Sermon:
February 16, 2003
Morning Services

Scripture:
Song of Solomon (a tasting menu)

Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth.
For your love is better than wine,
your anointing oils are fragrant,
your name is perfume poured out:
therefore the maidens love you.
Draw me after you,
let us make haste.
 

With great delight I sat in my beloved’s shadow,
and his fruit was sweet to my taste.
He brought me to the banqueting house,
and his intention toward me was love.
Sustain me with raisins,
refresh me with apples;
for I am faint with love.
Oh, that his left hand were under my head,
and his right hand embraced me.
  

The voice of my beloved.
Look, he comes leaping upon the mountains,
bounding over the hills,
my beloved is like a gazelle, or a young stag.
Look, there he stands behind our wall,
gazing in at the windows, looking through the lattice.
My beloved speaks and says to me:
“Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away;
for now the winter is past,
the rain is over and gone.
The flowers appear on the earth;
the time of singing has come,
and the voice of the turtledove is heard in our land.”     (and when Ernie Harwell read these words at the beginning of every spring training, you thought they were about baseball) 
 

Upon my bed at night,
I sought him whom my soul loves;
I sought him, but found him not.
I called him, but he gave no answer.
I will rise now and go about the city.
I will seek him in the streets and in the squares.
I sought him, but found him not.
The sentinels found me as they went about the city.
“Have you seen him whom my soul loves?” I asked.
Scarcely had I passed them when I found him.
I held him and would not let him go.

He speaks: 

How beautiful you are, my love,
how very beautiful.
Your eyes are doves behind your veil.
Your hair is like a flock of goats,
moving down the slopes of Gilead.
Your teeth are like a flock of shorn ewes,
that have come up from the washing,
all of which bear twins
and not one among them is bereaved.
Your lips are like a crimson thread
and your mouth is lovely.
Your cheeks are like halves of a pomegranate behind your veil.
Your neck is like the tower of David.
You are altogether beautiful, my love;
there is no flaw in you. 
 

You have ravished my heart, my bride,
you have ravished my heart with a glance of your eyes,
with one jewel of your necklace.
How much better is your love than wine.
Your lips distill nectar,
honey and milk are under your tongue.
I eat my honeycomb with my honey,
I drink my wine with my milk,
eat, friends, drink,
and be drunk with love. 
 

How graceful are your feet in sandals, O queenly maiden.
Your rounded thighs are like jewels,
the work of a master hand.
Your flowing locks are like purple;
a king is held captive in the tresses. 

She speaks: 

I am my beloved’s,
and his desire is for me.
Come, my beloved,
let us go forth into the fields and lodge in the villages;
let us go early to the vineyards,
and see whether the vines have budded,
whether the grape blossoms have opened,
and the pomegranates are in bloom.
There I will give you my love. 
 

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.
If one offered for love all the wealth of his house,
it would be utterly scorned.

Sermon 

Her name was Ann. His name was Dean. They were young friends of mine and good friends of each other. Both with good backgrounds. Both with good educations. Both with bright futures. Everybody said so. 

But that’s not all everybody said. “How right for each other,” friends said. Family said. Preacher (meaning me) said. Why, it was as plain as the noses on their faces. Having met, they should mingle. And having mingled, they should march….straight to the altar (so they might mate and make babies together). 

But there was one small problem. They couldn’t see what everyone else saw. Oh, they liked each other. They kept company with each other. They honored the deeply-held values of each other. Both were involved in the church. Both dabbled a bit in amateur theater. Theirs was a great friendship. But neither wanted to risk the friendship by suggesting anything more. After all, best friends don’t come along every day. 

But one day….after about four years of this….they made an appointment to come and see me. At which time (with incredibly sheepish and silly grins) they asked me to officiate at their wedding. Knowing them as well as I did, I figured that something dramatic must have happened to transpose their relationship into a new key. So I asked what it was. Which was when Ann looked at me, looked at Dean, and then responded: “One day I simply said, ‘Enough of this.’ And I leaned over and kissed my best friend.” 

Which, with a nod in the direction of Jimmy Rogers, must have been one of those kisses that was sweeter than wine. I, for one, would never underestimate the life-giving power of a kiss. Or its therapeutic value, either. A couple of weeks ago, this book came on the market (newly-published by Abingdon Press) entitled Reflections on Marriage and Spiritual Growth. It contains contributions (“essays,” you might call them) from 16 couples….including Kris and myself. 

In my wife’s section, she quotes from a recent German study that reports remarkable benefits to husbands who kiss their wives each morning. Those lucky husbands have fewer auto accidents, are sick less often, live an average of five years longer, and earn 20-30% more money over the course of their career. The study doesn’t speak of similar benefits for wives. But while I know relatively little about the study Kris cites, I’ll be a more-than-willing participant in any additional research she chooses to do. 

I make no apology for starting this sermon with words about kisses. Because that’s exactly where the text starts….with words about kisses. I am talking “Song of Solomon” here….sometimes called Song of Songs or (in an earlier era) Canticle of Canticles. When I read portions of it moments ago, you couldn’t believe your ears. And I edited some of the lines better suited to a private reading than a public one. A couple of days ago, two of you told me that you read Song of Solomon to each other. Out loud. And something in your telling suggested that I might be embarrassed, were I to do any further inquiring. All I know is that Kevin Leman commends the practice for lovers (reading out loud from the Song of Solomon, I mean). 

Yes, I am talking about the same Kevin Leman who was here two weekends ago….the same Kevin Leman who packed the sanctuary on Sunday night and nearly packed it again on Monday night….the same Kevin Leman who sold every book he shipped to us in advance (and could have sold 200-300 more, had they been available)….the same Kevin Leman who talked about things in this sanctuary on Sunday night that I thought I’d never hear discussed in this place (yet not one person has written, even anonymously, to complain)….and the same Kevin Leman who told you (albeit with tongue in cheek) that I was going to preach a twelve-Sunday sermon series on this same Song of Solomon, read to you earlier.

“What is this book?” you say. Darned if anybody knows, I say. It’s been preached as an allegory of God’s love for Israel, or Christ’s love for the church. Which is okay, I guess. But it’s neither. It’s been preached as the prose of King Solomon’s early period….with the Book of Proverbs being the prose of King Solomon’s middle period, and the Book of Ecclesiastes being the prose of King Solomon’s final period. But it’s not. And it’s been taught in advanced Old Testament courses (we’re talking the final year of seminary, now) as liturgical material from the corrupted worship of the Jerusalem Temple (necessitating Josiah’s reform in 621 B.C.)….or as an ancient Tammuz liturgy from the Adonis Cult (itself borrowed from an even more ancient Canaanite fertility ritual)….or as a set of dramatic poems read during Hebrew wedding festivities. 

Simply put, nobody knows. So if we don’t know what it was once, the more interesting question becomes: “Why is it in the Bible now?” Out of all the writings available for Israel to choose….or available for later councils to purge….why was this book kept? Everybody I read agrees on the answer. The Song of Solomon is in the Bible, not because every holy book needs a dose of Danielle Steele to keep the reader awake. Instead, the Song of Solomon is in the Bible because it “sings the praise of the greatest force in the world….that which builds the universe from atom to man….draws individuals together in fruitful union….forms the foundation on which mutual relations can profitably rest….rears families….organizes societies….interprets nature….lifts shining ideals….and gives the touch divine to all existence.” Mind you, I didn’t write that. Nathaniel Schmidt did. But it’s lofty prose. 

So let’s boil it down. We’re talking “love” here….sensuous, passionate, romantic love….“love that is as hungry as the sea.” Biblically speaking, we’re talking the kind of longing that is initially encountered in the first two pages of the Bible when the man says: “At last” (as in “finally”….or as in “God, what took you so long?”). More to the point, the man says: “At last, this is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh. This one is worth leaving mama and daddy for.” Which is the same longing found in the last two pages of the Bible, when the new Jerusalem is depicted how? “As a bride adorned for her husband,” that’s how. And we’re not talking “wedding dress” here. Meaning that we move from images of nakedness (“and they were naked and not ashamed”) in Genesis 2:24 to negligee (“prepared as a bride adorned for her husband”) in Revelation 21:2. 

But in between Genesis 2:24 and Revelation 21:2, the Bible portrays intimacy and passion as being more problematical than promising, having more to do with the language of “guilt” than with the language of “gift.” Except, that is, for one spot. I am talking about the Song of Solomon, which is like a rare oasis upon which lovers stumble, just when they think that love is surely doomed, lovers are always hurt, and passion (which blossoms early) loses fragrance quickly. To which the Song of Solomon says: “Oh no. You’ve got it wrong. Look again. It’s there. It’s retrievable. It’s enjoyable. It’s goodly. Better yet, it’s godly. If you are without it, look for it. And if you’ve got it, hold fast to it.” 

Reading Kevin Leman’s new book, Sheet Music, you come away with the feeling that sex is God’s best work. Because that’s what Kevin says. Listen to some comments from his pages. 

If an atheist ever comes up to you and demands proof that there is a God, all you have to answer is one word: “Sex.” Give him a day to think about it. If, at the end of that day, he remains unconvinced, then he has just revealed far more about his sex life….or the lack thereof….than he ever intended.

God created sex. Doesn’t that tell you a lot about who God really is? Among other things, it tells you that God is truly ingenious. 

Now I have got to tell you, I didn’t hear that in church. Oh, I remember them saying that sex was God’s good gift. Except that they didn’t say it so much as they slid over it on the way to saying other things. And those “other things” drew all kinds of lines around the word “good.” And because they talked about the other things so well, they cast all kinds of doubts about the word “good.” 

I’ll never forget the day, along about the seventh grade, when I finally put things together in my head. Prior to that, I knew there was an act identified by a four-letter word written on the walls of the men’s room at my school, and described in a very cheap and sleazy novel that Tommy Teeter kept hidden in his bedroom. Yes, I’d heard of that act. But what I didn’t know was that there was any connection between that act and how babies got placed in their mommy’s tummies. Insofar as I knew, there was this four-letter thing over here, and there was childbirth over there. 

And on the day I learned there was a connection, my first thought was not “I can’t believe my mother and father did that.” Instead, my first thought was: “I can’t believe my minister did that.” Already, you see, I had gotten the subtle message that while there were many words that could be associated with the word “sex,” the word “holy” was not one of them. So how did I get that impression? Either the church taught me that the word “sex” was over here and the word “holy” was over there. Or, if they didn’t teach me that in church, it was in the air there. And nobody made any effort to clear the air there. 

Well, the Song of Solomon suggests that sex is worthy of God….worthy of the Bible….and altogether appropriate for godly, biblical people. And although there are no lines drawn around sex in the Song of Solomon, elsewhere the Bible says: “If you’re looking for ‘holy,’ then marry. Because fun and commitment go hand in hand.” 

But we’ve experienced a weird reversal in the culture, to the point that nobody believes what the Bible proclaims….and what I just said. Today’s culture suggests that sex is for everybody but married people. Take television, for example. Do you realize that for the last several years, over 98% of the intimate acts depicted or inferred on television take place between non-married partners? Which demonstrates television’s belief that everybody who is not married does it, but that nobody who is married does. 

But if that’s backward, who says so? Well, married people should say so. And I think many do. But not out loud. For years I have been helping engaged couples come to terms with the marital scripts that have been written for them by their parents. One of those scripts involves marital intimacy. I tell young couples: “Since television will never lead you to believe that married people are intimate, who does tell you, if not your parents?” At which point they look really stupid, as if to say: “Dr. Ritter, that’s the dumbest thing anybody has ever said to us.” They simply can’t picture their parents as being intimate. But believing they know more than they think they know, I quiz them. I don’t ask them for answers. But I do force them to face the questions.  

1.     On a scale of 1 to 10, would you call your parents romantic?

2.     On a scale of 1 to 10, would you call your parents sensitive?

3.     On a scale of 1 to 10, would you call your parents affectionate?

4.     On a scale of 1 to 10, would you call your parents physically demonstrative (in other words, did you grow up in a family of huggers or hand shakers)?

5.     When your father buys your mother anniversary gifts, do they always come from Highland Appliance or do they occasionally come from Victoria's Secret?

6.     When your mother buys gifts for your father, do they lean in the direction of cashmere sweaters or Sears weedwackers?

7.     What kind of gifts do your parents give each other….personal or practical?

8.     What kind of cards do your parents send each other….mushy or funny?

9.     What kind of pet names do your parents have for each other…Honey or Bozo?

10.    Are your parents “flowers and candy” people, or would buying such things never occur to them?

11.   For their 25th, did your parents do Hawaii or Hamtramck?

12.    How do your parents function at parties….separated by gender or occasionally together?

13.   When your parents walk the beach, do they hold hands or walk 20 feet apart?

14.   If nobody else were at home and they were to rent a video from Blockbuster for viewing by firelight, would they be more inclined to rent Top Gun or Sleepless in Seattle?

15.   As concerns the viewing of that same video, would they watch it while sitting on the same piece of furniture or on separate pieces of furniture?

16.   Most nights of their married life, do they go to bed at the same time or two hours apart?

17.   Do they go to the same room or separate rooms?

18.   Do they go to the same bed or separate beds?

19.   Can you picture what they wear to bed?

It’s fun to watch the lights come on in the brains of 25 year olds when, for the first time, they begin to make sense of the word “intimacy” as connected with 50 year olds. 

Clearly, Kevin Leman makes a lucrative living going around the country telling people that sex is godly, sex is goodly, sex is lovely, and that (from personal experience) it is often horribly wasted on the young. I found it interesting that during his visit to Birmingham, he gave four talks, on four subjects, with four titles. But the only title any of you mentioned in conversations with me was his Sunday night title: “Sex Begins in the Kitchen.” Sometimes you think I don’t listen to you. But I listen better than you think I do. 

Which is why I know what you are thinking right now. At least 68.7% of you want me to say: “Yes, but.” Then you want me to roll big, long strips of bright yellow “Keep Out” tape (like you see on our construction site) all around everything I’ve said this morning. Which I have done every other time I have touched on this subject. And which I will do again, relatively soon. In fact, come late spring, you’ll absolutely love an entire sermon based on my daughter’s answer to a question I posed to her last October when, in response to a discussion that was raging in my Tuesday morning women’s group, I said: “Julie, this is what my women want to know. If their unmarried children could banish all concerns about pregnancy and disease, is it possible to have casual, consensual, pleasurable, consequence-free sex?” I’ll tease you with her short answer. “No,” she said, “but I suppose it depends on how emotionally sterile their children are.” 

Instead, I leave you with this (which is monumental, given the historic position of much of Christendom….read that “Roman Catholic Christendom”)….that where intimacy is concerned, the only justification is procreation, never recreation. For pregnancy, always. For pleasure, never. 

In response to which Kevin Leman toasted his daughter and son-in-law thusly: 

            To my son-in-law, Dennis O’Reilly,
            And his lovely bride, my daughter, Krissy,
            (wonderful name, by the way) 

            Go ahead and create a symphony.
            And maybe a few kids, as well. 

Kevin, don’t you know that half the church thinks you’ve got that backwards? 

Fortunately, not my half.

Notes: In researching this sermon, I turned to multiple commentaries on the Song of Solomon. Therefore, I am quite comfortable in my assertions about what the book is…and what the book isn’t. Surprisingly, the most concise statements came from my beloved Old Testament professor at Yale, B. Davie Napier. 

As concerns Kevin Leman, he is an internationally-known psychologist, author and speaker who has written too many books to count. But his most recent effort is marketed under the title Sheet Music: Uncovering the Secrets of Sexual Intimacy in Marriage. 

Meanwhile, the book which honored Kris and myself by incorporating our work between its covers is entitled Reflections on Marriage and Spiritual Growth, edited by Andrew Weaver and Carolyn Stapleton (Abingdon Press).