"God Lusts After Us Like a Horny Teenager"
Song of Solomon 2:8-17 (The Message)
8-10 Look! Listen! There's my lover!
Do you see him coming?
Vaulting the mountains,
leaping the hills.
My lover is like a gazelle, graceful;
like a young stag, virile.
Look at him there, on tiptoe at the gate,
all ears, all eyes—ready!
My lover has arrived
and he's speaking to me!
The Man
10-14 Get up, my dear friend,
fair and beautiful lover—come to me!
Look around you: Winter is over;
the winter rains are over, gone!
Spring flowers are in blossom all over.
The whole world's a choir—and singing!
Spring warblers are filling the forest
with sweet arpeggios.
Lilacs are exuberantly purple and perfumed,
and cherry trees fragrant with blossoms.
Oh, get up, dear friend,
my fair and beautiful lover—come to me!
Come, my shy and modest dove—
leave your seclusion, come out in the open.
Let me see your face,
let me hear your voice.
For your voice is soothing
and your face is ravishing.
The Woman
15 Then you must protect me from the foxes,
foxes on the prowl,
Foxes who would like nothing better
than to get into our flowering garden.
16-17 My lover is mine, and I am his.
Nightly he strolls in our garden,
Delighting in the flowers
until dawn breathes its light and night slips away.
Turn to me, dear lover.
Come like a gazelle.
Leap like a wild stag
on delectable mountains!
Let’s just start with the obvious. What in the world is this doing in the Bible? That is a reasonable question. It is. First of all, nowhere in the Song of Songs, also known as the Song of Solomon, is God mentioned. Nowhere. The book of Esther is the only other book in the Bible that shares this oddity.
Yet there it is. Nestled in between Ecclesiastes pronouncements and the prophet Isaiah’s call to repentance, this 8 chapter book can hardly even be called a book. It deviates from the Old Testament world of tribal conflict, violence, political uprisings, royal conspiracy plots, divine judgments (smiting and smoting this and that and what not) and religious rules. What we have in front of us this morning is a brief volume of poetry filled with the language of sensuality, intimacy, human affection, playfulness, and of course love.
Interpreters, theologians and preachers for years have tried to redeem this book by turning it into an allegory of Christ and his love for the church and God and God’s love for the Israelite people.
St. Bernard of Clairvaux, a 12th century monk, followed this line of interpretation in his 86 sermons on the Song of Songs, and he didn’t even get past chapter two!
Eighty-six sermons is pretty much going to suck the joy out of any subject, but one can't help wonder if the saint protesteth too much trying to explain away each and every bit of these words that capture the essence of love by reveling in romance, sexuality and flirtation.
I remember when I was a teenager and discovered these 6 pages in scripture. So this shows just how much of dorky, church nerd I was even as a teenager… for me it was kind of like that first time a young boy finds his dad’s stash of dirty magazines. Obviously, the pictures were missing…
I didn’t need the pictures. I had the words. And I couldn’t believe they were in the Bible.
Go home this afternoon and brush off your dusty Bible. It will be worth a few sneezes to see what I am talking about. The first words of chapter 1:
“Let him kiss me with the kiss of his mouth”
Chapter Four gets real racy lips, teeth, neck and yep they go ever further than that…
I got in trouble in youth group because I wrote out a few of these verses and passed the note to a boy a liked. Now you know the full truth of how big of a church nerd I really was…
But I was so excited. Here in the Bible, in the midst of all the boring rules and familiar stories there was something I could relate to. Going through all that teenage, hormonal angst when the most important thing in my life was whatever boy I was in love with at the time, and I found words in the Bible that talked about how I felt.
Reading these verses now, I will admit, is a little awkward from the pulpit. But back then I reveled in imagining the clear skinned, muscular football player type standing on tip toe behind the gate of my house. He was there, looking at me, talking to me, inviting me with his words of love and desire. “Get up, my dear friend, fair and beautiful lover—come to me!”
Oh, to be a teenager again when love was silly and all encompassing. You couldn’t wait to be with that person again. To share with them all that you are with the hope they would share with you all that they are. And so you wait… wait for the next time he or she would call… I guess now it would be the next time they would text or tweet.
If you can’t remember this time in your life, you at least have children or grandchildren you are watching go through this. And possibly rolling your eyes… a lot… so often, there is the fear your eyes might get stuck. Because that is our adult reaction, isn’t it? To think that this kind of love is ridiculous?
Because once we become adults this kind of love is ridiculous. We have responsibility, jobs, chores, and children. Those are serious matters. We don’t have the time or energy to be frivolous in love.
What if St. Bernard of Clairvaux and his 86 sermons was on to something by spending so much time with these verses? Not by trying to explain them but by trying to experience them?
I’m not going to go take up 86 sermons on the subject (you can go ahead and relax) but let’s play with the traditional interpretation idea that these poems are God’s love poems to us. And what if we pushed the envelope a bit further and imagined that these are the poems God wishes we wrote back?
I chose to read from the translation called The Message, because it does a magnificent job of separating the two voices of the poem. What if one voice is God and the other is what God longs for to be our response?
It is God who comes to us like a love struck teenager.
It is God who wants to see our face. To hear our voice.
It is God who beckons us to come near.
We have to admit that it is possible. God goes to some pretty extreme measures to be with us. I mean, sending God’s own self in the person of Jesus… when we get beyond all the theological explanations of how this works, even just a small part of us must admit how ridiculous this is. That God is so in love with us that to be near us God goes through the messiness of being born, growing up, feeling physical and emotional pain, even death to get close to us.
If that doesn’t sound like someone who is crazed by love I don’t know what does!
We can turn our attention and hear our voice in these verses of poetry as well. It isn’t going to sound like we think it is either. There is no eye rolling or sighing or comments about “how that love stuff is for youngin’s.” It is passionate and strong and full of desire. The voice that is heard most often through the Song of Songs is actually dominated by a woman. She takes up 56 of the 92 verses in the book.
56 verses of a woman who is not afraid to speak her desires. A woman who is assertive, uninhibited and unabashed about what and who it is that she wants.
I’m heading into some uncomfortable territory for some folks… for more folks than would like to admit.
Being open to these words, their erotic images, and intimate perspectives means that we have to move away from the traditional rules and expectations that church and religion has typically dictated we follow to have and understand our relationship with God.
It suggests there might actually be a real human experience involved.
God wants us to feel with, not just our minds, but with our entire bodies, what it means to be loved so completely.
And, I believe, God desires for this love to be reciprocated.
Not because God depends on it, simply for the reason that is how we are created and what we are created for. Love.
Even though we mess that up by being selfish, and mean, and rude, and boring, and by taking things so serious all the time, doesn’t mean that God still doesn’t want us to experience love with our entire being in silly, flirtatious and even… dare I say it… sensual ways.
So where do we begin?
How can we start our own love letters to God?
You might get some good ideas by reading the poems in the Song of Solomon and write down the images, metaphors or even just a phrase that speaks to you. That fits where you are in your relationship with God.
I still see God peaking around the gate. Always waiting for me. Calling me to listen and look, to hear God’s voice in my smallest tasks.
Perhaps for you God is in the flowers of the garden or songs and arpeggios of the birds.
Pay attention to how those images speak to you. The feelings they bring about.
Challenge yourself a step further and ask yourself what God wants you to do with those experiences of love. Rest in silence with them? Write them down? Talk about it with a spouse, partner or close friend?
God created us to experience love. Even though most of us struggle to capture even a piece of our teenage- like self where love was fresh and exciting full of flirtation and romance, we can catch a fragmentary, often fleeting glimpse of the love God has for God's beloved.
In the words of the human lover in the Song of Song we can hear, if we are attentive, the deeper echoes of God’s invitation: " Get up, my dear friend, fair and beautiful lover—come to me!”
8-10 Look! Listen! There's my lover!
Do you see him coming?
Vaulting the mountains,
leaping the hills.
My lover is like a gazelle, graceful;
like a young stag, virile.
Look at him there, on tiptoe at the gate,
all ears, all eyes—ready!
My lover has arrived
and he's speaking to me!
The Man
10-14 Get up, my dear friend,
fair and beautiful lover—come to me!
Look around you: Winter is over;
the winter rains are over, gone!
Spring flowers are in blossom all over.
The whole world's a choir—and singing!
Spring warblers are filling the forest
with sweet arpeggios.
Lilacs are exuberantly purple and perfumed,
and cherry trees fragrant with blossoms.
Oh, get up, dear friend,
my fair and beautiful lover—come to me!
Come, my shy and modest dove—
leave your seclusion, come out in the open.
Let me see your face,
let me hear your voice.
For your voice is soothing
and your face is ravishing.
The Woman
15 Then you must protect me from the foxes,
foxes on the prowl,
Foxes who would like nothing better
than to get into our flowering garden.
16-17 My lover is mine, and I am his.
Nightly he strolls in our garden,
Delighting in the flowers
until dawn breathes its light and night slips away.
Turn to me, dear lover.
Come like a gazelle.
Leap like a wild stag
on delectable mountains!
Let’s just start with the obvious. What in the world is this doing in the Bible? That is a reasonable question. It is. First of all, nowhere in the Song of Songs, also known as the Song of Solomon, is God mentioned. Nowhere. The book of Esther is the only other book in the Bible that shares this oddity.
Yet there it is. Nestled in between Ecclesiastes pronouncements and the prophet Isaiah’s call to repentance, this 8 chapter book can hardly even be called a book. It deviates from the Old Testament world of tribal conflict, violence, political uprisings, royal conspiracy plots, divine judgments (smiting and smoting this and that and what not) and religious rules. What we have in front of us this morning is a brief volume of poetry filled with the language of sensuality, intimacy, human affection, playfulness, and of course love.
Interpreters, theologians and preachers for years have tried to redeem this book by turning it into an allegory of Christ and his love for the church and God and God’s love for the Israelite people.
St. Bernard of Clairvaux, a 12th century monk, followed this line of interpretation in his 86 sermons on the Song of Songs, and he didn’t even get past chapter two!
Eighty-six sermons is pretty much going to suck the joy out of any subject, but one can't help wonder if the saint protesteth too much trying to explain away each and every bit of these words that capture the essence of love by reveling in romance, sexuality and flirtation.
I remember when I was a teenager and discovered these 6 pages in scripture. So this shows just how much of dorky, church nerd I was even as a teenager… for me it was kind of like that first time a young boy finds his dad’s stash of dirty magazines. Obviously, the pictures were missing…
I didn’t need the pictures. I had the words. And I couldn’t believe they were in the Bible.
Go home this afternoon and brush off your dusty Bible. It will be worth a few sneezes to see what I am talking about. The first words of chapter 1:
“Let him kiss me with the kiss of his mouth”
Chapter Four gets real racy lips, teeth, neck and yep they go ever further than that…
I got in trouble in youth group because I wrote out a few of these verses and passed the note to a boy a liked. Now you know the full truth of how big of a church nerd I really was…
But I was so excited. Here in the Bible, in the midst of all the boring rules and familiar stories there was something I could relate to. Going through all that teenage, hormonal angst when the most important thing in my life was whatever boy I was in love with at the time, and I found words in the Bible that talked about how I felt.
Reading these verses now, I will admit, is a little awkward from the pulpit. But back then I reveled in imagining the clear skinned, muscular football player type standing on tip toe behind the gate of my house. He was there, looking at me, talking to me, inviting me with his words of love and desire. “Get up, my dear friend, fair and beautiful lover—come to me!”
Oh, to be a teenager again when love was silly and all encompassing. You couldn’t wait to be with that person again. To share with them all that you are with the hope they would share with you all that they are. And so you wait… wait for the next time he or she would call… I guess now it would be the next time they would text or tweet.
If you can’t remember this time in your life, you at least have children or grandchildren you are watching go through this. And possibly rolling your eyes… a lot… so often, there is the fear your eyes might get stuck. Because that is our adult reaction, isn’t it? To think that this kind of love is ridiculous?
Because once we become adults this kind of love is ridiculous. We have responsibility, jobs, chores, and children. Those are serious matters. We don’t have the time or energy to be frivolous in love.
What if St. Bernard of Clairvaux and his 86 sermons was on to something by spending so much time with these verses? Not by trying to explain them but by trying to experience them?
I’m not going to go take up 86 sermons on the subject (you can go ahead and relax) but let’s play with the traditional interpretation idea that these poems are God’s love poems to us. And what if we pushed the envelope a bit further and imagined that these are the poems God wishes we wrote back?
I chose to read from the translation called The Message, because it does a magnificent job of separating the two voices of the poem. What if one voice is God and the other is what God longs for to be our response?
It is God who comes to us like a love struck teenager.
It is God who wants to see our face. To hear our voice.
It is God who beckons us to come near.
We have to admit that it is possible. God goes to some pretty extreme measures to be with us. I mean, sending God’s own self in the person of Jesus… when we get beyond all the theological explanations of how this works, even just a small part of us must admit how ridiculous this is. That God is so in love with us that to be near us God goes through the messiness of being born, growing up, feeling physical and emotional pain, even death to get close to us.
If that doesn’t sound like someone who is crazed by love I don’t know what does!
We can turn our attention and hear our voice in these verses of poetry as well. It isn’t going to sound like we think it is either. There is no eye rolling or sighing or comments about “how that love stuff is for youngin’s.” It is passionate and strong and full of desire. The voice that is heard most often through the Song of Songs is actually dominated by a woman. She takes up 56 of the 92 verses in the book.
56 verses of a woman who is not afraid to speak her desires. A woman who is assertive, uninhibited and unabashed about what and who it is that she wants.
I’m heading into some uncomfortable territory for some folks… for more folks than would like to admit.
Being open to these words, their erotic images, and intimate perspectives means that we have to move away from the traditional rules and expectations that church and religion has typically dictated we follow to have and understand our relationship with God.
It suggests there might actually be a real human experience involved.
God wants us to feel with, not just our minds, but with our entire bodies, what it means to be loved so completely.
And, I believe, God desires for this love to be reciprocated.
Not because God depends on it, simply for the reason that is how we are created and what we are created for. Love.
Even though we mess that up by being selfish, and mean, and rude, and boring, and by taking things so serious all the time, doesn’t mean that God still doesn’t want us to experience love with our entire being in silly, flirtatious and even… dare I say it… sensual ways.
So where do we begin?
How can we start our own love letters to God?
You might get some good ideas by reading the poems in the Song of Solomon and write down the images, metaphors or even just a phrase that speaks to you. That fits where you are in your relationship with God.
I still see God peaking around the gate. Always waiting for me. Calling me to listen and look, to hear God’s voice in my smallest tasks.
Perhaps for you God is in the flowers of the garden or songs and arpeggios of the birds.
Pay attention to how those images speak to you. The feelings they bring about.
Challenge yourself a step further and ask yourself what God wants you to do with those experiences of love. Rest in silence with them? Write them down? Talk about it with a spouse, partner or close friend?
God created us to experience love. Even though most of us struggle to capture even a piece of our teenage- like self where love was fresh and exciting full of flirtation and romance, we can catch a fragmentary, often fleeting glimpse of the love God has for God's beloved.
In the words of the human lover in the Song of Song we can hear, if we are attentive, the deeper echoes of God’s invitation: " Get up, my dear friend, fair and beautiful lover—come to me!”
Delightful sermon Melissa -- and you're not the only church nerd who held on to these verses as signals that God cared about bodies. Brava.
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