“Love that Will Not Let Us Go” Song of Solomon 2:10-13; 8:6-7

 For the last several weeks, we have been journey together through poetry and wisdom writing looking at Proverbs and Ecclesiastes - these beautiful and powerful writing from Solomon, pouring out of the blessing of wisdom that God had bestowed upon him. As we wrap us this short sermon series today, we look to another book of poetry, but one that we may not know as well, The Song of Solomon. 

Before we jump in, a brief Bible lesson. While all scripture is inspired by God, it is communicated in different times, contexts, and styles. What do I mean by that? Well, the Bible wasn’t written all at once. Which leads to there being different circumstances around each proclamation - different reasons God communicated it to the people. But each of the 66 books of the Bible also fall into different styles. Some are history books. Others letters. Still others, like today, are books of poetry. Now why do I say that? Because friends do you read a history book the same way you would read a letter? Or a letter the same way you would read poetry? Of course not! We miss something about scripture when we forget the time, context, and/ or style. 

We especially need to remember that today, because we may not be as familiar with the Song of Solomon as we are with Proverbs or Ecclesiastes. I shared last week, that sometimes we try to relegate Ecclesiastes, especially the 3rd chapter, to funerals. But we do that same thing with the entirety of the Song of Solomon, since it most often makes an appearance in worship and preaching at weddings, if at all. 

So a bit of background. The Song of Solomon is a poem that expresses the love of two people in ancient Israel. It was written during the reign of Solomon, but we aren’t sure if he wrote it, since it is radically different from the two other books that bear his name. He may have. He may have not written it but oversaw its composition. We aren’t sure. 

The couple featured in the poem are a shepherd and shepherdess who are looking forward to what is to come with marriage. I would call this young love. That type of love that sweeps people off of their feet and makes them feel like they are at the top of the world. In the poem they are having a conversation about their love and the excitement about what is to come, back and forth. But the shepherdess also tells the other young women around to not seek out love just for love’s sake, but to wait for it’s perfect timing. 

Friends, I have such a deep appreciation for poetry. Some of my favorite books are those of poetry, that I take with me when visiting folks on hospice and use to help center times of discussion for classes. Because poetry moves beyond simple facts to try to put words to concepts that are difficult to explain. Like truth, beauty, and love. 

So here in Song of Solomon, the poet is trying to capture something about the meaning of love and the experience of being in love.  But poetry also makes us think. It is often pointing us to something deeper beyond the words. 

In the sections of Song of Solomon that we heard today, we start with the courting phase. When two young people are caught up in the excitement of love. One says to the other, its time. The harshness of winter is fading away. Things are starting to bloom - you can smell them in the fields. It’s time to come away. 

Which leads me to ask, what is this season inviting the couple to? This season of courtship and excitement. This season of the freshness of love?

Then in the second piece of scripture, they are entering into marriage. One says to another to this form of a vow. I promise that our love will not be overcome or bought or traded, because it is the seal that is upon our hearts.

Which leads me to ask - how does the couple intend to fulfill this vow - to live into it, not just when it is easy, but on the hard days as well. 

But poetry isn’t just about the story that is being told or even the deeper truths of things that are hard for us to articulate, like love. They also invite us to continual examination. A good poem is one that you come back to time and time again because it makes you think. 

And friends, this poem isn’t just about a young couple in love. It’s supposed to get us thinking, as the people of God about the love of God. Here is this couple who are caught up in the season of love, but have you ever been caught up in the season of love with God? Do you know what I’m talking about? When your encounter with God is so new, so fresh, that it burns like a fire within you? You want to tell everyone who will listen about God’s love and how it’s changed you. 

But we also don’t stay in that season forever. We sink into the love of God in a way where it becomes familiar. We are still passionate. We still love God. But we get into the daily life of living with God and some of that zeal about telling others about God seems to slip away. 

If we go through seasons with other people, and that is our frame of reference for our relationship with God, then of course we go through seasons in our relationship with the Lord. Ones of passion. Others of curiosity. Still others of familiarity. Maybe even some where we don’t feel as close as we once were. 

As we asked earlier what this season for the couple in Song of Solomon invited them to - I wonder, friends, what season you are in with the Lord and what that invites you to as well? What is God saying to you in this season and how are you being invited to respond? 

Then when we get to chapter 8, with the couple making this vow, I am reminded of the vows we make throughout our lives. These deep promises - for example those that we make when we become members of a local church to support the body of Christ with our prayers, presence, gifts, service and witness. When we make those vows, it is such a day of celebration! But that doesn’t mean that they are always easy, when life’s responsibilities ramp up or we aren’t sure how to live into those vows at this season in our lives. 

It is easy to make promises. It is harder to keep them. 

Which makes me wonder, as with the couple in the poem, what promises you have made to God and how are you doing living into the vow? How can we support you as the church? How can we walk beside one another on this journey?

A lot of folks will tell me that they don’t like poetry. It’s too many words or it doesn’t make sense. But friends, poetry, good poetry, invites us to look deeply into our lives. So as you do so this week with the Song of Solomon, may you reflect on your love, but even more so, the never ending love of God. Amen. 

“Life and Life Abundant" Ecclesiastes 1:1-11; 3:1-17, Mark 8:35-37

  “For everything there is a season.” Words that we freely quote from Ecclesiastes when we are grieving. Or perhaps, when we are accompanying someone else grieving. We want them to be words of comfort. This is just the season that you find yourself in right now. You won’t feel like this forever. 

But I wonder if that is the context that Solomon, this man of great wisdom, meant these words to be relegated to. Now don’t understand me. They are beautiful words and amongst my favorite to preach at funerals. But I wonder if they also open up more to us. If they can also be a blessing in other seasons of life. 

As I worked on this sermon, I was also knee deep in a final paper that is the cultimation of my studies at Fordham. The topic of that paper - how we can accompany people in the midst of grief. Some of you know that grief is something that has deeply touched my life over the last several years. I lost my grandfather, one my absolutely favorite people in the world, to COVID in 2021. One of my deep saddnesses is that you did not get a chance to meet him here at Juniata, because it was’t uncommon for him to just show up some, if not most Sundays, to spend time with me and get to know my congregations on Sunday morning. 

Losing my grandpa was not the first loss in my life, but it was perhaps one that hit me the hardest. Because of its sudden nature. Because of the deep love that I have for him. And because people who I had been walking with for years as their pastor struggled to come up with the words to say against the chasm of my grief. I don’t fault them - they were trying - but hearing “at least he’s not suffering anymore” and “he’s in a better place” when just two weeks prior he was happily working 60 plus hours a week, didn’t offer me comfort or companionship in my grief. 

But something that has come out of all that situation is a firmer resolve to be with people in grief. It’s what lead me to volunteer with hospice and to help families create legacy projects to remember their loved ones. Because I want to share this message that we grieve because of our capacity to love and to live. 

Which I wonder if was on Solomon’s heart as he penned these words of wisdom. The first words put on the page is that everything in just a vanity. We do the same things day in and day out and nothing seems to change. We never seem to get ahead. Not the words that we expect from Solomon. Certainly nothing like what we heard just two weeks ago from Proverbs. Which leads me to ask - why? Why would Solomon write something like this?

When held with the beauty of the words we remember from Ecclesiastes I wonder if he was in the midst of grief. Have you been there, friends? Where nothing seems to make sense? Where you yearn for the world to be different and that isn’t what you are seeing yet? 

But for Solomon this wasn’t the end. Because just a few lines later he comes to the conclusion that while life may seem to be a struggle, it isn’t everything. It isn’t the totality of our reality. Because while this time may be difficult, there will also be times of joy. And dancing. And celebration. 

Now notice what Solomon does not say. He does not demand that people transition from one season to another on his timing. He does not ask for performative joy to make other people comfortable. He simply acknowledge that for every season there is another season to come. 

And friends, for me that is hope.

Hope the world and our work in it isn’t in vain. Hope that grief will not last forever. Hope that tomorrow is coming, even if we do not know what tomorrow holds. 

This doesn’t mean that we “get over” our grief. But it does mean that it changes over time. One of the pictures that I find meaning in to illustrate grief is that of a ball inside of a series of container. In the first container the ball takes up almost all of the space. Over a series of images, the ball itself doesn’t change, but the container around it becomes bigger and bigger, making its presence feel different. 

The container of the season changes. That is hope. 

Jesus continues this theme of vanities and the seasons of life when he stated these words that we often proclaim at funerals - that those who want to save their life will lose it and those who lose their life for his sake will save it. What is Jesus trying to say? That life has a deeper, richer meaning then we may even be able to recognize. 

We think that applies to those who are martyred for the faith - and that is true, but friends it is so much more than that. Think of the familiar words to the hymn “I Surrender All”, “All to Jesus, I surrender. All to him I freely give.” When we freely give all we have and all we are to Christ for the sake of the Kingdom, that is an act of laying our lives aside for the sake of the Gospel. Its handing our lives over to God and saying, not my will, but thine will be done. May I be lifted high for thee, or laid aside for thee - in the words of the Covenant Prayer written by John Wesley. The problem comes when we still try to hold tightly on to our lives. To our idea of how our lives should be that we become blindsided by the seasons, and thus lose sight of the hope. 

Sometimes I like to Zoom out in scripture and see how it fits into the larger context. Like how Ecclesiastes 1 and Ecclesiastes 3 may be related. And when I zoom out with the Gospel of Mark and look at the entire 8th chapter - I see the disciples living into a season that doesn’t make sense to them. Jesus feeds the 4,000. The pharisees test Jesus. Jesus heals the blind man at Bethsaida. Peter declaring that Jesus is the Messiah. Jesus telling his disciples that he is going to die. And then this powerful moment of transfiguration. 

Now we don’t know exactly how many days all of those things occurred over, but I would imagine that the disciples felt that their season was a whirlwind. Or a roller coaster. But that season, it was only temporary - at least in that day. Because it isn’t too much later in the Gospel of Mark that Jesus lays down his life and is raised from the dead, ushering in a whole new season that he was trying to talk about in Mark 8.

Friends, life is messy. But if that is where you find yourself today - know that the mess is temporary. Life is full of grief and dancing, shouts of joy and tears of pain. What makes it life is all of those pieces coming together. But what brings hope into all of it, is handing our life - all of it - into the hands of Jesus. Being honest that we don’t always like it or understand, but trusting that Jesus is the Lord of life and redemption. And that more is to come - in and through him. Amen.