The Joy of Love

Old Mystic, August 30, 2009
Song 2:8-13

Summary

The language of love, powerfully expressed in the book of Song of Solomon, is an invitation to enter into the joy of loving relationships which are a gift from a loving God. It encompasses the love that yearns for the same loving response from a lover/spouse and the deep ineffable love from God.

Sermon

When we look at the collection of poems in the book known as the Song of Solomon, we find a rich language of love, full of expressions that many may consider inconvenient for a non-mature church audience. Some of the words found are perhaps “too descriptive” of what the God given gift of sexual desire for a loved one is—more than many Christians’ level of tolerance was able to bear in public through many generations. Someone may have said: why are these explicit, fleshly, “so human” poems in the Scriptures?

But God speaks in many ways; so many that we cannot cease to be amazed. Yet, I’m not surprised by the message that describes the passion, commitment, and deep yearning of human love. I grant it; many may not enjoy the gift of a deep loving union with a spouse and over the centuries many marriages have been arranged out of convenience. Yet, love is always in the air. I am talking about serious, committed, responsible, genuine, love between lovers/spouses; a love that bounds two people together for life. And God bestows on us the gift of that divine yet human love in spite of our shortcomings, like our inability to faithfully keep our pledges of commitment to one another.

God reveals in the Scriptures with beautiful metaphors the language of love between lovers/spouses. Love is a gift from God and from this book we learn that the joy of that love implanted by God in our beings can and ought to be expressed with delight. I must confess here that my way of expressing the deep love I have for my wife very often lacks the richness of expression found in this book and in the vast array of romantic literature—if I ever remember that it is so good to just hear the sweet words “I love you.”

The Song of Solomon is a compelling message of the beauty, the pleasure, and the joy of lovers/spouses’ love. Our lectionary reading describes that joyous feeling: “The voice of my beloved! Look, he comes, leaping upon the mountains, bounding over the hills. My beloved is like a gazelle or a young stag… My beloved speaks and says to me: “Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away… The flowers appear on the earth; the time of singing has come.”

But the Scriptures are encompassing and love is at the center of God’s revelation. God is love and we are challenged to love God and our neighbor. For that reason and consequently for generations these love poems have also been interpreted as a love dialog between Christ and the church or, as in the case of the monastic movement in the Middle Ages, the mystic spiritual yearning of the human soul for the Divine. Bernard of Clairvaux, the 12th century abbot wrote about the encounter with the “beloved”:

I could not perceive the exact moment of his arrival. He did not enter
by the senses, but whence did he come? Perhaps he did not
enter at all…. But I found him closer to me that I to myself. How
can I perceive his presence within me? It is full of life and efficacy
and no sooner has he entered than my sluggish soul is awakened.
He moves, and warms, and wounds my heart, hard and stony and
sick though it be. It is solely by the movement of my heart that I
understand that he is there and I realize the power of his action.
(Sermon 74:6) (http://www.baylor.edu/christianethics/MysticismArticleTucker.pdf)

The language of love found in the poems of the Song of Solomon is an invitation to enter into loving relationships with God, with spouses/lovers and with everyone else. Remember the Beatles’ song “All You Need Is Love?”

There's nothing you can make that can't be made.
No one you can save that can't be saved.
Nothing you can do but you can learn how to be you
in time - It's easy.
All you need is love… (John Lennon/Paul McCartney)

The words may sound simplistic; life is not that easy most of the time and love is very often so hard to come by. Yet, it is the beginning of all good things. And, most importantly, it is a gift from God that we all need and must share.

Our poem today describes three aspects of a relationship: the desire, the encounter, and the subsequent feeling of joy. First, the desire to be loved is so central to our being human—made in the image of God, that is. Don’t we all yearn for that love? And that yearning is so evident in the passage when the bride describes with anticipation the coming of her beloved. She can hear his voice and in her imagination he is eagerly coming to her encounter “leaping upon the mountains and bounding over the hills.” She describes him as a “gazelle” or a “young stag.”

Do we have that kind of desire for God’s loving relationship? We may not know it but we do. God loves us! Isn’t it expressed strong and clear in Paul’s statement: “He who did not withhold his own Son, but gave him up for all of us, will he not with him also give us everything else… [Nothing] will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord?” God desires our love! And we have that yearning though we don’t know very often how to express it. Wouldn’t be great to have the same freedom that the 12th century monks had to use this language to express it?

Second, the bride and the groom in the passage experience an encounter, what both deeply desire. It is beautifully expressed in the images of places that are associated with good times. Spring is there; flowers are blooming; the vines are blossom, and the trees are bearing fruit. The perfect environment for the invitation: “Arise, my love… and come away.” We all have places we love and special moments we remember. And they are always associated with someone. Whether the tulip gardens of Paris down the Champs Elysees, or Sophie’s Café in Exeter, RI, or the kitchen at the home, these places are special because I share them with the love of my life.

God can be encountered everywhere and anywhere. The church is one special place—and that’s perhaps why we love it so much—where we can encounter God. And through worship, and singing, and prayers, we have been provided with the tools to express our yearning for God’s love and to experience that encounter. What an opportunity to share Bernard’s experience: “He moves, and warms, and wounds my heart… It is solely by the movement of my heart that I understand that he is there and I realize the power of his action.”

Third, throughout our lectionary passage we can sense the joy in the words of the bride and the groom. “Arise, come away…” The images also convey that deep joy of sharing good things. The passionate love that springs from the poem describes the beautiful feeling that love brings to the human heart. Joy is an anticipation of heaven; it is the feeling that everything is right; it is a feeling of comfort and happiness that we want to experience for ever.

We cannot ignore the sufferings and setbacks we come across in life. Many experience joy very seldom. But even if we don’t find joy very often, those moments are glimpses of what God desires to give us. When we desire God and when we seek an encounter with him, our joy is without equal. May be it is God the one who is inviting us with the words, “Arise my love… and come away!”

The language of love may not be easy to employ for many. After all, Yankees from Connecticut are not the only ones who are reserved about their feelings! Passionate, bold, and extemporaneous Latinos/as may have a hard time too to use explicit words of love too. But we know the world needs it. Lovers/spouses need it. It is a gift from God, who desires us, and invites us to desire him with love because we have the yearning.