Sunday, July 26, 2015
First Congregational United Church of Christ – Sermon by Rev.
Caela Simmons Wood
All three of these
people have something in common.
A woman is on a
bumpy flight. There has been turbulence since take off. It’s a dark and stormy
night and lightning flashes outside. The plane circles the airport, waiting for
the right time to land. The woman squeezes her eyes tight and says a prayer as
they begin their descent. A few bumps and jolts and finally, the plane touches
down. There is an audible sigh of relief throughout the cabin.
A little boy of 3 or
4 runs and plays at the playground. He climbs up a tall ladder halfway and then
decides he wants to come back down. Slowly, slowly, he inches back towards the
ground, gripping the ladder rungs for dear life. As he gets to the last rung,
his foot searches and reaches for the ground. Finally, his toe touches, he
jumps down, and is off running again.
An older child is
splashing at the city pool. Feeling brave she decides to doggie-paddle out into
the deeper water for the first time. She walks out to where her feet can barely
touch – she’s standing on tiptoes now. She begins to paddle out a bit into
deeper water. When her arms tire, she puts her feet back down but they won’t
reach. Looking a little panicked, she paddles back to the shallower water. Toes
touch and then she is flat footed. She smiles.
Sometimes, what we need
the very most is to be on solid ground.
When there’s a storm
in our soul, when we climb a little higher than we meant to, or swim out a
little further than we intended….sometimes what we really crave is to be
grounded. To put both feet firmly on solid ground and to rest assured that the
world is still spinning, gravity is still pulling, and we are still exactly
where we are supposed to be.
When our lives are
thrown off-kilter, what is it that calls us back to ourselves? When our toes
reach out for solid ground, what are they reaching toward? Where are we rooted?
What is our foundation?
Sometimes we are
tossed and thrown about by something major: a diagnosis, an accident, a death,
an arrest, a divorce, a sudden change in financial stability. And even good
news can be disorienting: a new job, a move across the country, a new love, a
new life, winning the lottery. Stress is stress, whether it’s caused by good news
or bad news. Our bodies register it in the same way.
And then there are
the little things that disorient us each and every day. Henri Nouwen, that wise
Catholic priest and scholar, speaks about these little things in his tiny book Making All Things New, published in
1981. Nouwen says we human beings are creatures who are often occupied and
preoccupied by many things. He writes of all the tiny things that make up our
days and keep us busy: phone calls, tasks on a to do list, projects to finish,
appointments to keep. Nouwen says:
In
our production-oriented society, being busy, having an occupation, has become
one of the main ways, if not the main
way of identifying ourselves. Without an occupation, not just our economic
security but our very identity is endangered. This explains the great fear with
which many people face their retirement. After all, who are when we when no
longer have an occupation?[1]
He continues on to describe
our tendency to be pre-occupied. We
“fill our time and place long before we are there,”[2] he says. We “what if”
ourselves to death, wondering about the possibility of things that might occur as some point in the future. “Much, if not most, of our suffering is
connected with these preoccupations,”[3] Nouwen says, and I feel
him speaking a word of truth into my life.
In the midst of all
that occupies and preoccupies us, how do we stay grounded? That’s the great
mystery, right? What calls us back to ourselves and reminds us of who we are
and whose we are? Nouwen says that as all these things compete for our time and
attention, the answer is not to shut ourselves away and ignore the whole world
around us. Instead, he says, “Jesus’s response to our worry-filled lives is
quite different. He asks us to shift the point of gravity, to relocate the
center of our attention, to change our priorities.”[4]
If you’ve ever
fallen in love, you know that there are few things that shift our point of
gravity, relocate the center of our attention, or change our priorities quite
as immensely as falling in love. Whether it’s a passionate head-over-heals
romantic love, the love that we feel for a newborn baby, or the love that we
experience when we are born-again and come to Christ for the first time….love
is love, and it is certainly jarring and disorienting.
The lovers in the
Song of Songs recognize this. They often speak of being disoriented, thrown off
kilter by their feelings for one another.
But there are also
moments where it is very clear that the experience of loving one another
grounds them in a very real way. The lovers are lost in one another, but in
giving themselves over to their desire, they find their way back to a centering
place. Their feet touch solid ground and they turn outward to the world around
them, re-centered and ready to engage with the wider world.
A few months ago, I
was in a conversation with some clergy colleagues about sexual ethics and my
wise friend the Rev. Eliza Buchakjian-Tweedy
said this about determining
whether a sexual relationship is ethical: “My general test is whether a relationship, however it's
constructed, turns people to the larger community in love and service, or turns
people inward. Does the relationship take love and grow and spread it? Is there
trust and mutuality that extends beyond the relationship? Do we, who witness,
become better and more loving people for the example of love before us?”
Does the relationship
turn us outward to the larger community? Does the relationship ground us more
fully and help us spread our roots so we can grow together and share that love
with the rest of the world? When I officiate a wedding, I always ask the
couples a similar question. I say, “Do you promise to share
the love you have found together in order to be instruments of healing and hope
for the world around you?”
It is clear that the lovers in the Song of Song are turned outward. They
are lost in one another, yes, but they are also out and about in the world.
Today we read the words together, “Our couch is green, the beams of our house
are cedar, our rafters are pine.” The lovers are rooted in the natural world.
Throughout the Song they use poetic, beautiful descriptions of the natural
world as they profess their love for one another. They are connected to the
changing of the seasons, saying, “The winter is past, the rain is over and
gone. The flowers appear on the earth; the time of singing has come.”[5]
Now maybe they are
outside on their green couch in nature because that’s the easiest place for
them to slip away for a rendezvous unnoticed. But we also know that they are
able to sneak around in their mothers’ homes, so I don’t think that’s the only
reason they choose to meet up in nature. Instead, I think there is something
about contemplating the beauty of another human being that turns us outward. We
gaze into our lover’s eyes or smell the sweet smell of a baby’s breath and our
senses are captivated. We are more receptive to the wider world around us. We
notice the smell of lilacs on the breeze, or the crunch of dry leaves under our
feet. We linger for a moment to watch the sunset rather than rushing into our
house at the end of the day.
When we are grounded
– rooted firmly in love, we find ourselves turning outward, ready to enter into
relationship with the wider world. When we care deeply for another human being,
we often find ourselves ready and willing to care for more people or to care
more intentionally for the earth. Isn’t that funny? You’d think that when you
give love away, you’d run low…but, instead, loving seems to lead to more
loving.
Stephanie Paulsell,
the Harvard professor whose work on the Song of Songs has guided our sermon
series this summer, says this of the lovers in the Song:
The
care that the lovers take with one another in their loving seems to grow
organically out of their care for the life of the earth that makes a home for
their love. …. They bring their love in line with the rhythms of the earth. …
The tender care they give to budding plants is the same care they give to one
another. [6]
Although
we do not live in a world of pomegranates and figs and gazelles bounding over
mountains, we do live in our own natural world. We live in the world of prairie
chickens and coyotes and little bluestem. A world of creeks (or “cricks”) and
turkey buzzards and tomatoes and cicadas.
Paulsell says that
praying the Song and being aware of the way the lovers are turned outward can
help us. In a society where we are often taught to control and bend nature for
our needs, the Song can help us remember that are partners with the natural
world. We can listen to the call of the lovers in the Song – calling us to come
outside and see what’s new in our world. Calling us to stop and look at the
coneflower, to squint our eyes for the dots of color that the sumac creates on
the distant hills, to gaze in wonder at the mushrooms that spring up overnight
just outside our office door.
In a world where we
are occupied and pre-occupied with so many things, the lovers in the Song of
Songs are a model for us. They remind us of the goodness that can come from
setting aside our to-do lists and simply enjoying the company of another human
being. And they remind us that the best relationships are the ones that turn us
outward, making us more aware of the world around us.
The Song of Songs is
an invitation to return to our roots. To re-ground ourselves and remember our
foundation. When we set aside the distractions of the day and remember that we
are grounded in God’s eternal love and care, that we are called beloved by God,
that we are invited into relationships of joy and care with God, humanity, and
the natural world….when we ground ourselves in those truths we are restored,
renewed, and turned outward to offer our own love and care to the world around
us. Thanks be to God.
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