Let's Make Everyone Really Uncomfortable: The Song of Solomon

 

Service of Worship

Eastern Parkway United Methodist Church

October 10, 2021

Rev. Natalie Bowerman, Pastor

 

Prelude

 

Greeting and Announcements

 

Mission Statement: We are a faith community striving to be, to nurture, and to send forth disciples of Jesus Christ.

 

Call to Worship

Listen, for God’s voice is not obtrusive

We come to worship the God who became one of us,

Who calls us by name,

Who is Love Incarnate,

Who is!

Let us gather together in joy and hope –

Let us worship the God of Love!

 

Hymn 400: Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing

 

1 Come, thou Fount of every blessing,
tune my heart to sing thy grace;
streams of mercy, never ceasing,
call for songs of loudest praise.
Teach me some melodious sonnet,
sung by flaming tongues above.
Praise the mount I'm fixed upon it
mount of God's redeeming love.

2 Here I find my greatest treasure;
hither by thy help I've come;
and I hope, by thy good pleasure,
safely to arrive at home.
Jesus sought me when a stranger,
wandering from the fold of God;
he, to rescue me from danger,
bought me with his precious blood.

3 Oh, to grace how great a debtor
daily I'm constrained to be!
Let thy goodness, like a fetter,
bind my wandering heart to thee:
prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
prone to leave the God I love;
here's my heart, O take and seal it;
seal it for thy courts above. 

 

Prayer of Confession:

To the one who receives and hears our filed complaints:
Forgive us when we seek to live apart from your help.
Forgive us the words that erupt from our mouths.
Forgive us the hurtful thoughts we think when we feel you are hidden from us.
Forgive our efforts to escape from your embrace.

 

Assurance

 

Hear the good news: The same God that heard and forgave Job in the Old Testament hears and forgives us. Rise from this prayer to sin no more. In the name of Jesus Christ, you are forgiven. Amen.

 

Anthem

 

Song of Solomon 4: 1-7

1How beautiful you are, my darling! Oh, how beautiful! Your eyes behind your veil are doves. Your hair is like a flock of goats descending from the hills of Gilead. 2Your teeth are like a flock of sheep just shorn, coming up from the washing. Each has its twin; not one of them is alone. 3Your lips are like a scarlet ribbon; your mouth is lovely. Your temples behind your veil are like the halves of a pomegranate. 4Your neck is like the tower of David, built with courses of stone; on it hang a thousand shields, all of them shields of warriors. 5Your breasts are like two fawns, like twin fawns of a gazelle that browse among the lilies. 6Until the day breaks and the shadows flee, I will go to the mountain of myrrh and to the hill of incense. 7You are altogether beautiful, my darling; there is no flaw in you.

 

A Message

“Let’s Make Everyone Really Uncomfortable: The Song of Solomon”

 

Friends, we have only 2 weeks left in Stump the Preacher, after a wonderful summer and early fall of exploring the greatest questions of your heart. This week’s topic was suggested by our friend Jane Baker, who thought it would be great to hear a sermon about the Song of Solomon!

 

I had the great pleasure of preaching about the Song of Solomon three years ago, during another summer of Stump the Preacher. But, before that experience, I had only ever heard one sermon on the Song of Solomon. It was on a year when Ash Wednesday was on Valentine’s Day, and on the first Sunday of Lent the youth pastor at that church decided to take the risk of preaching on this book. And yes, preaching on this content, even though it’s perfectly holy scripture, is risky. The Song of Solomon hardly ever sees the light of day during Sunday worship, and for a few very compelling reasons.

 

The first of those reasons is that the Song of Solomon is one of only two books in the entire Bible that does not contain the word “God”. The other book is Esther.

 

The next of those reasons is because those of us who have devoted years of our lives to rigorously studying the Bible still have significant questions about this text that we haven’t been able to find answers for. What should we properly call it? I’m going to say “Song of Solomon” throughout this sermon just because that’s what I was taught in Sunday School, but a good number of our Bibles call this book “Song of Songs” instead. No other book in our canon goes by two different names. We also really don’t know who wrote it. For the purposes of this sermon I’m sticking with the popular belief that King Solomon, son of King David, wrote this book. But, that assumes a whole lot without hard proof.

 

People of faith have also had enormous disagreements about how we should interpret this book. There are two popular schools of thought there. The first teaches us that the Song of Solomon is totally secular love poetry. The second teaches us that the man and the woman in this book are symbolic of Jesus and us. John Wesley, the founder of what became the Methodist tradition, never married and wasn’t a super romantic guy, and he clung very tightly to the latter interpretation. But both of those schools of thought hold a piece of truth, and teach us important lessons of life, love, and faith in their own rights: the Song of Solomon teaches us about how our relationship with Jesus could be, and it teaches us how we should love one another.

 

And, of course, the most obvious reason why pastors go their entire career pretending this book doesn’t exist is because this isn’t the most comfortable book to read in church. Hats off to today’s liturgist, a real hero among Sunday morning worship volunteers. This book delves deeply into a genre of writing that can only properly be described as erotica, and really, how many of us want to go there? But King Solomon felt differently. He went there.

 

This is one of our shorter scriptural books, only eight chapters. And since no one was ever totally sure what to do with this book, and it was named for Solomon, who was famously wise, we dubbed this “wisdom literature” and put it in the canon right after another book that we’re very sure Solomon wrote, Ecclesiastes.

 

But even though we’re pretty clear about why we don’t read this book more often, it’s really an incredible tragedy that we overlook the Song of Solomon so much. For one thing because it’s so beautiful. A lot of this is lost to history, but Solomon and his father David were remarkable musicians, and we’re so fortunate that at least the English translation of their song lyrics were canonized. For another thing, because there’s extraordinary wisdom here. This isn’t a popular book from the Bible, but every word in our scripture is from God, and when we overlook books like this one just because they make us uncomfortable we shut off God’s ability to speak to us through the Word.

 

Throughout this book we see the back and forth between three main characters: the man (perhaps King Solomon), the woman he loves, and a chorus of women around them who see them together.

 

If we read this book the way John Wesley did, and we see the man like Jesus calling to his followers, and us as the woman responding, there’s a very strong message here about the relationship Jesus so desires to have with us. Jesus wants to be with us like these two lovers want to be with each other. Jesus wants the kind of intimacy and closeness with us that these lovers have with each other. Jesus wants us to love him more than anything, to adore him more than anything, to trust him with everything, and to look at him the way the woman looks at the man, like Jesus is the greatest thing there has ever been. And in the same way that we see the woman waiting for the man and searching for him, Jesus wants us to seek out his presence in this world, to value it more than anything.

 

You can really appreciate why Wesley loved this interpretation so much. Just imagine what our personal relationship with Jesus could be like if we saw him like this, and imagine what our church would be like if we were all helping one another see Jesus like this.

 

And then…there’s that other interpretation. The one that looks at this book as a love poem. This is such a beautiful relationship. These two lovers teach us how we should treat one another, and not just in romantic relationships, but in all relationships. These two admore one another, and they’re an irresistible example to this chorus of women witnesses. They support and encourage one another. The man lifts up the woman, who more than likely belongs to a much lower social class, and he liberates her, and treats her as an equal. How badly our world needs that kind of love right now. That kind of unconditional, empowering love, the kind of love where we see the radiant beauty on the eyes of a person that God created and called good.

 

This interpretation gives us special advice for our marriages, and all of our covenantal relationships: adore one another. Wait for one another. Stick it out in tough times. Support one another. Don’t let the other person forget how special they are to you, even if it means repeating yourself. And treat your love like it’s the most precious gift.

 

Now, I could end the sermon right there, on that nice, wholesome, easy-to-listen-to message about love. And if I was a different kind of pastor, I would.

 

But, you know, I’m not.

 

It’s entirely possible to preach a whole sermon about the Song of Solomon while conveniently ignoring the…let’s say steamy content…but if you do that, then you’d be completely overlooking an important conversation into which this text invites us to engage, one that our houses of worship need to hear now more than ever, and one that mainline Protestants like us will do almost anything to dodge.

 

A conversation about safe, healthy, consensual sex.

 

Almost a decade ago at an Annual Conference session, I was sitting in my chair with my eyes glazed over while the voting body debated some proposition involving clergy sexual ethics. It was a very important conversation, and one that could have had far-reaching consequences for you guys right here, but, as the frozen chosen are well trained to do, we sterilized that conversation to the point that all the words we said were a milieu of “therefore be it resolved, amended, amended, amended, blah blah blah blah blah.” And we used enough words that no one could remember what we were talking about anymore.

 

My friend Kayti, a clergywoman married to a clergyman, and a lady with a rather admirable rebellious streak, started to get fed up. She approached the microphone to address the floor and when her turn came she said the most amazingly blunt sentence I have ever heard at Annual Conference: “Do y’all want to know what the real problem is here? I’ve been part of lots of different churches in my life, and I’ve never been to a single one where I felt like I could just get up in the pulpit and say SEX.”

 

And y’all I get it. At this hour, on this day of the week, in this space, with this company, y’all don’t want to hear a single word about sex, and I can’t say I disagree. But we need to take even just a moment to see what Solomon, in his famed wisdom, wanted to show us with this love poem: a healthy sexual relationship between two adults who are loving, committed, and consensual.

 

As much as this goes against the cultural understanding we Christians have of our sacred text, the Bible is not this sanitized, G-rated book. It’s full of R-rated stories, many of which describe sex acts that don’t meet even one of the qualities Solomon lifted up for us, let alone all three. And those stories all end in tragedy.

 

This story doesn’t. This story ends with two lovers skipping off into the sunset together, delighting in the “good gift” of intimacy.

 

Maybe none of us wants to go there, but if we can’t talk about the right uses of the “good gift”, then we’ll be completely unequipped to deal with it when warp and abuse that gift, and one another.

 

Right now the UNY Conference of the UMC is facing a series of lawsuits relating to sexual violence against young boys that happened in decades past in Boy Scout meetings that met in some of our churches. It’s a crisis, and we’re not weathering it well.

 

Our world has more slavery now than it has in any other point in history because of human trafficking.

 

Millions upon millions of personal traumas have been brought to light because of the #metoo movement.

 

And our denomination is in the middle of a tragically ugly divorce because of our inability to talk about sex.

 

And for as beautiful as the Song of Solomon is, legend has it the man himself had 700 wives and 300 concubines. So he wasn’t getting this right a lot of the time, either.

 

When all other advice fails, we look to Jesus. And he taught us how to treat one another in all relationships: with sacrificial love, the kind where you give up things for yourself so the other person can have something better. He actually lifts up, of all relationships, friendship, as the highest form of love. And he tells us that our love for one another will be how people recognize us, and get to know Christ.

 

Therefore let us love one another, because love is sweeter than wine.

 

Amen.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hymn 473: Lead Me, Lord

 

Lead me, Lord, lead me in thy righteousness;
make thy way plain before my face.

For it is thou, Lord, thou, Lord only,
that makest me dwell in safety.

 

Offering, doxology, and prayer of dedication

 

Pastoral Prayer and Lord’s Prayer

 

Almighty God, you are holy and are enthroned upon our praises. In every time and place you have heard our cries; we have placed our trust in you, and we have never been disappointed. We rejoice in your holy Name and sing praises to your glory.

You meet every need and provide for us out of your abundance. You give us far more than we ask or deserve, by promising us the riches of eternal life. Yet we are easily led astray. We become very attached to the things of this earth and put our trust in them; then we are disappointed when they do not satisfy. For putting temporal things above heavenly things, forgive us, O Lord.

The things of heaven are put into our grasp for we have a high priest who leads us to the throne of grace. Send us out in the power of your Holy Spirit to proclaim that same grace to all the world, so all may know you and sing your praise.

Many people suffer and they know why. Others are straining under burdens which they do not understand, and the load seems heavier. Give rest for troubled minds; give release to hurting bodies; give hope to those in despair; and grant us all salvation.

Knowing that all things are possible with you, we ask all these things in Jesus’ name. Amen.

 

Our Father, Mother, Creator God, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who have trespassed against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the Kingdom, and the Power, and the Glory forever. Amen.

 

Hymn 526: What a Friend We Have in Jesus

 

What a friend we have in Jesus
All our sins and griefs to bear
What a privilege to carry
Everything to God in prayer

Oh, what peace we often forfeit
Oh, what needless pain we bear
All because we do not carry
Everything to God in prayer

Have we trials and temptations?
Is there trouble anywhere?
We should never be discouraged
Take it to the Lord in prayer

Can we find a friend so faithful
Who will all our sorrows share?
Jesus knows our every weakness
Take it to the Lord in prayer

 

Benediction

Our God, our Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer, will guard our going out and coming in from this time on and forevermore. And as all God’s people we say together, Amen.

 

Postlude

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