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August 30, 2009

The Joy of Love

“My beloved is like a gazelle or a young stag . . . My beloved speaks and says to me, ‘Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away.’” (Song of Solomon 2:9, 10). 

“What in the world is this doing in the Bible?” That is actually a fairly common reaction to a first encounter with the Song of Solomon or the Song of Songs. A love song between a man and a woman full of lush and sometimes erotic imagery hardly seems appropriate for Sunday worship. The Book begins, “Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth: for (his) love is better than wine.” 

There is no indication that the lovers in this Song are married. They discuss each other’s bodies in some detail. Their desire and passion ooze from the pages. The book doesn’t even have the decency to mention the name of God. This section of our Bible is a celebration of human love with poetry, reveling in romance and sensuality and even sexuality. 

Yet as James reminds us every good action and every perfect gift is from God. So while God is never explicitly named in the Song of Solomon, God’s delight and creativity saturate every verse and are embedded in each fleshy word. The Book is here to remind us that the sacred goodness and joy and delight and pleasure of our sexuality have been implanted in our bodies by God. Our sexuality is a precious gift—a gift to be lived out responsibly and joyfully to the glory of God. 

Now there are some who would say we should not talk about sex in church. I would respectfully disagree. I think for too long we have avoided talking about sex in church.  We have argued about homosexuality but we really haven’t talked about human sexuality—as an amazing gift from our creator.

 We are all sexual creatures. We are living in a world where the sexual messages can be confusing and misleading. The Bible can be used to proof text anything from total lifelong abstinence to polygamy or communal orgies. This leaves people wondering. Do we agree with the puritanical folks who equate sex with sin and try to control sexual behavior with guilt and shame? Or do we just accept the attitudes of the current culture—using sex to sell everything from cars to hamburgers and allowing everyone to make their own behavioral choices?

 There is a great deal of room between “Just say no” and “Have it your way” and I believe scripture as a whole calls us to some place in between. 

It has been said that theologically speaking human sexuality is “most fundamentally the divine invitation to find our destinies not in loneliness but in deep connection.” (September-October, Sojourners magazine, p.21) 

Sex is like any other gift from God. The gift is good, always. But because we are humanwe are able to use it in ways that are not so good. So how do we know the good from the bad, the right from the wrong?

 I wrestle with these situations, as I’m sure many of you do. But the context of real people’s real sexual lives has led me to a place where I am not always sure about what God forbids. But I do think I know in my body and in my soul what God celebrates. I believe we are called to relationships that glorify and enjoy God with the full worship of our bodies.

 The gift of sexuality is about reflecting the image of God in us by desiring the joy of the one we desire. It is about shaping erotic love with agape love—healing and enlarging the life of the other, even at the cost of sacrificing our own needs. Sacred sexuality is about sharing our bodies in the context of covenant. That means a faithful and monogamous and enduring relationship that reflects the dependable fidelity of our utterly faithful God. 

 The quality of our sexual relationships ought to reflect the quality of God’s relationship with us.

 That means sexual behavior that exhibits power over the other, sexual behavior that focuses on me instead of thee, sexual behavior that hides in the shadows of shame instead of unfolding in the sunshine of God’s delight—such behaviors are not part of God’s plan for us. If we are going to celebrate the amazing gift of sexuality, we must be faithful to God’s intention. 

 As Rowan Williams put it, we are called to relationships that “heal and enlarge the life of the other.”

 I believe we, as Christians in this day and age, must say clearly that prostitution, promiscuity, adultery, pedophilia, clergy sexual misconduct, patriarchal or abusive relationships, teenage sexual experimentation, “hooking up” for casual sex—these behaviors are not good, not because they break some antiquated rule, but because they do not heal and enlarge the other—because they do not honor the faithfulness and fidelity of covenant, because they do not glorify God with our hearts and with our bodies.

 God’s great gift of physical love comes wrapped in a moral and a spiritual love.

 If sexual intimacy happens for us at all, if it is to be life giving, it cannot be separated from emotional intimacy or intellectual intimacy or spiritual intimacy. We need to be loved, to be understood, to be accepted, and to be cared about. We need to be taken seriously, to have our thoughts and feelings respected and to be trusted. (Willard Krabill)

 We need to know our companions will be there for us when we really need them. That sort of intimacy can be embraced by young and old, gay and straight, married and single.  (Sojourners, p.27)

 When we really look at scripture, we see Jesus did not seem to concern himself with rules for human sexual behavior. He did concern himself with the formation of deep, meaningful, committed, intimate relationships.

 We are called to strive for such intimacy in our lives: intimacy with others and with God.  All the while we are called to celebrate the amazing gift we have been given, the gift that is sacred and precious, the gift that offers delight and contentment, the gift of sexuality that is ours for pleasure and for joy.

 Those who are caught up in such a love with another human being, those in relationship with their beloved, will often catch a fragmentary, often fleeting glimpse of the love God has for God’s beloved. God loves us that much. Christ loves each of us as if we were the only one. In the words of the human lover we can hear, if we are attentive, the deeper echoes of another invitation: “Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away.”  (“Reveling in Romance,” Christian Century, August 10, 1994 by Martin Copenhaver)

 Amen.


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