Falling in Love with Love
Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost
September 3, 2006
Have you ever been in love? If you’re married, that’s your cue to nod vigorously. I’m not going out on a limb very far here to declare that love is a good thing. A very, very good thing. There are many kinds of love. And all forms of love are gifts to us from God our creator. Scripture tells us that every good endowment and every perfect gift is from above. All of them gifts to be cherished—and gifts to be used.
Let’s take a look at love this morning. Starting from the top, there is the love that God shows for us: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” (John 3:16)
The Hebrew word you’ll hear used for this love is chesed—one word that means steadfast love. Not a love that waxes and wanes. Not a love that fades when the going gets tough. Chesed is a love that runs deep and runs forever. It is a love capable of the deepest sacrifice. It is the love of God, which God models for us and which God has for us.
We are told in the New Testament to love God in return. You will recall that Jesus described two commandments: “The first is, ‘Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” (Mark 12:29-31)
God loves us. We are to love God. We are to love our neighbor. And who is our neighbor? Pretty much anyone. That’s a lot of loving. And some pretty powerful love, especially when you consider the love of the all-powerful God. There is nothing more powerful than that love. That is why St. Paul declared, “And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.” (1 Cor. 13:13) In our own lives, I can think of nothing more powerful than love in its many varieties.
And think of those varieties. There is the love of family. The love of children for their parents, for example. This past Sunday we had a funeral in this space, and it was remarkable to talk with the three young men of that family and to feel the love for their father, palpable in their words.
And there’s the other direction. I am convinced that there is nothing in this world more powerful than the love of a parent for a child. In that love of a parent for a child we see the difficult side of love. A parent loses lots of sleep over a child out of sight—whether it’s away at camp overnight, or out on a date on a Saturday night. A child doesn’t always understand how deep a parent’s love can run, so it’s easy for a child to hurt a parent. By not calling. By appearing ungrateful. Sometimes by just being a teen-ager.
This shows how love can seem a risk. And it is. Those we love can leave—either by choice or by what fate throws us in this life. And that’s why the next kind of love is such an adventure—the love between two adults. Now, because it is distinct from the love of God and the familial love that we’re born into, I’m tempted to call this eros-based attraction “voluntary love.” But as anyone who has ever fallen in love can tell you, it ain’t voluntary. It might happen right away—and I’m a believer in love at first sight. Or it might sneak up on you—and I’m a believer in that kind of love, too. Either way, when it happens it happens, and you don’t have any choice.
Some folks think that this kind of love isn’t talked about in the Bible. Those folks haven’t paid close attention to the Song of Songs. This is a most unusual book in the Bible, unique actually. I’ll bet most of you haven’t read it, at least not lately and not closely. Pick it up this week and read it—it’s short and one of the easiest books in the Bible to read. It reads like a love poem. And there’s a reason for that—it is a love poem. It’s not a dramatic story. It’s not scripted like a play. It’s not Wisdom literature. It’s a love poem.
Just listen to it: “I am a rose of Sharon, a lily of the valleys. As a lily among brambles, so is my love among maidens. As an apple tree among the trees of the wood, so is my beloved among young men. With great delight I sat in his shadow, and his fruit was sweet to my taste.”
There have been debates for over two thousand years of just why a love poem is in the Bible. If someone tells you unequivocally that they know exactly the deep meaning of this book—well, nod and listen and say things like, “That’s a compelling argument.” Theories have abounded, many of them contradictory. St. Bernard spent 18 years and 86 sermons exploring the Song of Songs. Many have seen it as an allegory—typically of the relationship between Yahweh and Israel or of Christ and the Church.
And you know what, you can read it that way. And it works. I have read it that way and it really works. But that’s probably not the whole story.
The fact remains that it is a love poem and even the most ancient of Jewish interpreters were struggling with the possible meanings of a love poem as Holy Scripture. And one interpretation that has been around since those days is that Holy Scripture recognizes and addresses every element of our lives. Just read the Psalms. Every emotion is there, including love and hate and everything in between.
The Song of Songs is a holy recognition that erotic love is a gift from God, a gift to be accepted by men and women, a gift that God gives freely and wants us to receive and to use responsibly. It is a lovely gift, described beautifully in this lovely, lovely poetry.
The Song of Songs, of course, isn’t the whole story. It’s about the early stages of erotic love, the intense attraction, the deep longing, the physical excitement of being near another person with whom you are in love. But as all of you who have been in love know—and all of you who haven’t been in love, I’ll warn you about—there is much more to love than that first blush of infatuation.
Love doesn’t have to disappear between two people over time, but it does change. When you’re courting, flowers and candy may go a long way, but even the most thoughtless of young men have managed to get past that stage. But if you’re in it for the long haul, it takes work.
If Song of Songs was your only source of information about love, you would have only the melodramatic part of the picture. Not the focused, intentional part of the life of love that Scripture does tell us about.
As we’ve already discussed, the various forms of love are all connected. The love of a married couple is maintained and nurtured in the same way that the love of neighbor is maintained and nurtured. These are all parts of God’s life of love.
Jesus did not seem to talk about love very much—at least in so many words. He uses the word “love” a handful of times, most notably to tell us to love God and to love our neighbor. But he talks about love all the time. Not in the abstract, but in the specific. He tells us to love our neighbor not in some abstract way, but rather as the sort of person who stops by the roadside to help someone who has been robbed. Not just to love the church in the abstract, but rather as the poor old woman who gives her last coin. Not just to love freely, but to feed the hungry and clothe the naked.
The Epistle of James is explicit in direction for the life of love. “Let every man be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger, for the anger of man does not work the righteousness of God.” This is how we are to love in specific, not the abstract. You don’t just go around loving your neighbor—you either do something about it or you don’t. You can’t love your neighbor and nurse anger at him. You don’t love your neighbor and refuse to hear what he says.
Now you don’t love your spouse and … well, you see where I’m going with this. You don’t love your partner or your neighbor in the abstract, but in the specific. You don’t love mindlessly, but with thought and care.
We’ll be reading the Epistle of James over the next few weeks and we will talk about its implications for the Christian life of love. In the meantime, take a look at the Song of Songs. And if you fall in love—well, we do weddings here, too.
Amen.
September 3, 2006
Have you ever been in love? If you’re married, that’s your cue to nod vigorously. I’m not going out on a limb very far here to declare that love is a good thing. A very, very good thing. There are many kinds of love. And all forms of love are gifts to us from God our creator. Scripture tells us that every good endowment and every perfect gift is from above. All of them gifts to be cherished—and gifts to be used.
Let’s take a look at love this morning. Starting from the top, there is the love that God shows for us: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” (John 3:16)
The Hebrew word you’ll hear used for this love is chesed—one word that means steadfast love. Not a love that waxes and wanes. Not a love that fades when the going gets tough. Chesed is a love that runs deep and runs forever. It is a love capable of the deepest sacrifice. It is the love of God, which God models for us and which God has for us.
We are told in the New Testament to love God in return. You will recall that Jesus described two commandments: “The first is, ‘Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” (Mark 12:29-31)
God loves us. We are to love God. We are to love our neighbor. And who is our neighbor? Pretty much anyone. That’s a lot of loving. And some pretty powerful love, especially when you consider the love of the all-powerful God. There is nothing more powerful than that love. That is why St. Paul declared, “And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.” (1 Cor. 13:13) In our own lives, I can think of nothing more powerful than love in its many varieties.
And think of those varieties. There is the love of family. The love of children for their parents, for example. This past Sunday we had a funeral in this space, and it was remarkable to talk with the three young men of that family and to feel the love for their father, palpable in their words.
And there’s the other direction. I am convinced that there is nothing in this world more powerful than the love of a parent for a child. In that love of a parent for a child we see the difficult side of love. A parent loses lots of sleep over a child out of sight—whether it’s away at camp overnight, or out on a date on a Saturday night. A child doesn’t always understand how deep a parent’s love can run, so it’s easy for a child to hurt a parent. By not calling. By appearing ungrateful. Sometimes by just being a teen-ager.
This shows how love can seem a risk. And it is. Those we love can leave—either by choice or by what fate throws us in this life. And that’s why the next kind of love is such an adventure—the love between two adults. Now, because it is distinct from the love of God and the familial love that we’re born into, I’m tempted to call this eros-based attraction “voluntary love.” But as anyone who has ever fallen in love can tell you, it ain’t voluntary. It might happen right away—and I’m a believer in love at first sight. Or it might sneak up on you—and I’m a believer in that kind of love, too. Either way, when it happens it happens, and you don’t have any choice.
Some folks think that this kind of love isn’t talked about in the Bible. Those folks haven’t paid close attention to the Song of Songs. This is a most unusual book in the Bible, unique actually. I’ll bet most of you haven’t read it, at least not lately and not closely. Pick it up this week and read it—it’s short and one of the easiest books in the Bible to read. It reads like a love poem. And there’s a reason for that—it is a love poem. It’s not a dramatic story. It’s not scripted like a play. It’s not Wisdom literature. It’s a love poem.
Just listen to it: “I am a rose of Sharon, a lily of the valleys. As a lily among brambles, so is my love among maidens. As an apple tree among the trees of the wood, so is my beloved among young men. With great delight I sat in his shadow, and his fruit was sweet to my taste.”
There have been debates for over two thousand years of just why a love poem is in the Bible. If someone tells you unequivocally that they know exactly the deep meaning of this book—well, nod and listen and say things like, “That’s a compelling argument.” Theories have abounded, many of them contradictory. St. Bernard spent 18 years and 86 sermons exploring the Song of Songs. Many have seen it as an allegory—typically of the relationship between Yahweh and Israel or of Christ and the Church.
And you know what, you can read it that way. And it works. I have read it that way and it really works. But that’s probably not the whole story.
The fact remains that it is a love poem and even the most ancient of Jewish interpreters were struggling with the possible meanings of a love poem as Holy Scripture. And one interpretation that has been around since those days is that Holy Scripture recognizes and addresses every element of our lives. Just read the Psalms. Every emotion is there, including love and hate and everything in between.
The Song of Songs is a holy recognition that erotic love is a gift from God, a gift to be accepted by men and women, a gift that God gives freely and wants us to receive and to use responsibly. It is a lovely gift, described beautifully in this lovely, lovely poetry.
The Song of Songs, of course, isn’t the whole story. It’s about the early stages of erotic love, the intense attraction, the deep longing, the physical excitement of being near another person with whom you are in love. But as all of you who have been in love know—and all of you who haven’t been in love, I’ll warn you about—there is much more to love than that first blush of infatuation.
Love doesn’t have to disappear between two people over time, but it does change. When you’re courting, flowers and candy may go a long way, but even the most thoughtless of young men have managed to get past that stage. But if you’re in it for the long haul, it takes work.
If Song of Songs was your only source of information about love, you would have only the melodramatic part of the picture. Not the focused, intentional part of the life of love that Scripture does tell us about.
As we’ve already discussed, the various forms of love are all connected. The love of a married couple is maintained and nurtured in the same way that the love of neighbor is maintained and nurtured. These are all parts of God’s life of love.
Jesus did not seem to talk about love very much—at least in so many words. He uses the word “love” a handful of times, most notably to tell us to love God and to love our neighbor. But he talks about love all the time. Not in the abstract, but in the specific. He tells us to love our neighbor not in some abstract way, but rather as the sort of person who stops by the roadside to help someone who has been robbed. Not just to love the church in the abstract, but rather as the poor old woman who gives her last coin. Not just to love freely, but to feed the hungry and clothe the naked.
The Epistle of James is explicit in direction for the life of love. “Let every man be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger, for the anger of man does not work the righteousness of God.” This is how we are to love in specific, not the abstract. You don’t just go around loving your neighbor—you either do something about it or you don’t. You can’t love your neighbor and nurse anger at him. You don’t love your neighbor and refuse to hear what he says.
Now you don’t love your spouse and … well, you see where I’m going with this. You don’t love your partner or your neighbor in the abstract, but in the specific. You don’t love mindlessly, but with thought and care.
We’ll be reading the Epistle of James over the next few weeks and we will talk about its implications for the Christian life of love. In the meantime, take a look at the Song of Songs. And if you fall in love—well, we do weddings here, too.
Amen.
posted by Michael+ at 12:12 AM
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