Merton.  Even Luther has something to say about it.

As time went on, however,  there were  people who tried to interpret it literally, and as early as the 16th century, Erasmus proposed it was about the marriage of Solomon to an Egyptian princess.  Unfortunately he received an official condemnation by the council of Constantinople for this view.  So it wasn’t popular!

Yet..  

As Wolf writes “the Song of Songs gives no basis for an allegorical interpretation.”

 Mm interesting..

“The Hebrew bible elsewhere does refer to the relationship between God and Israel as a marriage, however, unlike those passages, the Song of Songs never identifies the spouses as divine and human covenant partners.  And, unlike the previous passages, the song presents a radically mutual and even equitable picture of gender roles in love.” 

Another complication is that, like the Book of Esther, the song never mentions God at all.  So how did it end up being a book about the relationship between God and believer, instead of a celebration of love, bodily, passionate love. And the goodness that is creation and us.

A very good question.

I could surmise by saying that over the centuries the voices of women have been silenced and the role of women been inferior or missing.  Sexuality was seen as dangerous, immoral, and sinful, and women not to be trusted, and the women who supported and followed Jesus in his day, were later silenced and forgotten. 

Or that the idea that a spiritual life, separate and not bound to an earthy life was prevalent,  a very Greek idea, leading to an interpretation that song of songs is only talking about spiritual things.  While that might be a legitimate understanding, as Teilhard De Chardin says, matter matters, and we are both spirit and matter together. He would say God is found in all things, including the beauty of relationships, sexual and otherwise. 

Dawn Hutchinson does a fine summary in her examination of the Song,

“From the pages of scripture sacred to Jews and Christians alike, the Song of Songs remains a testimony to mutuality in love, to the beauty of the human body, to the goodness of sexual desire and the power of love. The Song proclaims that “Love is as strong as death, and passion fierce as the grave.” “Many waters cannot quench love, neither can floods drown it. If one offered for love all the wealth of one’s house, it would be utterly scorned.”

And we’re not talking about agape here.   No this is not the agape love shared between friends or members of a faith community. We’re talking about eros.  Eros, the love that is expressed in the passionate embrace of bodies. In the Song of Songs, we find no anxiety about erotic desire’s power.

She goes on , “In the Song of Songs, passionate desire is portrayed as the force that binds us to one another.  The relationship described in the Song is one of mutuality; the lovers are evenly matched in the force of their desire.  They are equally vulnerable in their desire to be desired by one another; they are equally determined to give and to receive pleasure. For centuries, the church has selected particular pieces of scripture in order to say, “no” to the pleasures of sex in any way shape or form.”

Yet under their noses is a piece so beautiful, yet so steamy. My addition!

So what does Lisa Wolf, my NT scholar, leave us with…

In her summary she suggests that , “interpreting the Song of Songs into the parlance of contemporary religious life poses many challenges.  Not only does the book fail to mention the divine name, any religious acts, or Israel’s history, it is ultimately about sex!”

I love this, she doesn’t muck around!

The church has a thing about sex, even when in marriage, but here there is no marital tie.  They are a young man and young women deeply in love pursing each other feverishly despite numerous barriers. Seems it makes the church even more uncomfortable

Perhaps the church could take a few notes from its own scriptures, and be less legalistic on sex within a certain boundary and instead see that unabashed and mutual romantic love expressed physically is a beautiful part of the life of faith.  We might have less people married at 20 and divorcing at 25 if we did. God is found where love abounds, a good starting point.

And I love that the song of songs does not indicate the young people were married because the church has certainly not considered for a minute the life of a single person, or people who are gay, transgender or bisexual.  Opening up the celebration of love of people of all pathways, opens up faith communities to the realities of the modern world and modern 21st century people.  Here I am grateful for the Uniting Church!

The Song of Songs also celebrates romance and physical love that accompanies it, despite the absence of cultural approval, mainly male.  As Wolf says, it raises the question of whether a state or even religious sanction is necessary to legitimate love, or whether love itself does that.  In the poem the man and women were condemned by their communities.  Their connection and love continued despite that, and may inspire others in the church or elsewhere who feel they don’t have a voice.

And what about the fact that in biblical times, marriage wasn’t for love but for practical purposes, political and family obligations, reproduction and inheritance rights, yet here we have a piece of poetry about sex arising in the context of  love and romance.  In the scriptures.  Slightly crazy. But maybe they go together and sometimes in our modern world love seems so sappy and shallow, and sex is separated from respect and love. Perhaps we have things to learn from our ancestors.

 But finally and most importantly, the main reason  we should revisit the Song of Songs, is the same reason we should revisit the voices of Ruth, Esther, Lydia and Mary Magdalene, and other women in the bible.  Because they show us that women matter, now and then.  And In all of life, not just the life of faith.

It undermines the age old call from the church that women in the Hebrew bible had no voice, no power and no place in society.  Or that the Jesus of the gospels, who ate with men and women, who met women on his own near the well, or lake, who allowed a woman to be a beloved disciple, whose death was witnessed by women and who preached equality and justice for all, regardless of gender, did not consider women as equals. He knew the voice of Sophia, of wisdom, who was with God from the beginning. A female voice. And he listened.

So as I make my way back to the beginning of this sermon I encourage you to read both the ancient and modern words we looked at. 

The Song of Songs may turn your hair a bit, but it is beautiful earthy rich poetry, found within other writings in the Hebrew bible that celebrates a women’s voice, in this case, one that proclaims love and sexuality with no shame. 

And what about the Bookbinder of Jericho, read that too!!!  Because it will show you that what we think are outdated ideas are not that old, or have not been removed completely from our society. Women are still underestimated, women are still hidden and women still hold families together in times of trouble.

Women still hold up half the sky!

Amen