Beloved! Be Loved!

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Beloved! Be Loved!

Song of Songs 2: 8-13

· Sermon,Love,Musical theater,Literature

I’m not sure I’ve explained this before, but when I preach here, I usually choose my text from the lectionary. The lectionary is a calendar of scriptures put together so that most major scriptures are discussed in a 3 year period. Each week in the lectionary, there is a psalm, a reading from the NT, and a reading from the FT. It’s not uncommon for the majority of the church world to all be focused on the same text on any given Sunday.

Today’s text is from Song of Songs.

Song of Songs or Song of Solomon is one of those books in the bible that people don’t like to talk about. It’s a love poem. Right there in the middle of the bible! Shhhh…there’s sex in the bible. Shhhh…. Don’t tell anyone that people were in love. Shhhhh….it’s a secret. I mean seriously. This is a book about 2 lovers who linger over each other’s bodies in a celebration of romance. Why, it’s almost enough to get this book banned from public libraries! And even worse, it might even have teenagers up late reading the bible with their flashlights under the covers! This is racy stuff! And its right there! In the bible!

Oh, Becca, now be careful. You’re treading a fine line. We don’t talk about that kind of stuff in church. Well, today we do.

Today’s scripture is Song of Songs 2: 8-13

8The voice of my beloved! Look, he comes, leaping upon the mountains, bounding over the hills. 9My 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. 10My beloved speaks and says to me: “Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away; 11for now the winter is past, the rain is over and gone. 12The flowers appear on the earth; the time of singing has come, and the voice of the turtledove is heard in our land. 13The 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.

Um…yeah…a gazelle? A young Stag?

The ebullient springs of romantic love can be traced back to their source in God. 

Perhaps, in our modern reading the meaning of these words gets lost, but it doesn’t change the fact that the words in this poem were meant to celebrate human love—to revel in romance and sexuality. Song of songs is completely devoted to love…it’s the only book in the bible that bears that distinction. And no, the whole book doesn’t even mention God, but the presence of the book in the canon reminds us that we can have God, love AND romance too.

See, this passage, and this whole book shows us that passionate love for another person need not eclipse God, but rather can enlarge our lives in ways that make room for God to be manifest!

We are often reminded that the Greeks had a number of words for the single English word love. There is the eros of lovers, the philia of friends, the agape of self-giving. From this we might assume that the Greeks knew more about love than we do. But there are other times when we can see that all forms of love spring from the same source. Perhaps that is why love poetry was never purely secular for Israel and why Jewish and Christian interpreters found God looming in the midst of this romantic revelry. So even though God is not mentioned in the Song of Songs and even though we should resist making it a strict allegory, the presence of God does seem to pulse through the songs' romantic imagery. The ebullient springs of romantic love can be traced back to their source in God, even if not all lovers are inclined to do so.

"To love another person is to see the face of God." - Les Miserables

To be in love with someone is to find your whole being tied up with the person you love to want to be wherever they are, to want good things for him or her. You can no more forget the one you love than you could forget your own name or forget that you are alive. No one else will do. You want to share yourself, all of yourself, with the them, and you want all of him or her in return. Separation is restless sorrow. In reunion the world seems complete again.

Those who are caught up in such a love for another can catch a fragmentary, often fleeting glimpse of the love God has for God's beloved. At the end of one of my favorite musicals, Les Miserables, we are told, “to love another person is to see the face of God.” We, in our own knowledge, like to think we know the “right” way for that love to be expressed or seen. Song of Songs tells us differently. It tells us that even in the throws of passion we can have union and understanding with God.

It is important to note that there is no guilt anywhere in this poem. No guilt for loving another person, or in expressing that love. The lovers here speak freely of their feelings for one another and revel in their passion. Song of Songs shows us that Christian love does not have to be gratiuitous, disinterested or passionless. You see, love cannot reduced to mere sexuality, but it cannot escape it either, because if it does, it becomes bloodless, cold and sterile. It fails to drive us into embrace.

We are intended to celebrate our love for one another, and one of those means of celebration is through intimacy. 

Recently, I finished reading a trilogy of books called “Conversations with God” by Neale Donald Walsch. Before I even found out what the lectionary text for today was, I knew I wanted to share some things about these books with you. The books are based on the premise that the author sat down to write to God, and God answered. I highly recommend the books, but only if you’re ready to have your world shaken up a little bit.

In this book, “God” and Neale are discussing sexuality, and “God” says to Neale:

“Do not choose sex instead of love, but as a celebration of it”
I think this is what we are being told through the poetic words in Song of Songs. We are not being told that sex and love are separate, but that one celebrates the other. We are intended to celebrate our love for one another, and one of those means of celebration is through intimacy with each other!

“Enjoy everything, need nothing”
We are supposed to enjoy our intimate encounters, not come to them out of need. It goes back to that notion of celebration…the joy of celebrating what we are and who we love. When we do that, the need goes away and we can just love as we were intended to.

So lets get back to the passage.

In the book Song of Songs, the word Beloved is used over 30 times! Surely this is telling us something about the relationship of the two people in the poem. They are in LOVE. They are each other’s beloved!

The love expressed here is the type of love that finds goodness and beauty in the other person and desires to be united with it. It expresses how valuable, how beautiful, how important the beloved is. It’s a passionate love that is shared with the beloved…

So, what does it mean to be beloved?

Well, if we separate out the word, we get “be” and “loved.” Quite simply, to be someones beloved is to be loved. Someone who is beloved is loved dearly and held closely to the heart. To be beloved means that you are loved…that you are the most important person in someone else’s world. That above all else, you are loved by someone so much that they hold you closely to their heart.

To be beloved means that your happiness, your health, your wellbeing are central to someone else’s life so much that their happiness, health and wellbeing are dependent upon it.

Who is YOUR beloved?

You are God's beloved. 

I’m sure you have your own beloved…those who you love so much that it hurts you when they hurt, it makes you smile when they smile…

Your children.
Your parents.
Your friends.
Your partner.

You have people in your life that mean THIS much to you. Do they know it? Do they know that they are YOUR beloved? Do they know how much you love them? Have you told them? Have you shown them?

Have you shown your children your love with hugs? With time spent?

Have you shown your parents your love?

Have you shown your friends?

Have you shown your partner? With hugs, with kisses, with…PASSION?????

Act on your love! When we embody love, when we follow through on all love can be, it not only benefits us and our beloved, but it goes beyond us…touching lives and hearts in ways we can’t even imagine!

Who’s beloved are you?

Yes, you are beloved by your own parents, your own children, your own friends, and your own partner.

But I’m here to tell you that above all of that, you are beloved by God. YOU ARE GOD’S BELOVED!!! You are loved so much that you were given a world to play in, lives to share with others, and the capacity for not only physical love, but deep emotional intimacy. And the good news is, that you were given an ENDLESS capacity for love… you can love as many people as you want to. Just as you are surely loved by more people than you have the capability to realize.

Song of Songs, encourages us to not only say that we love someone, but to not be afraid to express that love physically. We CAN be passionate and loving and still be faithful people. God intends it for us. We were created for love…not just friendly love between friends or family, but passionate love between partners.

Holy and good is the gift of desire,
God made our bodies for passion and fire,
intending that love would draw from the flame
lives that would shine with God's image and name.

God weeps for all people abandoned, abused
God weeps for the women whose bodies are bruised,
God weeps when the gift that God has infused
is turned from its purpose and brutally used.
Holy and good is the gift of desire.

God calls to the women, God calls to the men,
Don't hide from the terror or terror will win,
I made you for love but love must begin
By facing the violence without and within.
Holy and good is the gift of desire.

God knows that our violence is mixed with our dust,
God's child was a victim of violence and lust,
For Jesus revealed that women will trust
a man who in action is tender and just.
Holy and good is the gift of desire.

Holy and good is the gift of desire
God made our bodies for passion and fire,
Intending that love would draw from the flame,
Lives that would shine with God's image and name.

*hymn by Troger