Song of Solomon 8: 5 – 7
Who is that coming up from the wilderness,
    leaning upon her beloved? 

Under the apple tree I awakened you.
There your mother was in labor with you;
    there she who bore you was in labor. 

6 Set me as a seal upon your heart,
    as a seal upon your arm;
for love is strong as death,
    passion fierce as the grave.
Its flashes are flashes of fire,
    a raging flame.
7 Many waters cannot quench love,
    neither can floods drown it.
If one offered for love
    all the wealth of one’s house,
    it would be utterly scorned.

One of our adult Sunday School teachers, having looked at the text for today and spent a few minutes looking at the study guide questions earlier this week, passed me in the building that day and said ‘Oh hey, and good luck Sunday!’

It took me a second and then I recognized, of course, what they meant. Goooood LUCK. A text from the Song of Solomon. Song of Songs. The only book of the bible probably LESS read than the book of Revelation – and probably even more feared. Good luck.

A while back there was a tongue-in-cheek top 10 list making the rounds with church folk: ‘You Know You’re Not Reading Enough Old Testament When…’. High up on the list? Your kid is reading from Song of Solomon and you demand to know ‘Who gave you this trash?’

Good luck!, they said.

Song of Solomon is the English translation of the title, and points to the very first verse of the book, where Solomon is mentioned. It’s probably not to say that he wrote it, but that he might have inspired it. It’s more accurately called Song of Songs. Whatever it is, though, this book makes us nervous. We don’t like talking about this.

I mean, we talk about LOVE all the time. God IS love, we say. In church, in our faith, in Christianity, love is supposed to be the thing we talk about – and live out – the most. But this love is what we talk about least. It seems like the thing we’re not supposed to talk about. But we’re going to.

No, we’re not going to talk about sex. Not exactly. So take a breath. But we are going to talk about love. The real kind. The soul-deep kind. The kind that the scriptures in this Bible we claim to trust and hold dear and value as our guide and teacher proclaims. We’re going to talk about this kind of love.

It’s hard to read. Not because it makes us uncomfortable, although it might. It is pretty vivid love poetry. There are also some strangely awkward and even violent moments that seem like a really sharp turn away from the love story, and then next think you know it’s all gazelles and flowers and you’re back to the lovey-dovey stuff. The language is admittedly a little weird.

A bunch of preachers got a kick this week out of sharing an article from the Babylon Bee, which is a satirical online news source. Hear me when I say satirical – they make fun of church stuff and church people – and I will confess to you that most of it is funniest to those of us who are the very inside-church types … and I’ll admit to you that sometimes it gets a little rude … and I have to point out that sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference between the satirical religious news and the real stuff.

Having said all that, I did laugh pretty hard when several friends shared this article during Valentine’s week, not even knowing I was preaching from Song of Solomon.

Everyone knows that the best way to show your love to your significant other is to hand them a heart candy with words on it.

Now even Christians can partake in this beloved Valentine’s Day tradition with these new candies emblazoned with messages straight from Song of Solomon.

“Your spouse will swoon upon reading that her teeth are like a flock of sheep or that her nose is like a giant tower,” said the CEO of Solomonhearts, David Meyers. “It’s a foolproof way to let her know how beautiful she is and how much you love her.”

Messages include touching, romantic poetry like the following:
Hey, tower neck!
Ur teeth are sheep
You have goat hair
Ur legs = marble pillars. 

“Note: not actually foolproof and we do not guarantee any swooning.”.[1]

So yes. It is a strange book to read, and makes us a little nervous reading it, even in worship, even the very mellowest verses that we selected for today. But it is metaphorical language of the most personal and beautiful kind.

We use metaphors all the time to describe our human experience – ‘peace, hope, joy, community, death, faith and so on.’ This poet relies on metaphor ‘to describe the most elusive of all human experiences: love.’ It is both ambiguous and explicit, reality and fantasy, literal and metaphorical.

This Song of Songs, with its wide range of emotions, the abrupt changes in settings, and the shifts from one speaker to another only accentuate[s] the pathos of the poetry with its focus on the passionate, bewitching, vacillating, and unpredictable character of human love.[2]

As we started this sermon series, exploring the four words the Greeks use to name LOVE, we told you that two of the four words don’t actually appear in scripture. Eros is one. But it is here, in ideal form. It is fully human love – partnership, a matching, a pairing between consenting lovers who are free to fully give themselves to each other.

Such bodily wisdom comes with having lived some life, with maturity, with a sense of being responsible for yourself, and responsible for the care and nurture of the divine gift in another. The very act of creation is intimate. God breathes life into the dust of the earth. The Creator of the Universe holds and forms each of us. The embodiment of love, the sacred clay that receives the divine breath is who we are … and it’s who the other person is too. That is not to be taken lightly.

This text sets the narrator up in a strong body- and sex-positive voice, and we’re not quite sure what to do with that. That says more about us that it does about the text. We have spent so long saying our bodies are bad, and have to be hidden unless perfected, or worked on to meet an arbitrary cultural standard, that we have forgotten to talk about the ways that our bodies are intended for our good.

We in this country spend an inordinate amount of time attempting to control our bodies. Objectified, surveyed, judged, our flesh is seen as an instrument, a means to various and sundry ends. The hair shirts of [long ago] have become the exercise bikes of today. … The flesh is not just a conduit for the holy: the flesh IS holy. We can rejoice in it.[3]

Eros is about responsibility. Maturity. Mutuality. Partnership.

So even though the word isn’t used specifically, what does the text have to say about eros love?

Rev Dr Renita Weems, renowned Hebrew Bible scholar and preacher, offers a great introduction to the Song of Songs:

Readers attempting to read the Song of Songs for the first time are invariably astonished to discover that such sexually provocative language and imagery can be found in the Bible. Contained in the eight brief chapters of this little-read book are some very titillating romantic speeches between a woman and her suitor. Their exchanges about their love, passion, desire, and longing for each other can hardly be matched by classical secular romance writings. … the matter of the Song’s place within the Bible has been and continues to be the subject of considerable debate and speculation.

… in the Song of Songs, human sexuality is explored and delighted in so as to make some very specific assertions about female sexuality, to counter some definite notions about beauty, and to insist in a rather dramatic manner on a woman and man’s right to love, irrespective of prevailing cultural norms, whomever their heart chooses.[4]

Described as everything from a single love poem, to more than 30 separate poems, from a recitation of a cultic fertility ceremony, to a drama that idealizes the love of God for Israel (or in the Christian extension, the love of Christ for the church) – there are many opinions, and no consensus. Interestingly, it is one of only two books of the 66 in the Bible (Esther is the other) where God is not mentioned by name. It is also the only one where the main character’s voice is directly and specifically female. It’s not about her, it is her speaking.

She is portrayed as tender (a lily, a dove, a gazelle), and named for her strength (a pillar, a tower). She waits for her lover in a garden, and is herself a garden. The woman and her lover go to the vineyard, and they themselves are intoxicated by each other’s physical presence. Every comparison of the humans, to any of the rest of the created order, is there to reflect beauty and freedom.[5]

We have to read with a faithful eye, and draw the line between what makes us uncomfortable – pornography, which is sensation without emotional feeling – and what is eros, erotic love, that which is sacred and celebrates the divine and the human at once. They are very different things.

What, then, does this love poetry show us about God’s love for us?

Scholar Phyllis Trible suggests that the poetry in Song of Songs provides

the redemption of the love story that went awry in Genesis 2-3.
          In this setting, there is no male dominance, no female subordination, and no stereotyping of either sex. … [it] defies the connotations of ‘second sex’. She works, keeping vineyards and pasturing flocks. … {They are never referred to as husband and wife, nor as parents.} In fact, to the issues of marriage and procreation the Song does not speak. Love for the sake of love is its message…

The emphasis is on the shared nature of love. Ilana Pardes reminds us to look at the reciprocity.

For once the relationship of God and His bride relies on mutual courting, mutual attraction, and mutual admiration, there is more room for hope that redemption is within reach.[6]

Now that sounds like a scripture I want to read. In church.

What can we do with this kind of love? Not the kind that fills the world with silly love songs. (Although, I love a good love song, don’t get me wrong.) But what can we do with the kind of love that is true and deep and rich and mutual and safe and trusted, that respects bodily autonomy, and   rejoices in physical intimacy based in the sacred connection of the souls that make the bodies work?

We must treat this as something very personal. Not shameful, or hidden away, but love that is personal. This very text has given us permission, instruction, even demands, to be heard very publicly. The poet does not go into speeches about the need for love to be complete and free and full and unfettered and without limits.

It’s not up to us to overwrite our expectations onto another individual or onto others’ relationships. She spins metaphors and similes, uses figurative language to advocate for balance in relationships, mutuality and interdependence, fulfillment not just procreation, and ‘uninhibited love not bigoted emotions’. [7]

In this Song of Songs, the poet uses deeply intimate and personal lyrical language to remind us that love is a revolutionary act.

Poet Mary Caroline Richards says that

At the center the love must live.
            One gives up all one has for this. This is the love that resides in the self, the self-love, out of which all love pours. The fountain, the source. At the center. One gives up all the treasured sorrow and self-mistrust, all the precious loathing and suspicion, all the secret triumphs of withdrawal. One bends in the wind. …
          Do not speak about strength and weakness, manliness and womanliness, aggressiveness and submissiveness. Look at this flower. Look at this child. Look at this rock with lichen growing on it. Listen to this gull scream as he drops through the air to gobble the bread I throw and clumsily rights himself in the wind. Bear ye one another’s burdens, the Lord said, and he was talking law.
            Love is not a doctrine, Peace is not an international agreement. Love and Peace are beings who live as possibilities in us.[8]

As a gift from friends in seminary, I have a devotional book that I’ve turned to for more than 20 years. In it, author Jan Richardson quotes a poem by Alta, empowering us for this embodied revolution of love:

                                                            love is believeable.
keep that as a smooth stone, for sometimes you will be the
only one to love. for sometimes, you will be hated, & all the
love within reach will have to be your own, & what you can
tap from the spirits who fly to be with us at those moments,
& lend us their wings. who land on the lamps to give us com-
fort & courage, when we think we have nothing to say. When
we have nothing to say, perhaps it is time to listen. …

 love is free, sometimes, & costly othertimes. we may only
have each other. our true touch. we may only have.[9]

So this morning, if you are next to someone, and you’re comfortable taking hands, would you do so? You do not have to, but you may. Close your eyes. Feel their palm against yours. Feel God breathing inside your own breath. And receive this blessing:

            Blessed are you who touch with integrity and grace,
          for you give flesh to the good news of Christ.[10]

                                                                                                Amen.

[1] Babylon Bee https://babylonbee.com/news/song-of-solomon-sweetheart-candies-now-available
[2] Renita Weems, The Women’s Bible Commentary; ed. Newsom & Ringe (WJK 1992), p 156-160.
[3] Cries of the Spirit; ed. Marilyn Sewell (Beacon 1991) p205.
[4] Renita Weems, The Women’s Bible Commentary; ed. Newsom & Ringe (WJK 1992), p 156-160.
[5] ‘Woman/Lover/Shulammite’, Women in Scripture; ed. Meyers, Craven, Kraemer (Houghton Mifflin 2000), p 310-311.
[6] Trible, O’Connor, Pardes, as quoted in Helpmates, Harlots, and Heroes; Alice Ogden Bellis (WJK 1994) p199-202.
[7] Reems.
[8] Mary Caroline Richards, ‘Centering’, in Cries of the Spirit, p58-59.
[9] Alta, in The Shameless Hussy, Essays and Poetry by Alta; quoted in Jan Richardson, Sacred Journeys (Upper Room 1995), p178.
[10] Richardson.

John 12: 1 – 8
Six days before the Passover Jesus came to Bethany, the home of Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. 2 There they gave a dinner for him. Martha served, and Lazarus was one of those at the table with him. 3 Mary took a pound of costly perfume made of pure nard, anointed Jesus’ feet, and wiped them with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume. 4 But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples (the one who was about to betray him), said, 5 “Why was this perfume not sold for three hundred denarii and the money given to the poor?” 6 (He said this not because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief; he kept the common purse and used to steal what was put into it.) 7 Jesus said, “Leave her alone. She bought it so that she might keep it for the day of my burial. 8 You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me.”

I wonder if in this moment, when Jesus is being loved with a grace upon grace kind of love, an abundance of love, a love that you could even smell, with a fragrance that would linger for days, that Jesus remembered his mother. Three years ago. Back in Cana. At that wedding. His mother, who loved him, who knew who he was and what he was capable of doing. His mother, without whom, I wonder, when Jesus’ ministry would have actually gotten started.

Jesus insists it is not his time, but his mother knows better, as mothers often do. Because of her insistence, Jesus starts doing what he came to do. Because of her encouragement, Jesus realizes the time really had come. Because of her love, Jesus can do what he was sent to do. Jesus’ mother loves Jesus into his future as the Word made flesh.

Now, in Bethany, Jesus finds himself in the same kind of position, the same kind of transition, the same kind of situation. Immediately after [this] Mary anoints Jesus, he will enter the city of Jerusalem. And so, Jesus needs that same encouragement, that same love, to do what he must do. Mary’s extravagant love for Jesus makes it possible for Jesus to show extravagant love in what follows — washing the feet of his disciples, handing himself over to be arrested in the garden, carrying his own cross, dying, rising, and ascending. Mary loves Jesus into his future as the fulfillment of, “for God so loved the world.”[1]

Preacher Karoline Lewis wrote that last spring, reflecting on the text from the Gospel of John read this morning. I read her words over and over. ‘A grace upon grace kind of love.’ ‘Because of her encouragement.’ ‘Because of her insistence.’ ‘Because of her love.’ She ‘loves [him] into his future.’ Isn’t that the kind of love we long for? The kind of love that roots us and grounds us, that holds us fast and moves us forward, the kind of love that the Greeks surely had in mind when they talked about love.

But which love? But was it storge? Phileo? Eros? Agape? So much love! So much.

Let’s take the four Sundays of February and work on love, we said. It’s the month that our culture has decorated with hearts and flowers and chocolate and all our human designs on love. So let’s make the faith connection. Let’s take the four words the Greeks use to describe love. Greek is the language in which the New Testament was written. Let’s take those four words, and explore the scriptures where those words are used. Love is throughout the scriptures … God IS love, after all … Jesus is love incarnate, the very physical form of the most extraordinary love there is …

And yet here’s what you’ll find: Two of the four Greek words … phileo and agape … are plentiful in the New Testament. The love that comes from close friendship, ‘brotherly love’. And the love that binds humanity together in compassion and mercy. Both words are used again and again.

And two of the words … storge and eros … the love associated with natural and instinctive family-like bonds, and the love of intimate partnership, romance, and physicality … those two words do not actually show up in scripture itself. They are certainly there conceptually. And they are in the language of histories and related non-biblical literature of the time. But not IN the texts themselves. (Guess who’s preaching those two words?)

But there’s so much to work with, so much overlap and blending together of these ‘kinds’ of love, we want to take some time to refresh our memories, or to see for the first time, and to look more broadly, at just what God has in mind for us when it comes to love in this world.

Many of you have met my mother. She has always been my biggest fan. She deeply and truly believes that I am fantastic; there’s no talking her out of that. And she is convinced, beyond any shadow of any doubt, that I can be and do anything I want. On the one hand, I could set that aside, and say ‘You have to think I’m great. You’re my mom.’ But. On the other hand, who has a better understanding of who you are and what you’re worth than the one who set you into motion?

That’s storge. It’s the kind of love the Greeks meant when they talked about family bonds … the natural, instinctive, and when they’re working well, the selfless kinds of love that we find most often in kinship.

The word storge isn’t used in the New Testament, except in the negative. 2 Timothy has a word that focuses on the lack of such love; the word is translated as heartless, devoid of concern, without love. In Romans, Paul uses a word to describe humanity’s sinfulness as having “no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy.” He says one of the marks of the last days will be when families are at a loss for natural love.

Let’s remember that ‘family’ – in biblical realities as in the present day – took on a wide variety of shapes and combinations. We fool ourselves if we think that ‘family’ looked then (or looks now) like any one thing. Many families in the Judean culture were very similar to those in the Greek and Mediterranean cultures, consisting:

… of several generations: an older, free adult male, his wife, their grown sons, the wives of those sons, and [their children]. Grown daughters of the older generation typically became part of the households of their own husbands and lived elsewhere; this could be as close as another courtyard in the same village or town, or much farther away. High maternal mortality rates also meant that households might consist of a free man, his children by one or ore prior wives, one or more daughters in law, and grandchildren, one or more current wives, their children from a prior marriage, and the children of the most recent marriage.[2]

That, of course, doesn’t even include the legally enslaved members of a household, or the children, whether born through their own relations, or because of their slave-owners. The ‘biblical family’ has a very (very) broad definition.

And it is in the midst of this first-century definition of ‘family love’ that we gather today, with Mary and Martha and Lazarus, the sisters and brother whom we see throughout the four gospels. At this moment in the gospel of John, Jesus has revived Lazarus from the dead, and the sisters have staked their claim to real relationship with this one who can do such things, and who they clearly love.

There is mention of and debate about other – biological – family of Jesus. There are suggestions of as many as four brothers, and event two sisters. We don’t know. Joseph isn’t mentioned again after Jesus is in the temple as a child – does he die? Was he ill? Is he that much older than Mary? We don’t know.

But this family – these three siblings – seem to have adopted Jesus in as their own. The deep affection that is shown in word and in deed … Jesus’ true affection for Lazarus … Mary and Martha devoting themselves both to their brother’s well-being, and to caring for Jesus when he is in their home during his travels. This is a ‘family of choice’ if ever there was one.

They gathered for a meal, all there together. And in the presence of her family, with a devotion she both learned from them, and shared with others, she anoints Jesus’ feet with a costly fragrant oil, wiping them with her hair. While we could wonder if this is a more personally intimate act, every indication from the scripture, and from the people as we see them in the story, is that this is an expression of extravagant devotion, of great love, literally poured out to honor this one who is part of their lives, and in their home.

This is not the version of the story where Martha is seen as complaining about her work, and what she sees as Mary’s lack of work. This is a story of family gathered for a meal, including the brother who was lost but then reclaimed to life, and two sisters who serve with devotion – one offers a meal, and one a blessing. This is natural, instinctive abiding, family love.

When you have had your life given to you – Lazarus quite literally, and his sisters nearly as much so, given that they would be destitute without him – when your very life has been handed to you by Jesus, don’t you want to honor Christ in every way extravagant way you can? ‘When Jesus has become the reason for our very existence, we have a different sense of values and what worth really means.’[3]

I love that John included the observation that ‘The entire house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.’ (v3) She has showed such great love that it cannot go unnoticed.

Mary has anointed Jesus so lavishly that all present can participate in it…. The odor of death has been replaced by the odor emanating from Mary’s extravagant love. … Mary is the first person in the Gospel to live out Jesus’ love commandment. … Mary models what it means to be a disciple: to serve, to love one another, to share in Jesus’ death.[4]

When it’s working as it should, it is the love we learn in the family that roots us. When we tend the soil of family affection, and nurture that abiding love, it spills out in extravagant love for all. Both Mary and Martha do what Jesus calls us to – serving faithfully, loving generously. They do the work of faith-full-ness.

There is a movement afoot to have … let’s call them ‘messy’ dinners.

It’s a dinner party. With rules. To keep it messy:

1. No housework is done to get ready.
2. The menu is simple enough to not need any special grocery trips.
3. You wear whatever you have on.
4. No one brings a hostess gift.
5. (optional) You act surprised when your friends happen to show up at the door.

Kelley Powell talks about the first time she and her friend Laura decided to this – get their families together, spend much-missed time with dear friends, and not put the pressure on to get the place magazine ready, and for everything to be just so. The 7 year old walked through the house in muddy shoes. The 9 year old started a glue and glitter laden craft project right before Laura was coming over. They ended up in the smackdown of the year right in the middle of the living room and then clambered over each other to get to the door when the bell rang. And Kelley says it took her a few deep breaths and a glass of wine to let it all go and enjoy the moment, but now she and Laura and their families are trading messy dinner parties every month. Host a messy dinner. See your friends more often.[5]

This is the kind of home Jesus is welcomed into – a family’s home. Sisters and a brother. The one they thought they’d lost, now suddenly back with them. And this Jesus, whom they love as their own, is sitting at their table. Historian and scholar Justo Gonzalez offers a great reminder:

In the midst of a pragmatic society, we wish to be efficient, to make certain that everything counts and that there is no waste. In the church we look for responsible budgets that make the best possible use of every cent. This is a requirement of responsible stewardship. However, for this to be true Christian stewardship it must be founded not primarily on efficiency but on an overwhelming love that leads to what others may consider mere waste…. Mary spills her perfume with wild abandon for no other reason than this: Jesus is there. There is no calculation here, no consideration for efficiency, no sense that this is a waste. There is nothing but sheer love and gratitude for what Jesus has done.[6]

What we see in this generous outpouring of perfume, of love, is also an outpouring of faithfulness and discipleship. It is instinctive and natural, and every bit the storge love of the Greeks. Jesus raising Lazarus shows the fullness of life available with God; Mary’s anointing shows the fullness of discipleship, what it means to serve and follow entirely.[7]

It is messy and hard and imperfect and sometimes just awful and sometimes only occasionally right. But it is, somehow, ‘a grace upon grace kind of love.’ We love family into their future, even when that future is uncertain, whether that future is painful or wonderful, or first one and then the other. We love them into their future. And they love us into ours.

[1] Karoline Lewis, Dear Working Preacher 4-1-19 https://www.workingpreacher.org/craft.aspx?post=5309
[2] Ross Kraemer, ‘Jewish Family Life in the First Century CE’, The Jewish Annotated New Testament (Oxford, 2011) p537-540.
[3] Peter Woods, The Listening Hermit, https://thelisteninghermit.com/2010/03/15/
[4] Gail R O’Day, ‘John’, The Women’s Bible Commentary (WJK 1992), p299-300
[5] https://www.mothering.com/articles/host-crappy-dinner-see-friends-often/
[6] Justo Gonzalez, ‘Living By The Word’, The Christian Century, 3/5/19 https://www.christiancentury.org/article/living-word/april-7-fifth-sunday-lent-john-121-8
[7] paraphrasing Gail O’ Day, ‘John’, The New Interpreter’s Bible Commentary, p703