Fifteen years ago, a friend of mine Jen bought her husband Mike a first

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Jonah Webb
5 years ago
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1 Love In Bloom: On Shovels and the Rose of Sharon Song of Solomon 2:1-15 Matthew 22:37-39 June 12, 2016 I HATE THIS GIFT! Fifteen years ago, a friend of mine Jen bought her husband Mike a first anniversary gift. (SHOW THE SHOVEL) How do you think Mike liked that gift? Mike posted about that first anniversary on Facebook this week. He said, She wanted to surprise me, so she wrapped the shovel to look like a rake. When I opened it up, I tried to fake it. But she could see my bewilderment and disappointment. Why in the world did she buy me a shovel? Now can t you just imagine this conversation between newlyweds: Mike said: Jen said: Mike said: It s a shovel. You don t like it do you? No, no. It s a well, it s a nice shovel. Sometimes we received unwanted, unexpected, unexplainable gifts. Mike new Jen was giving him this shovel with all sincerity but at the time he could not figure it out. Perhaps you have a story like this As much as we can laugh about a story like this now that it is in the past in the present moment such an incomprehensible gift causes pain, distance, confusion, and even alienation in a relationship. Telling the story, Mike continued in his Facebook post by saying, Let s just say dinner was awkward that night. Can t you just feel that disconnect? SONG OF SONGS Today we read a scripture verse from the Song of Songs from the Old Testament.

2 I have to tell you, in fifteen plus years of pastoral ministry, I have never preached on the Song of Songs. On that day last week when I was surfing the Internet, mulling over my friend s anniversary story about the shovel I opened the Writer s Almanac to read the daily poem. Usually the featured poet is a contemporary author, occasionally Shakespeare or Emily Dickinson, but last week good ole Garrison Keillor featured this love poem from chapter 2 of the Song of Songs. Perhaps, we might say that in the whole of the Old and Testament scriptures all 66 books of the Bible that the Song of Songs FEELS like an incomprehensible gift. We read it, and we don t quite get it. (Maybe you can sense that from the slide on the screen painted by Marc Chagall of the Song of Songs.) Perhaps its incomprehensible because its ancient poetry and so it speaks to a different mindset. Perhaps its incomprehensible because its love poetry and so it feels too intimate, and we feel voyeuristic when we enter in. Perhaps its incomprehensible because the book never directly names GOD. Like the book of Esther which also doesn t name God it infers a divine presence. Maybe its incomprehensible because we need more clarity. Others might say its incomprehensible because its in a women s voice unmediated by a male narrator. For these reasons, and others, Song of Songs was almost not included in the whole of scripture. It was almost left on the cutting board of the canonization process. Someone fought for its inclusion. And that someone must have understood there is a gift in this text that needs to be dug up, you might even say, shoveled out. I love how the the text begins a conversation between two folks in love you might say it s a little bit different than that first anniversary conversation about the shovel. I am the rose of Sharon. A lily of the valley. The woman begins. Her love responds, Like a lily among thornbushes, so is my dearest among women. This is no awkward anniversary conversation. As we listen in to this intimate conversation, we begin to realize the GIFT this conversation reveals. This unfolding conversation about human love, is a rhetorical strategy, to point to the incomprehensible gift of God s love.

3 God s love for his covenant community, God s love for Israel, God s love for you and me - is this rich, this abundant, this rich, this flourishing! Its inclusion in scripture is an invitation to see God s love in bloom. The problem is that all too often what is given to us as a COVENANTAL anniversary gift is all too often seen as a shovel. We don t get it. We dismiss these words as cheezy love poetry rather than the expression of God s love for us. If we dig a little deeper in this text we might just unearth some wisdom for us today. GOD S GIFT OF LOVE This week, Backyard Bible School begins. Debbie and other members of the Christian education ministry team have been working hard to prepare for young hearts to encounter Jesus on the corner of faith and life. If there is one hope this church has for their time together my thought is that our kids would know God s love for them in Jesus Christ. We get a glimpse of that love here in verse 4. His banner over me is love. For our children, that is what we want them to know the most in a world that sometimes makes us feel unlovable. For us here today, we gather as a community of Christ to remind each other of this deep truth. Take a moment, turn to your neighbor and say: Even when you feel unlovable God s banner over you is love. I invite you to take note of four things LOVE DOES in this text and to consider what these might mean for you, and for the life and ministry of this church: Love creates anticipation. Verses 8-9 Do you hear the joyful anticipation in verses 8 and 9 Love leaps, bounds, stands, peers and peeks in the thought of that great love s arrival creates anticipation. Life is not stagnant. Life is not status quo. Life in Christ is not cynical. This love of God at play in our world creates the anticipation and hope that Christ is on the move. Love calls us to arise, and go. Verse 10

4 When that love arrives to our hearts and spirits, we are called then, to arise. To get up. I love the language of verse 10. Rise up my dearest, my fairest, and go. When this incomprehensible gift is taken to heart, we are moved to get up from our comfort zones and step into the streets and onto the corner of faith and life. Love calls us to authenticity. Verse 14 So there is anticipation. There is the call to arise. And there is authenticity the voice that is heard in this text the voice hidden in the cliff face of verse 12 invites us to hear the depth of authentic love. And to bear witness to those voices of authentic love in our culture. Wouldn t the news at eleven p.m. be different if we heard each night a story of authentic love? Deep and abiding resurrection love? What stories would be told? What story would you tell? Love produces abundance. Verse 15 The vision we are left with in verse 15 is the landscape of an abundant vineyard in bloom. Sure there are foxes those pesky creatures that can destroy the landscape of authentic love but all the more, there is the organic beauty and verdancy of a vineyard. When the incomprehensible gift of God s love is finally realized and received something happens the desert around us has blossoms, a fig tree, grapevines, roses of Sharon, lilies of the valley, an apple tree. There are gazelles. Stags. Turtledoves. You see in scripture, the plain of Sharon, was a desert. This abundance was a miracle. God s love produced blooms and abundance in the most unexpected place. For us, listening here today, in the town of Sharon we know deserted places. We know the deserted warehouse of Westinghouse, we know the deserted factories of the steel companies. We know streets that look different because this community has lost half its size due to corporate restructuring. One of the reasons why God s gift of love is so incomprehensible in this passage is that we could hardly imagine that abundance coming to life right here. The woman s voice in this text makes just this kind of claim I AM the rose of Sharon. God s love has blossomed in me, and changed me. I am no longer a desert place. And God might use even me to bring abundant life. NOW, ABOUT THAT SHOVEL

5 When we finally come to terms with those incomprehensible gifts in our lives stuff gets unearthed. Listen to how Mike describes his coming to terms with that shovel in his life I wish I could go back and smack my younger self up the side of the head. Because as I ve gotten older, I finally realized the real gift that my wife was giving me. You see, my wife is a perfectionist. She always puts a lot of thought and prayer into the perfect gift. I understand that gift now, now that we ve planted flowers around our first apartment with that shovel. We mixed cement as we took youth on mission trips. We planted shrubs around new homes each time we ve moved in. We planted strawberry plants that we would later hold hands and watch our son squeal with delight every time he found a red strawberry ripe and ready to pick. Some of my wife s favorite childhood memories were in a garden or planting flowers with her dad. The shovel was a gift of love. It was an invitation to share that love with her, to work alongside of her, it was an invitation for her to be mine, and for me to be hers. I just didn t get it back then. Mike concludes unfortunately fifteen years ago, I was a big dummy, but if I had that moment all over again I d say to her, A SHOVEL! WOW! This gift is more than I deserve. This present is absolutely perfect. LOVE IN BLOOM IN SHARON, PA Do you see how that anniversary gift the one Mike didn t understand has now become a daily invitation. To authentic love. To abundant love. To anticipate what might grown next. And then to arise, together, and to go plant. And to think, he almost didn t get it. That would have made for fifteen years of awkward dinner conversations. When we yield to the incomprehensible gift of God s love - when we pick up that shovel ourselves what might begin to bloom under our feet? Right here on the plain of Sharon?

Lesson 23. Song of Solomon part 1. Chapters 1 3:5

Lesson 23. Song of Solomon part 1. Chapters 1 3:5 Lesson 23 Song of Solomon part 1 Chapters 1 3:5 1. Whose song is this? (S of S 1:1) 2. Write Ephesians 5:17 here. God put this book into the Bible. He inspired its writing. Let s see what we can do to