Today at the Village we read part of the Song of Songs, aka the Song of Solomon. Ever read it? It’s in the Old Testament. If not, grab your Bible and read it, you’re in for a surprise. Right there, smack dab in your Bible, is a whole book of love poems. Not love for God or God’s love for us. It’s poetry from one human lover to another, and back again. Be prepared to blush, if you get the imagery, it gets pretty intense. And, there it is, right there in your Bible. One writer describes it as “The book that doesn’t know how to behave”. Ok, for those who haven’t read it before, you can pick yourself off the floor from fainting, and move on.
One thing you can count on in this life is change. Both Cheri and I look back at 1996 and realize that was when we went on our last, horrible blind dates. Annual Conference is held in June each year. It is the gathering of the lay people and clergy of the United Methodist Church and is held in Lakeside, Ohio. Cheri remembers that she was there in 1996 and had her last bad blind date, NO it was not with me.
Cheri can’t remember the man’s name, but he was just getting back into the dating world from a horrible end to a prior relationship, and it did not go well. He thought it did, but it didn’t. About the same time, I was going out on my last few, horrific blind dates as well. Thankfully, that happened as it gave me the courage to do things that led to the next year.
Flash forward to 1997, and Annual Conference was a little different for Cheri, and a lot different for me. I had never been to Lakeside. In 1997, I was there with Cheri (and a house full of chaperones) and we were months from marrying. What a difference a year can make. Everything changed, and two people who were ready for a committed, life relationship were together.
Cheri didn’t go down that “God wanted us together” path so I’m not going there either. Too many people feel depressed to be single on Valentines Day. I’ve been one of them. I remember one year, in a moment of hope against rational reason, buying a love card. I wrote a note to my soul mate, who I was sure didn’t exist at that moment. By Valentines Day 1997, that card had a home. I’m not saying God wants us in a relationship, but God does want us happy and will lead us to happiness, wherever that may lay.
Song of Songs is about love. Read it, it’s even about, gasp again, passion! The joy of committed relationship and the joys that come with that. I have to warn you, if you get the language, it gets pretty passionate. Yes, in the Bible. Say it ain’t so.
We, Christians do a horrible job dealing with this. Just say No! Repress those feelings. Ignore your passion. These are the things the church and Christians are known for. The rest of the public thinks we are not authentic and this is one of those areas they point at. They think that you have to choose between being a follower of Jesus and being who you are.
Song of Songs is an answer to this for us and them. It is not about objectifying others. It’s not about promiscuity. It not about abusive or non-consensual or sex for pay. But make no mistake about it, it’s about passion and love. It’s about committed, love and the passion the comes with it. It’s about the love and passion that comes from love, fidelity, commitment and mutuality.
The lovers, given a male and female voice by the scholars, but it could be any couple in such a relationship are madly passionately in love. But we’re not talking about “Soap Opera” kind of love. Oh, don’t get me wrong, the Desperate Housewives, et al could be put to shame by this. But, this is a couple who are in a love that has eyes for each other only. They love each other’s souls, and yes bodies, completely. You may gasp again now if you need to.
As Cheri and I planned our wedding with our friend Mebane, kept throwing Cheri by referring to it as a sacrament of marriage. Now, for me, a “Roaming Catholic”, this was no big deal. Catholics acknowledge seven sacraments, including marriage. But Protestants like Mebane and Cheri, usually only refer to two - baptism and communion.
A sacrament, for those of you who have not had an extensive religious education (God bless six years of Catholic school that my parents sacrificed to give me) is an outward sign of the inward grace of God. An outward sign of a mysterious experience of God’s presence and love for us. Communion for me is really an intense one of these. A reminder that God loved us so much that God sacrificed not only by being one of us, by becoming human in the form of Jesus, and by living one of our lives and going so far as to experience a horrible, painful death. As Father, I can’t imagine a love that required me to sacrifice my Son. As a man, I can’t imagine giving myself over knowingly, lovingly to torture and death. In the closing hours of his life, Jesus gave us one huge, last gift, an expression of solidarity, community.
Baptism too is one of these mystical experiences. Churches can debate on infant versus adult baptism. And at the Village we don’t care about the fight. We will baptize youth because it is a way to claim them in God’s grace. We also will baptize adults, allowing them to give an outward sign of their commitment to the church and to God.
But, it was confusing to Cheri about the mystical nature of our joining together. How did that show God’s love in a mystical way. But Mebane got it. You see, she had known Cheri through, and I had my own, pathetic single days. You see, both Cheri and I knew we wanted to be in a lifetime relationship. We both wanted to be parents, we wanted to be husband and wife. But for one reason or another we could not find that one person. And believe me, it will come as no surprise if you know me, that I was pathetic as a lonely, single guy. Until August 1996 that was. When we found each other. A year and a week later we had our wedding.
Let me assure you, by the end of that wedding celebration, no one had any doubt about the mystical evidence of God’s love. The wedding of a lawyer with political connections and a minster with a growing church created was a celebration of our love and God’s love. And when Mebane talked about how we had yearned to find each other and had been miserable until we did drew an Amen from the hundreds assembled that shook the room. We had a celebration that invited others to see God’s love and to have God bless our love.
Romantic love is wonderful, and it is Christian. It causes people to send flowers (Kurt still does almost every week) and write poems (not Kurt, but one sappy love card) and sing songs (again, not unless I wanted to chase Cheri off), when we would not do so otherwise. But an even greater thing is that it helps lead to that committed love that comes later.
That committed love is the love that keeps couples together. It helps them get through the times of annoying each other over bad habits (who knew toilet seats belonged down and video games were not to be turned off without saving) . It gets us through the loss of jobs, the death of dreams and the other people we love. It gets us through illness (can you say three ICU visits between us). Oh, and it magnifies the joys that come too, a thousandfold.
Romantic love and committed love are God’s gift. Whether that love is shown in a legally binding marriage, like mine and Cheri’s, or in a union service that the law does not yet recognize, like our friends Kristen & Misty (see past blogs) or others of the same gender, it’s God’s gift to us all.
As a Christian, you don’t have to choose between a love for God and romantic love. All forms of love, even passionate love between a committed, monogamous couple, are God’s gift. If no other day, than today, let us celebrate this. And for those of us who have this kind of love, let’s not forget that we are blessed. Also, let us not forget there are some out there who are not in such relationships by choice and others who would love to be, but are not.
Above all, Happy Valentines Day, and enjoy the love of God, and if you have that special someone in your life, the gift of all of the forms of God’s gift, love.
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