St. Gregory’s Church Woodstock
Sunday 30 August, 2009, Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost
The Rev’d Susan Auchincloss
Preparing for today's sermon, I made an
exciting discovery: there is such a thing as evolution. What is more, it is
happening within the church. Rather than telling you what is evolving,
though; let me share with you my process of discovery. Then let's see if some of
us don't leave here this morning, powdered all over with a new pollen of hope.
A process of discovery often starts with suspicion. Where, I asked myself, did
that reading from the Song of Songs come from? I had never seen a reading
assigned from the Song of Songs before, and that is after twenty five years of
preaching. I went to the Episcopal lectionary to check my memory. Sure enough!
In the entire lectionary – that is, fifty two Sundays in three year cycles, plus
some Feast Days and Holy Days; so in other words, well over 156 readings from
the Hebrew Bible – in that entire lectionary not once did the Song of Songs turn
up. What changed? A few years ago the Church switched to a new lectionary.
If you go by today's reading, you might be tempted to say so what? What's the
big deal about adding a reading from the Song of Songs? First, it tells us there
is such a book. We might never know of it otherwise. It is not only among the
shortest books in the Bible, but it is tucked away between Ecclesiastes and
Isaiah – two giants. Second, the Song of Songs is not just biblical Hallmark, as
you might think from today's reading. Listen to this, for instance, from Chapter
Seven where God says, “How graceful are your feet in sandals, O queenly maiden!
Your rounded thighs are like jewels, the work of a master hand. Your navel is a
rounded bowl that never lacks mixed wine. Your belly is a heap of wheat,
encircled with lilies. Your two breasts are like two fawns, twins of a
gazelle.... You are stately as a palm tree, and your breasts are like its
clusters. I say I will climb the palm tree and lay hold of its branches.” What's
this? Erotic poetry in the Bible! Who knew?
That's just it. Many of us know the Bible only through the Sunday readings.
Until this change of lectionaries, few of us would have heard of the Song of
Songs – except perhaps at weddings. Once we have heard of it, we might
seek it out. Then we might start asking questions. The Church had no answers,
and so she turned her back on the whole matter. What changed? The Church is
beginning to have answers, and that, it seems to me, is evolution.
When I say evolution, I mean just what the dictionary says: the gradual
development of something from a simple to a more complex form. The Church's
faith is evolving. Perhaps at the most primitive level we saw God as Law-giver
and then added God as Parent, then God as Healer, then God as Friend. With each
addition, the gap between us and God grew narrower. Of course, we never outgrow
the need for all of these facets of God. For instance, at that ethical
line where avoiding taxes can shade over into evading taxes, I need to remember
God as law-giver. When my bid to join a club meets with rejection, I turn to God
as parent to regain a sense of belonging and worth. Or if I feel sick and my
energy fails me, I turn to God as healer, knowing that God answers prayers for
healing. And finally, when I just want to share my soul, I turn to God as
Friend, as we contemplate a sunset together, or a piece of music or an insight.
For many of us God also comes in a fifth guise, God as Victim. This fifth
'face', so to speak, was scarcely allowable until after the Holocaust. But then
people looked at horrors that numbed their minds and asked, “Where was God?”
Only one answer met their need. God cried out from behind the chain link fence.
Not everyone can encompass the thought of God as Victim; yet for those who can,
when we hear the cries of the suffering or see the plight of the oppressed our
hearts goes out to them as to God. So however we may define the faces of God,
the truth is this: God meets our need for God at every point.
Can we take this further? Clearly we can, and individuals have been doing this
for thousands of years; that is, finding God as lover, as the Song of Songs so
beautifully shows. Wouldn't it be strange to have a place for God in every room
in our house, and then close the door on God as we enter the bedroom? Wouldn't
it be strange not to have a place for God when we enter into our
tenderest and fiercest emotions and our most intimate imagination? That would be
strange, but perhaps not strange that we speak of it so seldom.
Some writers compare the Song of Songs to the Holy of Holies in the Temple. You
may remember how the Temple was constructed in the form of one courtyard within
another. The largest and outermost, called the Court of the Gentiles, was open
to everyone. Within it lay the Court of the Women, where only Jews might enter.
Within that lay the Court of the Israelites, exclusively for Jewish men. Within
that lay the court of the Priests; and within that, the smallest in terms
of square feet, lay the Holy of Holies, to be entered only by the High Priest
and then only once a year. God as Lover, by its very nature, must be the most
sacred face of God.
When we do enter the Holy of Holies, however, we encounter a paradox. The
further in we penetrate, the less exclusive we become. Here, in this innermost
sanctum, we may discover and mix with people of different faiths. Jews familiar
with the Song of Songs might encounter St. Teresa of Avila and St. John of the
Cross, whom Christians remember, at least in part, for their love poetry. Here
is a poem of St. Teresa's:
Just these two words He spoke changed my life, “Enjoy Me.”
What a burden I thought I was to carry – a crucifix, as did He.
Love once said to me, “I know a song, would you like to hear it?”
And laughter came from every brick on the street and from every pore in the sky.
After a night of prayer, He changed my life when He sang, “Enjoy Me.”
Muslims, too, can be found there, such as the Sufi poet, Rumi. Listen to what he
calls his first love story:
When I heard my first love story, I started looking for you,
Not knowing how wrong that was.
Lovers don't finally meet somewhere; they're in each other all along.
People of all faiths speak erotic love poetry. It is our one common language.
Where else should we look if we want to heal the divisions and dissension
between faiths? We won't find it through endlessly seeking justice or through
mutually agreeable theologies. But perhaps we could begin where our voices blend
in singing, at the Song of Songs. The church, at last, seems ready to move in
this direction. We have acknowledged, formally and officially, through the new
lectionary, what many individuals have known all along: that this dimension of
faith exists, that it is a valid form of practice. This evolution holds great
hope; for when have human beings ever conducted hostilities from within their
lover's arms? Who has ever made war in the midst of hearing this intimate
whisper, “Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away... the time of singing has
come... the vines are in blossom; they give forth fragrance. Arise, my love, my
fair one, and come away.”?