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Sermon by The Rev Fred Kinsey, "Afraid to Ask"

9/24/2018

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Readings for the 18th Sunday after Pentecost, September 23, 2018

  • Proverbs 31:10-31 and Psalm 1  
  • James 3:13 - 4:3, 7-8a  
  • Mark 9:30-37

Afraid to Ask, Pastor Fred​
Last week we talked about the turning point that chapter 8 is in Mark’s gospel.  Geographically, it’s the mid-way point for Jesus and his disciples going from Galilee in the north of Israel, to his final journey going south to the region of Judea and finally to Jerusalem, which would be his last or Passion week. 
 
‘Who do people say that I am,’ and, ’who do you say that I am,’ Jesus asked?  And Peter – inspired – comes up with the title of ‘Messiah’ for Jesus, though Jesus likes to refer to himself as ‘the Son of Man,’ and began to teach the 12 about what it means to be the long-expected Messiah, the Son of Man, the Human One.
 
At this turning point, Jesus delivers the first of, three, Passion Predictions in Mark’s gospel.  All very similar – one in chapter 8, one in chapter 9, and the last in chapter 10.  After each of the 3 descriptions of his ‘suffering, death and resurrection,’ the disciples demonstrate that they have not yet understood what this means, because it’s so far from what they, and everyone else, expected.    
 
So today, we hear the 2nd Passion prediction.  (In case you’re wondering, our Lectionary will not cover the 3rd one, before this, Year of Mark, ends in November.)  This is it! 
 
Mark sets the scene by telling us, Jesus does not want anyone to know he and his disciples are passing through Galilee, so that he can teach the 12 about the Passion.  But seeing how Galilee was his home base, that would have been very difficult to do – especially in the major fishing village of Capernaum where Peter is from.  There, Jesus had healed Peter’s mother-in-law, and he became so popular, people had continually streamed in to find healing for themselves, or their loved ones, ever since.  And not only in Capernaum, but all the surrounding towns.  And Jesus’ only respite is on a boat in the Sea of Galilee! 
 
So, to deliver this 2nd Passion prediction, Jesus tells his 12 disciples as they’re walking from one town to the next, pulling them away from the crowds to tell them alone: “The Son of Man is to be betrayed into human hands, and they will kill him, and three days after being killed, he will rise again.” 
 
That’s how Jesus states the 2nd Passion Prediction here in chapter 9 in our reading today.  “But they,” the disciples, “did not understand what he was saying,” says Mark.  “And (they) were afraid to ask him.” 
 
It kind of stops me in my tracks, when I hear that – that ‘they were afraid to ask Jesus any questions!’  Like each of the 3 Passion predictions, his disciples don’t understand what Jesus is talking about.  And so, they move on, they deflect, they get angry, they get dejected, or they ignore – but mostly they don’t understand, and they are afraid – afraid to ask Jesus what he means! 
 
After this 2nd Passion prediction, the disciples argue.  They turn to arguing amongst themselves about, who was the greatest.  Apparently, they thought, if Jesus was going to die, one of them would be taking over the glory and the power of the Messianic era, about to be born.  Because, like everybody else, they thought, for Jesus to be Messiah, he would also be the king, the anointed one of God, the enthroned ruler in the Temple, and military leader who would overcome the tyranny of Roman rule, in their ‘holy’ land.  And if Jesus was going to die, it would then fall, to one of them, to carry on this new age of God’s rule in Israel. 
 
No one, not even his disciples, understood what kind of Messiah, Jesus had come to be.  That for starters, to be great you must be servant of all.  No one yet knew what God was up to, in this moment of history.  They did not understand what Jesus was saying.  They were afraid to ask (him). 
 
Do we understand?  If we do, how did the church get it so wrong for so long?  …all throughout the Constantinian church, the years the Church made itself into an institution led by a conquering victorious Christ?  …right up to our lifetimes, in many ways?  Do we understand what it means ‘to lose our life for the sake of the gospel, in order to gain it!’  Or, ‘whoever wants to be a great leader, doesn’t do it by lording it over others, but by being servant of all?!’ …and ‘whoever welcomes one such child, (that I’m cradling in my arms), in my name,’ as Jesus said, ‘welcomes me…’ 
 
Do we ever fail to ask questions when we don’t understand?  Are we afraid? 
 
Research shows, in an upcoming issue of the journal, Management Science, that many people are afraid to ask for advice, because they fear they will look incompetent.  But the researchers discovered that, we’ve actually got it backwards. That actually, people who seek advice, are likely to be thought of as more competent, by all of us who sit on the sidelines, not asking. 
 
Men, are notoriously afraid to stop and ask for directions when they’re lost on the road.  Kids, are afraid to ask questions in class, because, no one wants to be the one to look dumb.  When we see a person we just recently met, and can’t remember their name, we’re embarrassed to ask! 
 
I was afraid to ask questions in my youth, not only in school, but even at home!  Partly I think I lived in a wonderfully protective cocoon of good parenting, and a supportive community and church, so I felt I could trust what people told me. What was there to question?  Trusting your friends and neighbors demonstrated good manners and respect for the connection you had with them.  Why rock the boat? 
 
Yet, authorities then and now continue to take advantage of good and well-meaning people.  Then, it was lies about the war in Indo-China, lies about an equal playing field for people of color, and lies about equality for women.  Which meant, countless lives were ruined, and changed forever, while those in authority, those we trusted, they thrived, because their misdeeds were often unchallenged – unquestioned.
 
Unfortunately, even raising good questions, does not mean you will be safe when you do so.  As James says in our 2nd reading today, our disagreements and quarrels among ourselves, often stem from arguing about, or coveting things, our neighbor has.  The answers we get when we ask good questions, even, and especially, when it brings out the truth, can bring enormous pain.  And then on top of that, people who should know better, dig in, to cover up the truth. 
 
Cheryl O’Connor, who lives in Bethesda, MD, hadn’t planned on telling her teenage daughters about that night during high school, decades ago, when she was sexually assaulted. But then Dr. Christine Blasey (Ford) told her story about a house party, at almost the same time, and a nearby place, in the now very public story involving the current nominee to the Supreme Court.  O’Connor, who also went to an all-girls prep school, wanted her daughter to be able to ask questions and know the truth.  Back then we “didn’t think it was a crime,” O’Connor said. “We weren’t taught that.”  Now, she wants her daughter to know the difference, because, even though people are beginning to ask the right questions in this #MeToo environment, her daughter is still at risk, until we are given a safe place to ask the questions that will help us come to a common understanding.
 
Another recent grad of the H.S., Beverly, said, “She saw the way in which people dismissed Dr. Blasey Ford’s story, questioning its accuracy. “What if I speak out and that’s the reaction I get,” she asked?  
 
Jesus knew that telling and exposing the truth about the corruption of the highest leaders, would be a leading cause, in his suffering and death.  He wants us, to know that! – warning three times in stark language about his Passion:  his suffering, death, and resurrection, for the life of the world.  He is as clear as he can be, even if it means his own disciples don’t want to hear it, or ask the right questions! 
 
Who is the Messiah?  Who is the Son of Man, the Human One?  Who is Jesus for us today?  Why does Jesus ‘death and resurrection’ change our normal expectations of how the world works?  Are we courageous and clear-headed about the Passion of our Lord?  When will we be safe to ask these questions?  Are we ready to ask the right questions that will help us to understand? 
 
And finally, Do we know, that Jesus loves us, even as he leads us on the Way from Galilee to Jerusalem?  …And with him, as Disciples and followers, that nothing can harm us?

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Sermon by The Rev Fred Kinsey, "Who Jesus Is"

9/21/2018

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Readings 17th Sunday after Pentecost, September 16, 2018

  • Proverbs 1:20-33 and Psalm 19 
  • James 3:1-12  
  • Mark 8:27-38​

"Who Jesus Is," Rev. Fred Kinsey
​

“Who do people say that I am,” Jesus asked his disciples.  And “who do you say that I am,” he asked a 2nd time? 
 
Does it matter what the title of Jesus is?  Is there one right answer?  What if we get it wrong?  Does Jesus even acknowledge what the right answer is? 
 
And why is Jesus asking the Disciples now – here in this Las Vegas style Roman resort town of Caesarea Philippi, a completely rebuilt northern town of Israel by Philip, at the source of the Jordan River – which became a polis for the rich and famous to come and vacation? 
 
This 8th of 16 chapters of Mark is a turning point, situated midway thru his gospel.  From the base of Mt Hermon, Jesus will make his way south to Mt Zion, into Jerusalem.
 
So here, in this swanky setting – not unknown to us in the 21st century – Jesus brings up the question of his identity.  The disciples have been following for some time now, and this is a kind-of, check-in.  The catch is, that we, the reader, know the whole Jesus story.  Even in the opening chapter, the narrator has clued us in, at his baptism, how Jesus was coming to bring the gift of the Holy Spirit, followed by God’s voice telling us, this is God’s beloved Child, as Jesus comes up out of the baptismal waters!  And we know the ending too, his death and resurrection, how God vindicates Jesus as the Messiah.
 
Mark also tells us, in the very first two verses of his Gospel, that Jesus has come to prepare a ‘Way’ for us, and now in the first verse of chapter 8, of our Reading today, at this midpoint of Mark, Jesus is described as, “on the way” to Jerusalem. 
 
‘Who Jesus is,’ which of the many titles are used, may vary from gospel to gospel, and throughout the NT, depending on which community the author is addressing.  But one thing the four gospels hold in common is this journey to Jerusalem, and the road to the cross, the purpose of Jesus’ life, or, in Mark, simply, ‘the Way.’ 
 
Throughout the 1st half of Mark’s gospel, Jesus has been teaching and preaching about the realm and kingdom of God, and showing what the kingdom is, through signs of wonder, and intimate healings of people considered untouchable, or unclean.  He’s successfully confronted the hypocritical leaders of the nation, and freed the suffering and demon-possessed.  Yet, in chapter 8:21, just before our reading today, we find that Jesus’ closest followers, his 12 disciples, still haven’t been able to comprehend Jesus’ identity!  And a bit exasperated, he says to them, “Do you not yet understand?”
 
No, not really!  And, do we?  What do we call Jesus?  Who is Jesus for us? 
 
Lutheran professor Karoline Lewis says, “Who you say Jesus is, is who you have decided to be. You can’t answer Jesus’ inquiry (who do you say that I am?) without revealing who you are!”  (https://www.workingpreacher.org/craft.aspx?post=5220)
 
In other words, as followers of Jesus we follow him in our own ways.  As followers, we are limited by our personalities, our family upbringing, our schooling, our income, our gender, our race and ethnicity, and so much more.  But given that, we then make our own decisions about what kind of follower we will be; how much of our lives we will give to following (on the Way); and what shape that following takes.  And, other people will see it, in us.  Our attitudes and our deeds, reveal who we are as followers of Jesus.  “Who you say Jesus is, is who you have decided to be.” 
 
Jesus wants his leaders – his 12 Disciples – to be clear about who he is, so they can reflect that in their lives of following, on the Way, too!  He starts the conversation by asking them, “who do people say that I am?”  What have you been hearing, in general?  And like any good lawyer, Jesus knew the answer to this question already: John the Baptist, Elijah, or one of the prophets, are all titles we’ve heard, on the way, in Mark’s gospel already.  These are revered biblical characters which all reflect well on Jesus, which the disciples have been paying attention to as well! 
 
But still, these do not fully describe who Jesus is, and his mission that he’s embarking on.  So he asks the disciples more pointedly, who do you say that I am?!  And out of the blue, Peter says, “you are the Messiah (the Anointed One).”  Which Jesus doesn’t deny, but quickly orders the 12 not to tell to anyone about, just yet! 
 
Sometimes I wish we could end the story, right here.  This sounds like good news, right?!  Jesus is lauded as one of the greatest of God’s messengers, and even as the most hoped for, and anticipated, Savior of the age, the Messiah!  Let’s go celebrate that!  They were in the perfect place, after all, in the Roman built vacation paradise of Caesarea Philippi! 
 
But Jesus has to go and ruin it all by turning it into “a teaching moment.”  And so, in front of all the people at the slot machines with cocktails in hand, Jesus tells them about himself as the Messiah.  Or to be accurate, Jesus sees himself as the Son of Man(kind), the Human One, a very specific title used by the prophet Daniel (when the Jews were under oppression in Babylon), to talk about how a new realm of God would dawn, through a present and inescapable suffering.  And the suffering Jesus was talking about was to be rejected by all the ruling leaders in Jerusalem, and not just an electoral loss, but a rejection that would, he predicted, lead to his death.  But after three days he will rise again.  I want to be very clear about this ahead of time, Jesus tells his disciples.  And indeed, Jesus will, sit them down, two more times, on the Way to Jerusalem, and say the exact same thing (the major theme of the 2nd half of Mark). 
 
But this message is not yet sinking in for the 12, and Peter is so angry that Jesus is talking about his death as Messiah, that he pulls him aside from the rest to rebuke Jesus!  But Jesus will have nothing of this temptation to power by violence, and in front of all of the 12, Jesus rebukes Peter, calling him Satan! 
 
If we could have only stopped back at Peter’s wonderful insight, “you are the Messiah!” 
 
But this is the part of Jesus’ identity that makes all the difference, and some of Jesus’ most intimate and powerful teachings happen after each of the three predictions of his death and resurrection, on the Way to Jerusalem.  On this occasion Jesus talks about, “whosoever would save their life will lose it…”  Then in Chapter 9 it’s, “if anyone would be first, they must be last…”  And finally, in chapter 10, Jesus teaches much the same lesson the gospel of John relates in the Foot Washing, “Whosoever would be great among you must be your servant…” 
 
Jesus, as we know, called Peter and Andrew, James and John, from their nets and boats, and Matthew from being a tax collector, and all the rest, to his become Disciples in the very beginning of Mark’s story.  In today’s gospel we find a 2nd ‘Calling to discipleship,’ at the midway point of the story.  And his message is clear, “Discipleship is not about theological orthodoxy but about the Way of the cross,” as Ched Meyers says. (Say to This Mountain, p. 99)    
 
Getting Jesus’ title correct is not an oral, or a written test for us, as it wasn’t either for his 12 disciples.  But it has to do with “the Way” of following.  It has to do with the “whosoever’s,” the invitation to us, to follow – which is the beginning, the midpoint, and the ending, of who we are, in our lives, and as Disciples of the Human One, the Messiah. 
 
In the following, we will find who Jesus is! 
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Sermon by Rev Fred Kinsey, "Why Not Us, Why Not Now"

9/10/2018

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Readings for the 16th Sunday after Pentecost, Sept 9, 2018
  • Proverbs 22:1-2, 8-9, 22-23 and Psalm 125 
  • James 2:1-10, (11-13), 14-17 
  • Mark 7:24-37


Why Not Us, Why Not Now, Pastor Kinsey
“Why not us, why not now!”  That was the slogan of the Forest Park Girls Basketball team in Crystal Falls, MI, of 1995.  It was supposed to be a rebuilding year. They lost 3 starters to graduation, and had junior and one senior left over, to be the leaders to build their roster back up.  But they had some very good young talent that came up from JV, two sophomores and even one freshman, who joined the starting 5.  One of them was from our Confirmation Class that year.
 
The season began against cross town rival Iron River, MI.  They were always a tough match-up, but Forest Park was the clear underdog.  Behind the surprising 3 point shooting of the new freshman and sophomore guards, Forest Park won by 12 points!  Next they played Kingsford, the number one ranked team in the Conference, and beat them by a basket at the buzzer! 
 
Everything was clicking from top to bottom.  The coach was talented and well liked.  The girls team was full of academic leaders to match their basketball talent.  They had gone to summer practices together and were obviously ahead of schedule.  And their fans were loyal – parents and grandparents, siblings and best friends, even the boys team, all came to cheer them on! 
 
And at a team meeting that week they came together and talked about their goals for the year.  Was this a rebuilding year?  Or did they have something special already, that they should go for more?  And I think it was at the next game where the first sign showed up, just a couple of 8.5 x 11 inch flyers taped to the wall: “Why not us, why not now!”  And when they won again, next week a 3 x 10 ft. banner appeared under the home basket that Friday night. 
 
And why not indeed?!  That season, the Forest Park Girls basketball team took their Conference title, went on to win the Region, and finally headed down over the bridge to the finals in Detroit, before losing to a very tough parochial school, Portland St. Patrick, who won it all the year before, and the year after.  But “Why not us, why not now!” got ‘em all the way to the finals, when no one thought they’d even make the Conference playoffs! 
 
Jesus encounters a woman who was such an under-dog, that no one, not even Jesus, considered her a winner at first! 
 
Jesus was just trying to find an out-of-the-way location to get some well-deserved R & R.  He went to the coastal region of Tyre, just over the northern border from Palestine on the Mediterranean, thinking it would be perfect – a little seaside air, a foreign land where no one would recognize him.  And just to err on the side of caution, and ensure his anonymity, he had his disciples smuggle him in the house – disguised in sunglasses, and a hoody – (isn’t that how you do it?!)  But, to no avail. 
 
But, says the gospel of Mark, “A woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit immediately heard about him, and she came and bowed down at his feet.”  Was she a domestic?  On duty to clean the rooms?  Or maybe the owner?  Not afraid to ask a favor of a famous man?  Did she not know the Jewish laws forbidding women to approach men in public to engage in conversation?  Did she not know Jews and Gentiles don’t mix, whether male or female?  Did she not know that Jews had to keep their distance from unclean spirits? 
 
Never-the-less, she ‘begs Jesus to (come and) cast the demon out of her daughter!’  So what’s Jesus to do?  How would you feel…? on your way to vacation, almost to your room, safe, where you can crank up the AC, and flop on the bed, and relax!?  Perhaps, we still would expect Jesus to take a minute, show some patience, hear the woman out, and see what he can do!? 
 
But Jesus says, “Let the children (that is, the Israelites) be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.”  Did he just call her what I think he did?  Maybe he didn’t do it directly, more like, in the third person, referring to all Gentiles as dogs.  And yet, there she was, the only Gentile in the room, as far as we know.  Kind of hard not to take it personally! 
 
It helps to understand – at least from my high horse, my straight, sis-gendered white male, perspective – that this was a kind of every day derogatory term, used of Gentiles, by Jews, at the time.  In other words, Jesus was just in the mainstream of his religion’s thought process.  It was clear that, God’s chosen people, the Jews, held a kind of privileged place – though it wasn’t ever meant to be exclusive.  God made clear in God’s choosing, that Jews were to be ‘lights to the whole world,’ for the specific reason of preparing the way for ‘all the nations’ to become God’s chosen people – all would be brought in and included in the covenant of salvation! 
 
When Matthew’s gospel tells this story of Jesus and the Syrophoenician woman, he states this clearly, when Jesus says: “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”  And certainly, that’s the initial picture we get of Jesus in all the gospels.  He heals and feeds his own, the Jews, to start with, but he also always ends up going farther, crossing borders, spreading the gospel message and enacting the realm and kingdom of God even outside Israel, with the Gentiles.  The promise of including all nations was coming true in the ministry of the one called Messiah. 
 
So how might we respond if we were in the Syrophoenician woman’s shoes?  Once we were, the Gentiles, outside the promises of God, too.  But now, all these centuries later, can we even imagine how she must have felt?  Being excluded 3 times over, from the God of the covenant, Jesus represents? 
 
But the foreigner; A woman; with the demon-ized daughter; answered him, “Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.” 
 
“Why not me, why not now!”    
 
“For saying that,” Jesus tells her, “you may go – the demon has left your daughter.” ‘So she went home, found the child lying on the bed, and the demon gone,’ our Markan gospel tells us.
 
Professor Elisabeth Johnson tells a story about how the students in the Lutheran Institute of Theology in Cameroon (West Africa) reacted when they took up this gospel pericope: “They are troubled by this story,” she says, “because they have heard Muslims use this story -- and particularly Jesus’ words in Matthew, ‘I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel’ -- to tell people that the Christian faith is not really for Africans.”  The Christian-Muslim dynamic, can of course, be a volatile one, in some parts of the continent!  But when Prof. Johnson tried to assure them that ‘all’s well that ends well,’ that the Syrophoenician woman persisted, and Jesus heals her daughter – they didn’t buy it – that’s not what bugged them. 
 
“I sense that my students are not convinced that it is enough to have crumbs from the table,” Johnson surmises.  “Materially speaking, that is pretty much all that they have ever had. They don’t want to be told that they should be satisfied with spiritual crumbs as well!” 
 
The underdogs are often miscounted, but God in Jesus has come to lift us up!  Of course, sometimes we’re the underdog, and sometimes we’re the oppressor. 
 
We know that sharing our bread at the communion table is a beautiful sign of the grace and love God wants equally, for all.  So how do we share that miracle with the world in our work-a-day lives, so that the world doesn’t see just bread crumbs? 
 
Of all the healing stories in the gospel of Mark, this is the only one, where Jesus takes advice, and learns from the one he heals! 
 
Let us listen and hear, like Jesus, that we may not miss seeing, and chewing, and digesting the message being unfurled like a banner:  “Why not us, why not now!” 
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Sermon by The Rev Fred Kinsey, "Cross-Eyed, Cross-Over Love"

9/5/2018

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Readings for September 2, 2018, the 15th Sunday after Pentecost
  • Song of Solomon 2:8-13 and Psalm 45:1-2, 6-9 
  • James 1:17-27  • 
  • Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23

Cross-Eyed, Cross-Over Love, Pastor Kinsey
“My beloved is like a gazelle or a young stag. …My beloved is mine and I am his; Look, he comes, leaping upon the mountains, bounding over the hills.. …”
 
How often do we hear this on Sundays?  Hear this kind of love poetry?  And yet there it is, hiding in plain sight in the OT – though this passage from Song of Songs is the only one we hear in our entire 3 year lectionary.  It is a great wedding text.  Kim and I used a passage from chapter 8: “Set me as a seal upon your heart, …; for love is strong as death, passion fierce as the grave. Its flashes are flashes of fire, a raging flame. Many waters cannot quench love, neither can floods drown it…”
 
It is not hard to recognize the Song of Songs as love poetry, though, through the history of the church it was pitched mostly as an allegory of God’s love for us.  Some questioned its appropriateness in the bible at all! 
 
Yet, all this talk about human love, is but one of its qualities, that sets it apart from other books of the bible!  It also portrays our partnered love in a quite modern and positive way, instead of the usual demonizing of women, as either temptors, or a man’s background support.  But here in the Song of Songs, there was no Victorian shame in expressing their feelings for one another. Their emotions of longing and desire are portrayed as natural and healthy. 
 
They are young and in love, and like most couples, possessive of each other: demanding to know where the other is, so every free moment can be spent together, reminding others of their special claim on each other, and also insisting on accountability and commitment in their relationship.  They luxuriate in the sound of each other’s voice and appearance.  She calls him, ‘my lover,’ ‘my beloved,’ and ‘he whom my soul loves.’  And he has a list of pet names for her too: ‘my darling,’ ‘my love,’ ‘my fair one,’ my beautiful one,’ ‘my dove,’ ‘my perfect, and, flawless one,’ and so on!  In all these tender and intimate names, one thing is common – the word “my”!  Their love is possessive, because like all humans, we have a need to be loved!
 
As the woman and man call back and forth to each other, they are more than just describing love in provocative language – they are insisting on it!  Despite the forces working against them – and there are suggestions that they are from different classes or ethnicities, perhaps not what their parents envision for each of their children in marriage, lurking, just off camera, in the background – yet they insist that they belong to each other! 
 
But perhaps most unique about this book, and its place in the canon of the bible, is the female perspective that takes center stage.  Even when the man is speaking to the woman, it is often the woman who is describing it, as in our passage, in verse 10, “My beloved speaks and says to me (and then she describes what he says): ‘Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away,’…”  The story is seen, and largely told through her eyes.  From the beginning she speaks in the first person: “Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth! For your love is better than wine…,” a common metaphor for the enjoyment of love. 
 
And she is proud of who she is, “I am black and beautiful, O Jerusalem Girls” she describes herself to her girlfriends, in only the 5th verse of the opening chapter.  (Pope trans.)  She is stepping out of traditional roles for women, and no where else in the bible do we find this womanist perspective! 
 
To me, the Song of Songs love poetry seems to have a flavor of the story of two cross-eyed lovers in Romeo and Juliet fashion, but without the deep tragedy.  The passion is similar, but, no one dies at the end.  Yet, will they be allowed to stay together, to be life partners?  This is the question left hanging at the end, not answered in the text.  Their love tryst is cut short, and the woman must shoo her man away so that they are not detected.  Their love is as possessive and passionate as ever, but their future is our guess, left up to the reader.  And though it doesn’t explicitly break the ‘sexual orientation’ bearer, (being written some 2 ½ mellenia ago), its love poetry could be same-gendered as well as oppositely attracted.  The passion is for the person, and fits either way!
 
Should this book be in the bible, given it never really mentions God, or brings up Israel’s worship life or festivals? 
 
Beyond making for great wedding reading, I am convinced that there is a spiritual message here!  Like Jesus, who tells us, it’s not what goes in thru the mouth that defiles – for that only ends up in the sewer anyway! – but it’s what comes out, from the heart, that makes for faith and love. 
 
The lovers passion and possession for one another, its demands and its failings, is nothing if not descriptive of our human-divine relationship, too!  Our relationship with God is based on God’s original act of love for us, the free gift of grace that God initiates, and to which we respond.  Our God is a jealous God, the 10 Commandments tell us!  God loves us fiercely, and will defend us.  (In the gospel of Luke) God is like a mother hen who gathers her brood under her wings to protect us from all danger.  And so as we grow in God’s love, and just like in our human love, that relationship needs nurturing, it needs to be cultivated, it needs to mature, and take on responsibility. 
 
Lovers don’t take their love for granted, and in a similar way neither can humans take their relationship with God for granted.  Like Song of Songs, desiring spiritual time together is just as needful.  Reflecting and acting on the new insights and maturity we learn on our faith journey, require attentiveness and devotion.  The intimacy with which God knows us, calls to us like a lover does, to take seriously the relationship we want to have with our creator and sustainer. 
 
And, what kind of a world do we want to create once we’ve committed to this loving God, who wants the best for us all?  How can we make the small, and the larger communal actions we engage in every day, reflect the realm and kingdom, God desires? 
 
We need not be put off or ashamed, of the fresh and bourgeoning love-language in Song of Songs, but enjoy the poet’s playful exploration of human emotions, just like a good theatre drama we might attend.  The church – especially since Augustine – has not always been good at acknowledging this part of human nature.  But human love, can translate into our love of God, even though it can never be God’s agape, or unfailing love.
 
I am reminded here, of the way in which Aretha Franklin, the Queen of Soul, who was laid to rest this week, (also black and beautiful), was said to have broken the barrier of crossing over from gospel music, to pop and soul music outside the church.  The fear was always that the gospel message would be lost in the process, but everyone who knew her said she never left gospel in any of her singing and recordings, no matter how popular she became.  Not only did she, not forget, her roots in her daddy’s church in Detroit, but she projected her core beliefs in her love and gift of singing and performing, that shared the message of gospel…, of dignity…, of finding and knowing the love of God deep in her heart…, and lived it, and sacrificed for it, to share with others throughout her career and her life. 
 
We know that God became incarnate in a human being, in Jesus, to show us that God’s love can live among us here, and indeed is what brings about the kingdom and realm of God in the world.  It is not what goes in our mouths, but what comes out from our hearts, that makes us children of God, and lovers of the realm of the divine kingdom. 
 
‘Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away.’  This passionate call, this cross-eyed, cross-over love, could be human or divine.  Let us hear this intimate invitation of love, and commit to it in every aspect of our lives, to the glory of God!  

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