Proper 17
Preaching
Preaching And Reading The Old Testament Lessons
With an Eye to the New
By this text we begin expositions of some of the Writings of the Old Testament, with which we will deal for the next nine Sundays. It is good that a passage from the Song of Solomon is included, because it gives the preacher the opportunity to deal with the important topic of love and marriage, subjects that are of endless fascination to our society.
The Song of Solomon (sometimes called the Song of Songs, which means "the best song") is a collection of folk, romantic, often sensual love poems, stemming from a number of authors. The book has no apparent order, and its date and place of origin are uncertain. All scholars are agreed that the author was not Solomon. The speakers in the book's dialogues and monologues are not named.
The collection was incorporated into the Hebrew canon very late by means of allegorical interpretation, the lovers in the poems being understood as God and Israel. Christians later understood the poems to reflect the love between Christ and his church, or Christ and the individual Christian. Indeed, sermons have been preached from that standpoint, stressing that the yearning of a young lover for his beloved should be the yearning we have for God, manifested in attentive faithfulness and service. The best course, however, is for the preacher to understand the text exactly as it was intended, as the portrait of a young man calling his beloved to come away with him to a lover's tryst.
Anyone who has ever been in love can empathize with the portrayal in the text. It is the spring of the year, when the mating call of the turtledove is heard in the land (erroneously read as "turtle" in the KJV). A young man in the vigor and bloom of youth runs across the hills to his lover's house and stands outside her window, calling her to come out and away with him. The scene is one of flowers and song and eager love.
That such a collection of love poems stands in our scripture is a testimony to the fact that throughout the Bible, the desire of the sexes for one another, the body, and physical love in marriage are understood as good gifts of a loving God. Such a view is found already in Genesis 2. The church of the Early and Middle Ages went far astray when it elevated celibacy to a superior spiritual state, viewed sexual desire as a sin, and regarded sexual intercourse between marital partners as an instrument only for the purpose of procreation. Fortunately, most denominations now recognize marital conjugality as a means of refreshment, joy, and unity given by God to the wedded relationship. Certainly they are part of what God considers when he sees all that he has made, and behold, "it was very good" (Genesis 1:31).
Like all of the good gifts of God, however, the Lord gives sexuality within his ordained limits. Every gift of God can be corrupted. Work can be turned into drudgery and toil apart from any sabbath rest; food can become a source of obesity or anxiety; the beauty of the natural world can be spoiled by greed and corruption. And so too sexual relations can be spoiled by lust, by pre--marital affairs and adultery, by awful perversions, by being used as instruments of power and even advertising. When God's commands for the limitation of sex to the marital relation are ignored and when it is used for everything except for an expression of faithful love and unity between wife and husband, then there result the catastrophes that we see daily in our society - broken marriages, broken hearts, single parents, abortions, poverty, venereal diseases. God is the Lord also over sexual desire and consummation, and obedience to his will in the use of our sexuality is the sole way to the abundant joy that he has intended for us in our wedded love.
Lutheran Option: Deuteronomy 4:1--2, 6--9
The seventh century B.C. Book of Deuteronomy looks back on Israel's history and places Israel once more before Moses, to recall all of God's gracious deeds toward his people, to hear God's covenant commands to his chosen folk, and to renew them in the covenant which they have with their God. In our text, Israel stands in the land of Moab, on the eastern side of the Jordan River, before crossing into the promised land. Moses therefore adjures the people not to add to God's commandments nor to slight any one of them, in order that their life may be long in the land that God is giving them. In short, Deuteronomy is understood as the canon, as the final version of the law, that is, of God's "teaching" (which is what "torah" means) for Israel.
To emphasize the importance of following God's instruction, the omitted part of our text, verses 3--5, recalls the incident at Shittim, when Israel worshiped the pagan god Baal--peor and brought upon itself a terrible plague (Numbers 25:1--9). Disobedience has awful consequences.
We are inclined to view that in legalistic terms. However, our text has a view of God's commandments and teachings which breaks all the bounds of legalism. Verses 6--9 in our text state that in his commandments, God is near his people and goes with them. The torah is not a dead legalism for Israel, but the embodiment of the living presence of God. Through his word of commandment, God speaks personally to Israel. He is incarnated in his word. He is there among his folk. Just as our Lord Christ was the incarnation of the Word of God, so the Word of God is the incarnation of God's presence, and Israel is accompanied and led and guided. And that accompaniment is a sheer act of grace on God's part. He does not leave his people alone, to find their own way and to stumble around in the dark. God goes with them in his Word.
Surely that is the same grace that we experience when we read and are absorbed in the scriptures. Through his written word, God draws personally near to us, and speaks to us by his Holy Spirit, and guides and leads us in his way that leads to life abundant and joy and peace passing understanding.
Indeed, that is the way we should view God's commandments and teachings preserved for us in the scriptures, not as empty legalisms which we must obey in order to be pleasing in God's sight. Rather, we should see them as the loving guides that God continues to give us in our lives that have already been redeemed and justified by Jesus Christ. We already are acceptable to God, not because of what we do, but because of what Christ Jesus has done for us! But now, in this new life that we have been given by our Lord, the Father does not desert us and leave us alone to stumble along blindly. Rather, he continues to go with us, through his words of commandments and teachings, pointing the way, strengthening our steps, leading us continually, until we enter once and for all into his eternal kingdom. God's commandments are his acts of grace, given to us because he loves us and wants us to have abundant life.
The Song of Solomon (sometimes called the Song of Songs, which means "the best song") is a collection of folk, romantic, often sensual love poems, stemming from a number of authors. The book has no apparent order, and its date and place of origin are uncertain. All scholars are agreed that the author was not Solomon. The speakers in the book's dialogues and monologues are not named.
The collection was incorporated into the Hebrew canon very late by means of allegorical interpretation, the lovers in the poems being understood as God and Israel. Christians later understood the poems to reflect the love between Christ and his church, or Christ and the individual Christian. Indeed, sermons have been preached from that standpoint, stressing that the yearning of a young lover for his beloved should be the yearning we have for God, manifested in attentive faithfulness and service. The best course, however, is for the preacher to understand the text exactly as it was intended, as the portrait of a young man calling his beloved to come away with him to a lover's tryst.
Anyone who has ever been in love can empathize with the portrayal in the text. It is the spring of the year, when the mating call of the turtledove is heard in the land (erroneously read as "turtle" in the KJV). A young man in the vigor and bloom of youth runs across the hills to his lover's house and stands outside her window, calling her to come out and away with him. The scene is one of flowers and song and eager love.
That such a collection of love poems stands in our scripture is a testimony to the fact that throughout the Bible, the desire of the sexes for one another, the body, and physical love in marriage are understood as good gifts of a loving God. Such a view is found already in Genesis 2. The church of the Early and Middle Ages went far astray when it elevated celibacy to a superior spiritual state, viewed sexual desire as a sin, and regarded sexual intercourse between marital partners as an instrument only for the purpose of procreation. Fortunately, most denominations now recognize marital conjugality as a means of refreshment, joy, and unity given by God to the wedded relationship. Certainly they are part of what God considers when he sees all that he has made, and behold, "it was very good" (Genesis 1:31).
Like all of the good gifts of God, however, the Lord gives sexuality within his ordained limits. Every gift of God can be corrupted. Work can be turned into drudgery and toil apart from any sabbath rest; food can become a source of obesity or anxiety; the beauty of the natural world can be spoiled by greed and corruption. And so too sexual relations can be spoiled by lust, by pre--marital affairs and adultery, by awful perversions, by being used as instruments of power and even advertising. When God's commands for the limitation of sex to the marital relation are ignored and when it is used for everything except for an expression of faithful love and unity between wife and husband, then there result the catastrophes that we see daily in our society - broken marriages, broken hearts, single parents, abortions, poverty, venereal diseases. God is the Lord also over sexual desire and consummation, and obedience to his will in the use of our sexuality is the sole way to the abundant joy that he has intended for us in our wedded love.
Lutheran Option: Deuteronomy 4:1--2, 6--9
The seventh century B.C. Book of Deuteronomy looks back on Israel's history and places Israel once more before Moses, to recall all of God's gracious deeds toward his people, to hear God's covenant commands to his chosen folk, and to renew them in the covenant which they have with their God. In our text, Israel stands in the land of Moab, on the eastern side of the Jordan River, before crossing into the promised land. Moses therefore adjures the people not to add to God's commandments nor to slight any one of them, in order that their life may be long in the land that God is giving them. In short, Deuteronomy is understood as the canon, as the final version of the law, that is, of God's "teaching" (which is what "torah" means) for Israel.
To emphasize the importance of following God's instruction, the omitted part of our text, verses 3--5, recalls the incident at Shittim, when Israel worshiped the pagan god Baal--peor and brought upon itself a terrible plague (Numbers 25:1--9). Disobedience has awful consequences.
We are inclined to view that in legalistic terms. However, our text has a view of God's commandments and teachings which breaks all the bounds of legalism. Verses 6--9 in our text state that in his commandments, God is near his people and goes with them. The torah is not a dead legalism for Israel, but the embodiment of the living presence of God. Through his word of commandment, God speaks personally to Israel. He is incarnated in his word. He is there among his folk. Just as our Lord Christ was the incarnation of the Word of God, so the Word of God is the incarnation of God's presence, and Israel is accompanied and led and guided. And that accompaniment is a sheer act of grace on God's part. He does not leave his people alone, to find their own way and to stumble around in the dark. God goes with them in his Word.
Surely that is the same grace that we experience when we read and are absorbed in the scriptures. Through his written word, God draws personally near to us, and speaks to us by his Holy Spirit, and guides and leads us in his way that leads to life abundant and joy and peace passing understanding.
Indeed, that is the way we should view God's commandments and teachings preserved for us in the scriptures, not as empty legalisms which we must obey in order to be pleasing in God's sight. Rather, we should see them as the loving guides that God continues to give us in our lives that have already been redeemed and justified by Jesus Christ. We already are acceptable to God, not because of what we do, but because of what Christ Jesus has done for us! But now, in this new life that we have been given by our Lord, the Father does not desert us and leave us alone to stumble along blindly. Rather, he continues to go with us, through his words of commandments and teachings, pointing the way, strengthening our steps, leading us continually, until we enter once and for all into his eternal kingdom. God's commandments are his acts of grace, given to us because he loves us and wants us to have abundant life.
