Song of
Songs 3:1-5
Sunday August 2, 2015
First Congregational United
Church of Christ – Sermon by Rev. Caela Simmons Wood
Author
Glennon Melton blogs at Momastery.com and is the author of Carry On, Warrior: The Power of Embracing Your Messy, Beautiful Life.
She’s also a part of the United Church of Christ and often writes about her
experiences at her church in Florida.
Back
in 2014, Melton wrote a post on her blog called “The Lie and the Truth About
Marriage.”[1]
The lie is that marriage is an easy five-step process that begins with meeting
“the one,” culminates in a wedding (a.k.a. “the finish line”) and ends in
“happily ever after.”
Melton
contrasts this with the way it has worked in her own life, which she describes
in a 21 step process, beginning with “meeting a special one” and moving into a wedding (which is actually just
the starting line). Along the way, she describes the panic that sets in when
she began to realize that the butterfly feelings were gone and that marriage
isn’t just happily ever after, after all.
Flummoxed,
she tries to see if there’s some way to get out of marriage, only to discover
that’s also a lot of hard work. So she resolves to ask for help – reading
books, talking to counselors, talking to her partner, listening to wise
friends. Eventually, she discovers this: REAL LOVE IS NOT A
FLUTTERY FEELING, IT’S NOT BUTTERFLIES. It’s not pink. It’s not glittery. It’s
not fluffy. It’s not even all that exciting, on the surface. Love looks like
work. It’s utterly intimidating and exhausting. REAL LOVE IS A DAILY DECISION
TO GET TO WORK. LOVE IS WORK DONE BY TIRED, HOPEFUL, ORDINARY FOLKS.”
We all have different experiences of being in love. And
here I’m not just talking about the romantic love shared between people. I also
mean loving our parents, our children, our friends, our siblings. Some
experiences of being in relationship are easier than others, but at some time
or another, any long-term relationship is going to have some challenges.
Unfortunately, since we often don’t talk about our challenges publicly, many
people think they are doing something wrong when they first run into a rough
patch. Please note: there is a difference between a rough patch and emotional,
sexual, or physical abuse. If you’re in a difficult relationship and if you’re
not sure if it’s regular ups-and-downs or something more serious, please come
and talk to me or someone else you trust.
The lovers in the Song of Songs are in an idyllic world.
They don’t seem to have jobs or bills to worry about. There are no
middle-of-the-night wakings to feed babies or change diapers. No one discovers
they are sick or has medical bills hanging over their head. No one loses their
job or gets kicked out of the house by mom and dad. There is ample time for
singing songs of love in a beautiful, peaceful setting. It seems a bit like
paradise.
And, yet, even in this seemingly-perfect world, the lovers
do run into difficulties. There are several middle-of-the-night sequences where
the woman is looking for the man and cannot find him. The man comes to her door
and knocks, but by the time she gets up to answer, he is gone, and she is
bereft. On more than one occasion, she takes to the streets in the middle of
the night, looking for her love. This is no small act. A woman, alone, on the
city streets at night was a very risky thing in her world. In fact, in one of
the instances, the sentinels of the city actually beat her and strip away some
of her clothing. In seeking love, she is wounded.
Love is not always safe.
In other instances, the lovers show us how mysterious and
challenging love can be. Even for two people who are so devoted to one another,
so filled with mutual respect and adoration, there are still problems. Harvard
biblical scholar Stephanie Paulsell notes that as intimate as they are, the lovers
sometimes question each other: Who are you? Where are you? Why can’t I find
you? Paulsell explains, “No matter how intimate we are with one another, no
matter how well we are acquainted with every inch of our beloved’s skin, we
remain mysteries to one another.”[2]
There is no way to ever know another human being 100%. In
fact, there may not even be a way to ever know ourselves 100%. We always run
the risk of being surprised – in wonderful and horrifying ways – both by our
own actions and the actions of those we love.
Loves is a beautiful thing…but it can also be risky. We
can get hurt. The actions of someone we thought we really understood can
surprise and shock us. The very people we trust can suddenly turn on us and be
filled with anger and hate. And even when a relationship is working, we are
still at risk. We can lose the ones we love. And it’s not fair. It truly isn’t.
It’s a part of being human….this loving and risking pain.
Loving God is also hard work. I feel like everything
Glennon Melton said about marriage could easily be translated into the
Christian life. The easy version is that you find Jesus, fall in love with
Jesus, give your life over to Christ (a.k.a. “cross the finish line”) and live
happily ever after in a glowing halo of godly love and wisdom.
The reality, of course, is usually quite different. Many
of us are born into the Christian faith and spend our lives coming closer to
God and then further away. We go through long periods where we hardly think
about Jesus at all. We get mad at God or annoyed with God. We ask questions and
find no answers. We seek God with all our heart, stumbling through the streets
to find God in the middle of the night and feel like God is elusive….nowhere to
be found.
Loving God is a beautiful thing…but it can also be risky.
We can get hurt. We think we understand who God is and how God works…only to
discover we’ve got it all wrong. We call out to God for help…only to feel like
our prayers are unheard. We lose our faith, all the while watching others who
seem to have it all figured out. And it’s not fair. It truly isn’t. It’s a part
of being human…this loving God and risking pain.
And then there’s the small point of how difficult it is to
be in relationship with a person like Jesus. Some of the things he says make no
sense. And then some of the things he says make perfect sense…only we don’t
really want to hear them.
When he says to sell everything and follow him? That’s
easy enough to understand, but harder to do. When he explains that the Realm of
God is a place where the last are first, the lost are found, and the least are
treated like royalty? Easy enough to understand, but hard to believe. When he
walks with purpose towards sudden death and encourages us to take up our own
cross and follow him? It’s very clear what he’s asking us to do, but, boy
howdy, we don’t much want to do it.
Loving Jesus is a beautiful thing…but it can also be
risky.
You know, we like to say that God is love. And when we say
that, I think we often mean the cuddly, warm-fuzzy, beautiful, easy parts of
love. The fairy tale.
But just as love is beautiful and God is beautiful….love
is also hard and scary and risky. And God is also all of those things. We could
spend an entire lifetime trying to live into a fuller love of God and still
feel a little lost at sea. It’s hard work to love another human – flesh and
blood that we can see, and ask questions of, and talk to face-to-face. It’s a
whole other level of hard to love God – this amorphous spirit that can never
fully be known, the One who comes to us in conflicting stories, the One who
confounded our ancestors and confounds us still today.
And so, my friends, I want to say this to you today: thank
you for staying in the game. Thank you for continuing to reach out in love to
your friends, neighbors, enemies, and God. Loving is hard work. In a world
where it is truly counter-cultural at times to continue this lifelong struggle
to be in relationship with God, I give thanks that you haven’t given up.
I truly do believe that God is reaching out to us in love
– even now, even here. When we throw a tantrum, when we cry tears of
frustration, when we walk away from God for years or decades, God is still
there, reaching out to us in love. Isn’t that astounding? I think Brother Paul
had it right about at least one thing: There is nothing we can do that can
separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus.
Wow. Amen.
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