Come Away With Me

A sermon by Currie Burris

Song of Songs 2: 8-13; 4:8-12

September 3, 2006

This is the Bible, God’s Word, God’s revelation of truth, the authoritative word about who God is, what God has done, and who we are called to be and what and how we believe. The Book of Life. I dare say all of you have your own Bible. You read it; some of you read it every day.

Yet I also suspect there are parts of the Bible that you have never read, have never listened to what it says to you. There are the long, boring parts, the genealogies (the list of “begets”), the ancient rules of Israel, (how many cherubim adorn the Temple?). There are the horrible parts (wars, rapes and murders). But then there is one book we all know is in the Bible, but we never read. The book we never read in church, and never preach from: The Song of Solomon. That is until today.

The Song of Solomon, sometimes known as the Song of Songs, is a different, strange and truly beautiful book. There were voices in the early church that thought it should not be included in the Bible. The book never mentions “God.”  There is no reference to the Lord, or prayer or theological reflection, no story of the history of God’s people.

The Song of Solomon is a love song, a beautiful, lyrical, passionate, sensuous and erotic exchange of love between two voices with some observations from their friends. It appears to be an exchange between two people. But this book was included in the holy word of God because it is, in truth, an intimate description of the relationship between God and his people. It is a love song by Israel to her God, a love song of the church to the LORD, a passionate expression of the love between the believer and Christ.

The author of this book is said to be Solomon, the great wise king of Israel. While the final text was assembled hundreds of years after his reign, there is no reason to doubt his authorship. The book is a series of conversations between two lovers. The dominant voice in that conversation is a woman. She is engaged to be married and the book is filled with her longing for her betrothed. She is a simple working woman and her fiancé is of royal blood.

Interestingly, she is a black woman. Chapter one, verse five begins: “I am black and I am beautiful.” (Song 1:5 NRSV) [Some of you may have never realized that the anthem of the black power movement in the 60’s was so biblical.] Her betrothed, whose skin is characterized as “ivory,” exchange pledges and vows, in graphic, highly physical, lush and beautiful expressions. There are some passages that I would blush to read here in church. Yet all are expressions of the deeply personal, physical, passionate love of God and the faithful.

Therefore hear now the Word of God, Song of Songs 2: 8-13, it begins with the voice of the beloved:

Listen! My lover! Look! Here he comes,

leaping across the mountains, bounding over the hills.

My lover is like a gazelle or a young stag.

Look! There he stands behind our wall,

gazing through the windows, peering through the lattice.

My lover spoke and said to me,

“Arise, my darling, my beautiful one, and come with me.

See! The winter is past; the rains are over and gone.

Flowers appear on the earth; the season of singing has come,

the cooing of doves is heard in our land.

The fig tree forms its early fruit;

the blossoming vines spread their fragrance.

Arise, come, my darling; my beautiful one, come away with me.”

A bit later we hear the voice of her lover calling out to the beloved:

Come away with me from Lebanon, my bride;

                        come with me from Lebanon.

            Depart from the peak of Amana,

                        from the peak of Senir and Hermon,

            from the dens of lions,

                        from the mountains of leopards.

            You have ravished my heart, my sister, my bride,

                        you have ravished my heart with a glance of your eyes,

                        with one jewel of your necklace.

            How sweet is your love, my sister, my bride!

                        how much better is your love than wine,

                        and the fragrance of your oils than any spice!

            Your lips distill nectar, my bride;

                        honey and milk are under your tongue;

                        the scent of your garments is like the scent of Lebanon.

            A garden locked is my sister, my bride,

a garden locked, a fountain sealed.

This is the Word of the Lord.

What is God like? How do you understand God? How do you experience God? Is God omniscient, all knowing? Is God omnipotent, all-powerful? Do you experience God as distant, detached, far away from our everyday lives and experience? Is God like the clockmaker, who made this clockwork universe, wound it up and stepped back to watch it run through these eons of time? Is God a puppeteer, who pulls the strings of our puppet lives but never touches us?

The God of the Bible is none of these things. God is the creator who did not abandon his creation, but stayed intimately attached to all things. God is passionately involved with all that we are and all that we do. God is not a neutral judge or lawyer. God is a passionate advocate for each one of us. The gospel of John said it clearly: God is love—not love in the abstract, not love from a distance, but love that is personal, intimate and involved. This is a God who numbers the hairs on our head, who knows the curves of our cheeks, the turn of our heart.

Jesus said that God is like a shepherd who leaves 99 of his sheep and goes out to look for the one lost sheep, desperately, unrelentingly. And when he finds it he puts it on his shoulders like a child and throws a party for all his friends. Jesus said God is like a woman who upon losing a coin turns her whole house upside down. And when she finds it she shouts to her friends, “Come party with me, I found my coin!”

The Song of Solomon says God is like a lover, one who desperately longs to be with the one he loves. “Faith is when you get sought and are found by a passionate lover God.” (Willimon)

Jesus said, if you have seen me, you have seen God. Then he sets out to show us with his life what God is like. He loves us, not just with his mind or with his ideas. He loves us with his very body and blood. He loves us even to death on a cross. God is a god who loves us with a desperate, all consuming passion, sacrificing himself for our sake.

Set me as a seal upon your heart,

                        as a seal upon your arm;

            for love is strong(er) (than) death,

                        passion more fierce (than) 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.

(Song of Solomon 8: 6-7 amplified)

Jesus also said that we are to love God with all our heart, with all your soul with your mind and with all your strength. (Mk 12: 30) We are to love God with all that we are, every part of our being—our minds, our hearts, yes—but with our soul and our strength as well. Our physical being, the part of us that touches and feels, that laughs and cries, breathes and bleeds, that feels joy and sadness, that feels passion and longing—all of us are to love God.

Love God with the same passion, the same desperation, the same totality of being as God loves you. Love God.