**sermon art: The Song of Songs by Elena Kotliarker

Caitlin Trussell with Augustana Lutheran Church on September 1, 2024

[sermon begins after two Bible readings; the James reading is at the end of the sermon]

Song of Songs (Solomon) 7:8-13

⁸The voice of my beloved!
Look, he comes,
leaping upon the mountains,
bounding over the hills.
⁹My beloved is like a gazelle
or a young stag.
Look, there he stands
behind our wall,
gazing in at the windows,
looking through the lattice.
¹⁰My beloved speaks and says to me:
“Arise, my love, my fair one,
and come away;
¹¹for now the winter is past,
the rain is over and gone.
¹²The flowers appear on the earth;
the time of singing has come,
and the voice of the turtledove
is heard in our land.
¹³The fig tree puts forth its figs,
and the vines are in blossom;
they give forth fragrance.
Arise, my love, my fair one,
and come away.”

Mark 7:1-7, 14-16, 20-23  Now when the Pharisees and some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem gathered around [Jesus], ²they noticed that some of his disciples were eating with defiled hands, that is, without washing them. ³(For the Pharisees, and all the Jews, do not eat unless they thoroughly wash their hands, thus observing the tradition of the elders; ⁴and they do not eat anything from the market unless they wash it; and there are also many other traditions that they observe, the washing of cups, pots, and bronze kettles.) ⁵So the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, “Why do your disciples not live according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?” ⁶He said to them, “Isaiah prophesied rightly about you hypocrites, as it is written,
‘This people honors me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me;
⁷in vain do they worship me,
teaching human precepts as doctrines.’
⁸You abandon the commandment of God and hold to human tradition.”
¹⁴Then he called the crowd again and said to them, “Listen to me, all of you, and understand: ¹⁵there is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things that come out are what defile.
²¹“For it is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come: fornication, theft, murder, ²²adultery, avarice, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride, folly. ²³All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.”

[sermon begins]

“We give you thanks, O God, for in the beginning your Spirit moved over the waters and by your Word you created the world, calling forth life in which you took delight.”

Delight! There’s a happy thought. God’s delight. We hear that line regularly in worship at Augustana during a baptismal prayer in which we celebrate God’s delight in created life. Through the waters of baptism God draws us into God’s delight. It’s easy to miss that message because we the church often focus on the sin that draws us from God. We open worship with confessions about how we fall short. Rightly so. God’s grace is to be celebrated in the face of the darkness we inflict on each other and on ourselves. We would be remiss if we didn’t acknowledge our individual and collective contributions to the world’s chaos and take action to make amends and try not only to not hurt people but help them. But today’s Song of Solomon reading reminds us that delight is part of the human experience. Give it a read. It’s short. The book’s title is better translated Song of Songs. Think of it as a best of the best, like King of Kings or Lord of Lords or holiest of holies.[1] The G.O.A.T. – the Greatest of All Time – Song.

Song of Songs is erotic poetry that delights in life, love and bodies. The church over time has tried to shift from the personal ardor of the song by applying the book as a metaphor for God’s love and delight in the Jewish people (named the people Israel in the Older Testament) or Jesus as the bridegroom in mystical union with the bride of the church. That’s all well and good. Metaphor away. Good poetry is perfect for metaphoric use. But let’s take the song at its word for a moment. What would the world look like without the church’s long practice of shame when it comes to bodies and sexuality? What would it look like if the Puritans who colonized America hadn’t held the power of the pulpit and the town square, laying the foundation for a culture of shame about bodies that prevails today. A culture simultaneously suspicious of real beauty while creating impossible ideals AND fearful of bestowing a benediction on anything that might be contrary to God’s delight. Almost like we’re afraid that God’s grace isn’t powerful or unconditional enough to forgive the relational sins that Jesus lists – “fornication, theft, murder, adultery, avarice, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride, folly.” This list is what happens when we lose ourselves in self-absorption over and against loving our neighbor as ourselves.

These hurtful behaviors are what happens when the commandments aren’t followed, and we break our relational obligations to each other. As Christians, we hear Paul’s letters in the Bible separating the law from salvation to the point that we forget that the law’s intention is life-giving. Christian scripture often reminds us that God’s relationship with us does not depend on tallying up points in our favor by following the law. God’s relationship with us depends on God’s goodness first and not our own achievements of obedience.

Lists like these are supposed to help us figure out where our behavior is going sideways. They help us take stock of how we’re living the way of Jesus. But rather than turning them inward to shine a light into our own darkness, church types throughout the centuries have turned them outward to shame other people and expel them from the very faith communities in which we try and fail and try again. Jesus’ list helps to take stock of our relationship with God and each other. There’s no doubt that our baptism in Christ calls us to an obedient life that shuns sin and shines love.

Song of Songs, the whole book, may help us take a step closer to healing the damage done when religion treats sexuality and spirituality as if they are mutually exclusive.[2] Too much of a good thing can obviously be a bad thing – see  Jesus’ list again as a reference. But as the one who turned water into wine at a wedding, Jesus is clearly NOT anti-fun.[3] We even have this book in the Bible – Song of Songs – that spotlights the delight of our embodied humanity. God created us to reflect God’s sheer delight into the world.[4]

It’s easy to see how puritanical pontificating became a thing. All we have to do is look at the book of James. We’re in the first of five weeks of James’ readings during Sunday worship. Go ahead and read that book, too. It’s five brief chapters that are kind of like the book of Proverbs or wisdom literature in the Old Testament. Be advised, these blurbs about right living are delivered with strong words and consequences. If you were handed the book of James as your introduction to the Bible, you might pause to wonder who could possibly attain the pure life it demands. Lutheran Christians can struggle with James because it leads with action, calling for obedient action as evidence of a living faith. Martin Luther even called it the “epistle of straw” for its lack of emphasis on grace.

It’s not clear who James was written for, but it seems to be written as encouragement for a group of Jesus followers who are at risk from a hostile ruling class.[5] And the encouragement towards obedience and action seems intended to connect thoughts about faith with living the faith. It’s easier to be quiet than to live out our faith with courage. The book of James challenges us to be more than hearers of the word by becoming doers of the word. We know from experience that our hearts contain more than the sins listed in Mark. Humans are creatures capable of great compassion, courage, and care.

James connects those positive actions of the heart with God when he writes that, “Every generous act of giving, with every gift, is from above, coming down from the Father of lights.”  We’ll be talking more about that next week on “God’s work. Our hands.” Sunday, and we’ll be doing more about that when we repackage rice and beans for MetroCaring’s grocery store.[6]

Echoing Jesus in the gospels, James has similar concerns about justice and about what comes from the heart.[7] James is not wrong. It is often the longing of our hearts that misdirects us. It DOES take spiritual discipline and often some arguably miserable mistakes to change our hearts. Baptism assures us that we daily die and rise into the way of Jesus and his unconditional grace. Surrendering to the God who delights in life, in our lives, may be a place to start over Labor Day weekend when it’s easy to create a false choice between work and rest. We Christians can take anything and everything, especially ourselves, so seriously. It’s good to be reminded that God delights in life and that the Bible’s complexity includes assurance that our bodies are created for good and even for delight. Blessed assurance, indeed.

Song after the Sermon

Blessed Assurance (ELW 638)

1. Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine!
   Oh, what a foretaste of glory divine!
   Heir of salvation, purchase of God,
   Born of His Spirit, washed in His blood.
   • Refrain:
     This is my story, this is my song,
     Praising my Savior all the day long;
     This is my story, this is my song,
     Praising my Savior all the day long.
2. Perfect submission, perfect delight,
   Visions of rapture now burst on my sight;
   Angels, descending, bring from above
   Echoes of mercy, whispers of love.
3. Perfect submission, all is at rest,
   I in my Savior am happy and blest,
   Watching and waiting, looking above,
   Filled with His goodness, lost in His love.

__________________________________________________

[1] Joy J. Moore, Professor of Biblical Preaching, Luther Seminary, St. Paul, MN. Discussion of Bible readings for Sunday, September 1, 2024. Working Preacher’s Sermon Brainwave: #980: Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost (Ord. 22B) – September 1, 2024 (libsyn.com)

[2] Matt Skinner, Professor of New Testament, Luther Seminary, St. Paul, MN. Discussion of Bible readings for Sunday, September 1, 2024. Working Preacher’s Sermon Brainwave: #980: Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost (Ord. 22B) – September 1, 2024 (libsyn.com)

[3] John 2:1-11

[4] Skinner, Ibid.

[5] Matthew Skinner, Professor of New Testament, Luther Seminary, St. Paul, MN. Sermon Brainwave Podcast for Lectionary Texts for the Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost on August 29, 2021. https://www.workingpreacher.org/podcasts/799-14th-sunday-after-pentecost-ord-22b-aug-29-2021

[6] MetroCaring.org

[7] Moore, Ibid.

___________________________________________________

James 1:17-27 Every generous act of giving, with every perfect gift, is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. ¹⁸In fulfillment of his own purpose he gave us birth by the word of truth, so that we would become a kind of first fruits of his creatures.
¹⁹You must understand this, my beloved: let everyone be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger; ²⁰for your anger does not produce God’s righteousness. ²¹Therefore rid yourselves of all sordidness and rank growth of wickedness, and welcome with meekness the implanted word that has the power to save your souls.
²²But be doers of the word, and not merely hearers who deceive themselves. ²³For if any are hearers of the word and not doers, they are like those who look at themselves in a mirror; ²⁴for they look at themselves and, on going away, immediately forget what they were like. ²⁵But those who look into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and persevere, being not hearers who forget but doers who act—they will be blessed in their doing.
²⁶If any think they are religious, and do not bridle their tongues but deceive their hearts, their religion is worthless. ²⁷Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.