The Time to Sing Has Come

Song of Songs 2:8-18, NRSVue

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

INTRO

This week we are starting a new sermon series called “uncommon wisdom.” The scripture lessons over the next serval weeks will invite us to less popular and under-appreciated passages of scripture to inform the ways we look at the world around us. So often, individuals desire to live a good life. In our society most strategies and stories of success are battles won through the use of exploitation, violence, and smear campaigns. One does not have to look far in our own political campaigns to see how fear shapes American politics. These verses of uncommon wisdom will show us a different path to a good life.

Our passage for this morning from the Song of Songs with its poetic language of love, leaping gazelles and sprouting fig trees seems rather out of place in the biblical cannon. Not only does the sexual nature of the song of songs make us uncomfortable but the dominating female voice in the text whereby she freely expresses her sexual desires is shocking to us, maybe even embarrassing to us. After all, there are some things we ought not talk about in church: politics, money, sex….these we believe are off limits. Despite our beliefs about the limits of church talk, a significant portion of the Hebrew Scriptures addresses sex and money. In fact, there are parts of other Hebrew Scriptures that explicitly address the Israelites’ ancestors and their reproductive activities.

Underneath the sexual overtones of our text this morning, there lies a deeper meaning. As one theologian reminds us, “These books—Song of Solomon, Proverbs, and Esther—are part of a section of our Bibles called Wisdom Literature. Its genre is generally more poetic and reflective than the history and moral instruction we find in most of the Hebrew scriptures. It doesn’t have a singular theological agenda, but its general goal seems to be an invitation to humanity to use all that God has given us as tools to contemplate God’s nature, goodness, and desire for the world.”

The goal of wisdom literature is to look at the world differently, it does not view God through articulate doctrines, moralistic codes, nor does it offer the dos and don’t of spiritual growth but rather it gives us a lens through which to view God in embodied, relational and humanistic way. Even in the midst of a text that is quite sexual, God is at work. God takes our human experiences, anger, grief, or love making, and speaks something about God in those experience. In other words, God is incarnational even in the Old Testament. God uses our experiences to point toward God’s salvific work then, in Jesus, and even in our world today.

Song of Songs or Song of Solomon, despite its sexual overtones, has often been interpreted by Jewish and Christian scholars as being about the love shared by God and God’s creation. In our text this morning, the two loves meet for the first time. The fullness of their love is encapsulated as four out of five senses are named. This is a celebration of love.

Our passage begins with a beckoning for the hearer to listen. The woman begins by drawing us into the story with her concern “The voice of my beloved” yet before we can listen well we must first look. To listen with intention means we must also pay attention to our disposition, we must be postured ready to receive, we must watch and also notice the body language of the other. She wants us to look as she draws for us an image of her beloved. He is leaping upon the mountains, bounds over hills, he moves across the cavas of creation with ease, until he can be found near the window of his beloved where he echos “arise.” This beloved that the woman describes in detail is immersed in creation, finding enjoyment in the flowers, the budding of spring, and the blossoming of the creative order taking place all around him.

Have you ever watched someone in amazement? When I think of someone in amazement I often think of children. If you have ever watched a child go to a playground, you can see their reaction in their eyes, in their body language, in their voice. Suddenly their voice gets loud and you can see them begin to live into the new reality. They react to the large size of the equipment. The more they play suddenly the playground is transformed into their world. They jump around because the ground is lava or an ocean filled with alligators. They engage with all their sense and their imaginations run wild. Then suddenly, all your senses are engaged as you watch the world transformed through their eyes.

We are further drawn in the biblical drama as the man calls to he beloved “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 turtledove is heard in our land. The fig tree puts forth its figs, and the vines are in blossom; they give forth fragrance” It’s almost as he is singing his love for creation to her. See how the winter is past, the flowers are blooming, the vines are filling with fruit! He wants he love for creation to grow.

He stands outside the walls urging and pleading with her to come outside. To begin to know the world in a new way, to find the joy in the blooming and the blossoming that she’ll never experience if she stays inside. You see our text today models for us the close link between love and playfulness and their presence in our realities. When we are living our fullest lives, basking in the love of God, we are brought to a playful place that is full of grace. When we are able to be playing in God’s grace, we take holy risks, we explore who we are in Jesus Christ. We start new things and invite people in. All of this is possible because of God. Theologian K. P. Aleaz reminds us that, “God starts the play, with God as the starting point and then proceeds to creation. Humans, on the other hand, start the play in creation and then proceed to God. Both meet in play. The connecting link is play.”

So often we dismiss this playful, childlike faith. We want to shove it to the side for a more serious faith. The disciples are after a serious faith when they ask Jesus who will be the greatest in heaven. But Jesus informs them, “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” It is this child-like wondrous, yet deep, loving, and playful space that we find in our text this morning. The uncommon wisdom is found in this playful love at work in the text. Love and playfulness often seem to be interconnected. Sure, love is patient and kind, but it also delights and rejoices in the other. This love goes beyond the couple and pervades into the world.

Rev. Henry-Crowe notes “The erotic love that opens the hearts and minds of the man and the woman in today’s passage from the Song of Solomon does not stop with their openness to one another. It also opens them to the hearts and minds of other people. Discovering their solidarity with one another, they discover their solidarity with all other human beings as well.”

Perhaps, this is why John Wesley encouraged the people called methodist to take part the means of grace. Our love for God interconnects us in a love for the other, and our love for the other shows us something about the playful loving embrace of God. For when we participate in the means of grace, especially, when we go out and visit others, we begin to build relationships. The beauty of relationships is they are not supposed to be static but dynamic. As we build relationships, as we fall more deeply in love with the other, we engage more deeply and more playfully with others. So often when I find myself in the midst of a season of church business, paperwork, charge conference forms, end of the year statistics, it is going out and visiting folks where I find my joy. For it is relationships that are mutually self-giving that perpetuate joy.

This morning, I invite you to joyfully join me in a time of holy love and wonder. You see in just a few minutes we will turn to the table. At this time, our savior will show up. In the power of the Holy Spirit Jesus Christ himself will show up and we, like the woman in the text, will have our own opportunity to proclaim, “The voice of my beloved! Look, he comes” as we hear the words of Jesus again, “This is my body broken for you…This is my blood poured out for you and for many…”

We will be beckoned to see the love of God displayed across history, from the creative breath of God, who formed us and gave us life, to the prophets, to the ministry, life and death of Christ. We will see echos that continually call us to give ourselves in love for others as Christ has given himself for us. We will be called into the playful love that welcomes all to be transformed.

You see the uncommon wisdom of the text is that all that we need for the good life, to live in love and joy and freedom is right before us. God through Jesus Christ has given us the freedom to live our lives like children, full of joy and wonder and love for all that God has done, is doing, and will do in creation. Our call this morning, is to joyfully respond in singing and celebration. The time of singing is now as we sing praises to God for all that God has done and we celebrate the ongoing, unfolding story of God in Jesus Christ at the Table.

So take a step back. Look and listen for God at work in our midst. Joyfully sing in praise for God’s creation and for God’s great love for us. Taste and see that God is good. May the love found at the table move us to embrace others, to stand in solidarity with them, to see them as beloved, and to be transformed as our love for each other grows and words of delight, words of joy will spring forth from our lips. The time for singing is now.

In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.