Proper 9/Pentecost 7/Ordinary Time 14
Preaching
Hear My Voice
Preaching The Lectionary Psalms for Cycles A, B, C
Object:
Today the lectionary identifies a second, alternative psalm selection besides the Psalm 45:10-17 royal-wedding passage. Both have evidently been chosen to illuminate the First Lesson, which tells of the courtship and marriage of Isaac and Rebekah.
Due to our tradition's historic discomfort with matters of sexuality, the Song Of Solomon is one of the most neglected of biblical books. Today the lectionary offers a rare opportunity to preach on this beautiful but little-known love-poem.
The attribution of authorship by Solomon is undoubtedly spurious. Much of the wisdom literature of the Old Testament has been attributed to Solomon at one time or another, with little basis in fact. This is because Solomon is himself the prototypical biblical image of a wise king. At a certain time in Israel's history, to identify Solomon as the author of a text was a shorthand way of saying it was wisdom literature.
With the Song Of Solomon, however -- unlike Proverbs and other wisdom books -- the Solomonic attribution has stuck. That is surely because, once the Solomonic attribution is removed, the question remains of who did write it -- which begs the further question of what sacred use is this lyrical love-poem, which glorifies the spiritual and physical attraction between men and women.
To generations of Christians, the Song Of Solomon has been a kind of embarrassment. It is one of only two books in the Bible that never mention God (the other one is Esther). Yet the real cause for embarrassment is the Song of Song's subject matter.
There is a story from the high school I attended that illustrates this. A few readers may remember the days of daily Bible reading in public schools. I don't, personally -- I'm too young -- but I do remember a story one of my teachers told me.
It was school tradition, in those days, to have a different student read each week from the Bible as part of the opening exercises. The chosen student was given free rein to pick any passage at all. Few students paid much attention to that disembodied voice, crackling out of the public address system.
It was already Wednesday or Thursday of that particular week, before some students began to sit up at their homeroom desks and take notice of the words they were hearing, in the venerable King James Version:
How beautiful are thy feet with shoes, O prince's daughter! The joints of thy thighs are like jewels ... Thy navel is like a round goblet, which wanteth not liquor; thy belly is like a heap of wheat set about with lilies. Thy two breasts are like two young roes that are twins. Thy neck is as a tower of ivory...
The effect of those words, I'm told, on a schoolful of adolescents first thing in the morning, was -- shall we say -- memorable. Let's just say the reading did little to encourage concentration in geometry class.
There's more to the story. By order of the principal, the student reader was instantly sacked -- despite his fervent protests that all he'd been doing was reading from the Bible. From that day forward, until the Supreme Court banned school Bible reading altogether, students at the Toms River High School of Toms River, New Jersey, read from assigned passages. Dangerous stuff, those Bible verses!
During the Middle Ages, biblical scholars went to elaborate lengths to interpret the Song Of Solomon as entirely symbolic. Some taught that it was really about the soul's relationship with God. Others claimed it was about God's love for the Virgin Mary. If, say these medieval scholars, we think we hear echoes in this poem of lovers sighing to each other in a moonlit glade, we ought to think again. When we hear the woman's voice crooning, "Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth! For your love is better than wine ..." all this is a kind of secret code for an earnest and devout -- and thoroughly respectable -- piety.
Such explanations are highly doubtful. What possible reason could the anonymous author have for hiding religious sentiment behind steamy love-poetry?
We need to take the Song Of Solomon at face value. This collection of poetry joyfully celebrates committed love -- on every level, including the physical -- as a wonderful and perfect gift of God. Such is a message we would all do well to rediscover, in this era when our society is veering erratically between the extremes of utter repression on the one hand and pornography on the other. There is a middle ground, and the Song Of Solomon can lead us there.
-- C. W.
Due to our tradition's historic discomfort with matters of sexuality, the Song Of Solomon is one of the most neglected of biblical books. Today the lectionary offers a rare opportunity to preach on this beautiful but little-known love-poem.
The attribution of authorship by Solomon is undoubtedly spurious. Much of the wisdom literature of the Old Testament has been attributed to Solomon at one time or another, with little basis in fact. This is because Solomon is himself the prototypical biblical image of a wise king. At a certain time in Israel's history, to identify Solomon as the author of a text was a shorthand way of saying it was wisdom literature.
With the Song Of Solomon, however -- unlike Proverbs and other wisdom books -- the Solomonic attribution has stuck. That is surely because, once the Solomonic attribution is removed, the question remains of who did write it -- which begs the further question of what sacred use is this lyrical love-poem, which glorifies the spiritual and physical attraction between men and women.
To generations of Christians, the Song Of Solomon has been a kind of embarrassment. It is one of only two books in the Bible that never mention God (the other one is Esther). Yet the real cause for embarrassment is the Song of Song's subject matter.
There is a story from the high school I attended that illustrates this. A few readers may remember the days of daily Bible reading in public schools. I don't, personally -- I'm too young -- but I do remember a story one of my teachers told me.
It was school tradition, in those days, to have a different student read each week from the Bible as part of the opening exercises. The chosen student was given free rein to pick any passage at all. Few students paid much attention to that disembodied voice, crackling out of the public address system.
It was already Wednesday or Thursday of that particular week, before some students began to sit up at their homeroom desks and take notice of the words they were hearing, in the venerable King James Version:
How beautiful are thy feet with shoes, O prince's daughter! The joints of thy thighs are like jewels ... Thy navel is like a round goblet, which wanteth not liquor; thy belly is like a heap of wheat set about with lilies. Thy two breasts are like two young roes that are twins. Thy neck is as a tower of ivory...
The effect of those words, I'm told, on a schoolful of adolescents first thing in the morning, was -- shall we say -- memorable. Let's just say the reading did little to encourage concentration in geometry class.
There's more to the story. By order of the principal, the student reader was instantly sacked -- despite his fervent protests that all he'd been doing was reading from the Bible. From that day forward, until the Supreme Court banned school Bible reading altogether, students at the Toms River High School of Toms River, New Jersey, read from assigned passages. Dangerous stuff, those Bible verses!
During the Middle Ages, biblical scholars went to elaborate lengths to interpret the Song Of Solomon as entirely symbolic. Some taught that it was really about the soul's relationship with God. Others claimed it was about God's love for the Virgin Mary. If, say these medieval scholars, we think we hear echoes in this poem of lovers sighing to each other in a moonlit glade, we ought to think again. When we hear the woman's voice crooning, "Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth! For your love is better than wine ..." all this is a kind of secret code for an earnest and devout -- and thoroughly respectable -- piety.
Such explanations are highly doubtful. What possible reason could the anonymous author have for hiding religious sentiment behind steamy love-poetry?
We need to take the Song Of Solomon at face value. This collection of poetry joyfully celebrates committed love -- on every level, including the physical -- as a wonderful and perfect gift of God. Such is a message we would all do well to rediscover, in this era when our society is veering erratically between the extremes of utter repression on the one hand and pornography on the other. There is a middle ground, and the Song Of Solomon can lead us there.
-- C. W.
