"Arise My Love, My Fair One" (Sermon)

Two Rivers Pastoral Charge
Sunday July 13 and 20, 2025
Scripture Reading:  Song of Solomon 2:8-17 and 8:6-7a


Usually in the summer time around here, we have a bit of fun with our bible readings and sermons.  We go off-lectionary – we turn away from the 3-year cycle of readings that is used by many churches and denominations around the world – and do something a bit different.  Each summer we have a different theme, and this summer’s theme is, “Wait?! What?! That’s in the bible???”

And this week, we begin this theme with a bit of romantic love poetry!  If you were to read the Song of Solomon (sometimes called the Song of Songs) from beginning to end, it is an 8-chapter love poem, alternating between the voices of two lovers.  They praise each other’s beauty and strength.  They speak of how they long to sneak away to be together.  They share memories of the times they have spent together.  Some parts of it are… how shall I say… quite explicit.  We’ve stuck with some of the more tame parts of the book for today, in order to keep this church service PG.

Some couples have a practice of reading the Song of Solomon to each other, as it stands up well as love poetry.  When I was preparing todays service, and trying to figure out what I would do for the Story for All Ages, one suggestion I came across was to ask a couple in the congregation to stand up and read it to each other, back-and-forth.  I thought of doing that, but I didn’t want to put [name and name] on the spot!

It is also interesting to note that God’s name does not appear anywhere in the Song of Solomon – any of God’s names.  And yet every version of the bible includes this book – there is no debate around including the Song of Solomon in the official canon of the bible.

One of the ancient church fathers wrote a series of sermons on the Song of Solomon in the last years of his life.  Gregory of Nyssa lived in Cappadocia in what would be modern-day Turkey in the 300s, and was a bishop in the very early church.  In the last four years of his life, he wrote a series of 15 sermons on the Song of Solomon, and still felt like he had only scratched the surface.  So what is it, about a short book of romantic love poetry that never mentions God that could captivate the spiritual imagination an elderly bishop this way?

Gregory of Nyssa’s approach was to interpret the Song of Solomon as an allegory – that the love shared between the lovers in the poem was referring to the love between God and God’s people.  That the exuberant, all-encompassing love that lovers share with each other is the same as the love that God has for people, and that we people have for God.  And in the richness of love that is found in this poem, Gregory of Nyssa found the richness of God’s love.

So on one hand, we have a beautiful love poem between two people – a poem that begins:  “Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth!  For your love is better than wine.”  A poem that continues:  “My beloved speaks and says to me: ‘Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away.’”  A poem that continues:  “I am my beloved’s and his desire is for me. Come, my beloved, let us go forth into the fields.”  A poem that ends:  “For love is as strong as death, passion fierce as the grave. Many waters cannot quench love, neither can floods drown it.”

On one hand, we have this beautiful love poem between two people; and on the other hand, we have an allegorical reading of it, that says that this poem is all about God’s love for God’s people, and the love of the people for God.  So which one is it?

To which I answer, why can’t it be both?

The bible tells us that God is love.  God doesn’t just feel love, God doesn’t just do love, but God is love.  If we believe in a God whose very nature, whose very essence is love, then all of the love that we have for one another is part of God. One of the hymns from More Voices that we aren’t singing today ends each verse with “God is where love is for love is of God.”

Which makes the Song of Solomon a both-and poem.  Yes, it is a beautiful love poem between two people.  And yes, it is a poem about God because God is present in the love that the two people share.  For God is love.

In all of the different loves that we experience and that we witness, God is present.  God is present in the romantic love between two lovers.  God is present in the love that a parent has for a child.  God is present in the love that siblings and cousins have for each other.  God is present in the love that is shared in communities, like the community of this church.  God is present in the love shared between best friends.  God is present when we love ourselves.  All of these different types of love are reflections of the beautiful love of God that includes every colour on the spectrum.

The poem ends with the permanence of love.  “For love is as strong as death.”  I might take it one step further and say that love is not just as strong as death, but love is stronger than death.  For even when it seems as though death has had the final word, love endures.  Something that I say at most funerals is that love never ends.  Even though we can’t see our loved ones any more, even though we can’t reach out and touch them, all of the love that they had for us, and all of the love that we have for them – this love isn’t going anywhere.  Love is stronger than death, and love never ends.

We are about to build our bouquet of memories.  We will be adding flowers to this bouquet for the loved ones we carry in our hearts.  And as we add the flowers, I invite you to hold on to the love that you carry.  Wrap the love around the person you love, but also let the love wrap around you too.  And when we are done, we’ll not only have a bouquet of memories, but this space that we are in will be filled with so much love that I wouldn’t be surprised if the air starts humming and vibrating with it.

We’ll begin by adding flowers for the people from this church community who have died in the past year, and then there will be an opportunity for all of us to come forward to add a flower for the people we carry in our hearts.

(invite the congregation to build bouquet of memories now)

Building our Bouquet of Memores

“We remember [name], and hold his/her family and loved ones in prayer.”

 

 

Bouquet of Memories
Long Reach United Church
July 20, 2025
(I probably should have moved the offering plate
before taking the picture!)