From a newsgroup contributor

Song of S 2:8-13 Ps 45:1-2, 6-9 James 1:17-27 Mark 7:1-8, 14-23

The King of Love ================

May the words of my lips, and the meditations of our hearts, be always acceptable in Your sight, O Lord our Strength and our Redeemer.

My beloved answered, he said to me: Rise up, my darling; my fairest, come away. – Song of Songs 2:10 (also 2:13)

Friends, if you’re like me you’ve probably sat through a number of sermons about Christian love, about the love the Father and our Lord Jesus bear for us. The sermons will have often been erudite, with the preacher learnèdly explaining the four Greek words for love. These words are charitas, filos, agape and eros. They refer to charitable love; brotherly or sisterly love, open and self-giving love; and erotic love – respectively. In the sermons I have heard, Jesus’ sacrificial love for us all is put in terms of agape, self-giving love. We’ve all probably heard sermons urging us, as Christians, to practice charitas and filos – to be charitable and to treat our fellow Christians as siblings.

Which leads us to the Song of Songs, also known as the Song of Solomon, from which we heard a delightful section. On a first examination, the Song of Songs can be read as an exchange of poems between a bride and groom. It appears a celebration of eros.

Scholars have been able to read this book of the Old Testament on other, different levels. Jewish rabbis, in their commentaries, see the Song of Songs as an allegory. The bride is the whole people of Israel. The bridegroom is the Lord God. And their marriage is a symbol of the everlasting covenant between Yahweh God and His chosen people.

Christian theologians have also been quick to see a parable. You may have seen the miniseries, “Brides of Christ” where women in a religious order are dedicated to Jesus. More generally, the Bride of Christ is seen as His church. There is language throughout the New Testament that paints us, the Church, as a bride and Jesus as our groom. Examples include the Revelation of St John (Rev 21:9) where the Church is the bride of the Lamb; Matthew’s Gospel (Matt 9:15) where excuses his disciples celebrating by describing Himself as a bridegroom; and the parable of the five wise and five foolish virgins in Matthew 25 where Jesus seems to portray Himself as the awaited bridegroom.

But what does it mean, for us as members of the Church today, to be part of a body that is the Bride of Christ? How are we to approach our spiritual groom?

The Old Testament reading today gives us some clues. First, the bride is expectant, waiting, eager. She is listening for the sound of her groom arriving. “Hark! My beloved! Here he comes” she says. And what an energetic groom she awaits. He comes bounding over mountains, leaping over the hills. He is like a gazelle, a young wild goat.

And what is it the bride is waiting for. Is it kisses? Is it caresses? No. Her heart is longing for words. It is words that will give her comfort, assurance. And what are the words her heart is longing to hear? “Rise up, my darling. Come away, fairest. Come away with me, my love.”

The groom wants to bear his bride to a special place: where winter is over; where rains have fallen and are now past; where flowers bloom in the spring countryside; where birds like turtledoves coo in the land; where figs are ripe and vines are fragrant.

It sounds beautiful. It sounds heavenly, and in a real sense, it is. It also sounds like a love song. In fact, it is a love song. Tweak the words slightly and you have the hit single of 1964 from The Toys, entitled “A Lover’s Concerto”.

[One of the great strengths of [our church], is that she has parishioners of all ages. I’m sure you all have your favourite love song. In the 1990s it might have been Smashmouth singing “I’m a Believer”, in the 1980s with Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah”. For the 70s and 60s it could be Russell Morris singing “Sweet, Sweet Love or the Seeker’s “I’ll Never Find Another You”. In the 1940s and 50s it might have been Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra, with love songs like “I Surrender, Dear” and “All of Me”. Was one of these songs, or one like it, going through your heads when you heard the Old Testament reading?]

The song I first thought of, when I was looking at the readings for today, was “Silly Love Songs” by Paul McCartney and Wings. Which, I guess, dates me. I had the lyric going through my head, “You’d think the world would have had enough of silly love songs. I look around me and I see it isn’t so.” And Sir Paul, as he now is, is right. Number 145 in our hymn book, ‘Together in Song’ is a love song – “The King of love my shepherd is”. What’s more, a closer inspection shows it is based on a psalm, Psalm 23.

Could some of our Psalms be love songs? Of course! Let’s look at our psalm for today, Psalm 45. It is a love song to a king, “the fairest of men” whose very clothes are fragrant. From the six verses we read today it could just be a courtier giving praise their master. Reading on, however, it seems more likely that it is a poem written by a King, pressing his suit and telling the woman of his desires what a catch she could have.

But we mustn’t read on, because verses 10-17 weren’t set for today. Instead, we should ponder the verses that we did read. We should ponder them spiritually and allegorically. Who is our king, who, in the words of verse 2, is “the fairest of men”? Who is, as said in verse 7, a lover of righteousness and anointed of God? If you’ve listened to as many Children’s Talks at the 10am service as I have, you’re probably thinking “It’s Jesus!” And you’d probably be right.

Which takes us on to the Epistle. What does the 1st Chapter of the Letter of St James have to tell us about the King of Love? Firstly, it tells us that God gives good gifts, that every perfect gift comes from heaven. Our Lord is not fickle – verse 17 tells us, “With him there is no variation, no play of passing shadows.”

Yet this is a love that demands a response. The Apostle tells us what our response should be. Anger is a no-no. Lovers cannot long be angry.

Also we should act upon messages. We should act rather than just listening, lest we forget who we are without a mirror to remind us.

Another of St James’ tips for lovers is to keep control over our tongues. It seems very sensible advice.

But we might have one question. If the Church is the bride of Christ, do we foresake all others? St James says ‘no’. We should be hospitable to others. The Apostle especially mentions caring for widows and orphans. But we should not be *too* hospitable with others. James urges us to keep ourselves nice and not be tarnished by the world.

‘Tarnished’ is a tricky word. ‘Tarnished’ has a synonym, another word with a similar meaning – ‘Defiled’. Defiled is another tricky word.

Which takes us to our Gospel passage from St Mark today. It is a problem passage, make no mistake, especially for the parent of a young child.

And I’m glad that our youngsters are out at Sunday School. Because this Gospel passage is ostensibly about not having to wash your hands before a meal.

In St Mark’s Gospel today, we heard about how some Pharisees and Doctors of the Law were giving Jesus a hard time because Jesus disciples were eating with ‘defiled’ – that is unwashed – hands.

Now, as a parent, straight away I’m with the Pharisees. “Wash your hands!” “Put that down, you don’t know where it has been!”

And the Pharisees were full of useful advice. “If you’re living 100 miles from the sea, don’t eat shellfish.” “If you don’t have refrigeration, lay of the pork.” Along with these words of wisdom, “Wash your hands before meals” is just as sensible.

But what started as advice became tradition. What was tradition came to be written down. What was written down took on the force of law. And what was contrary to law became sinful. And a sinful act meant you were defiled. To be defiled was to become unclean. And following this chain of logic through, it meant that by the disciples not washing their hands, their hands had become unclean. Not just unclean in a physical sense but, the Lawyers reasoned, spiritually unclean.

Jesus took umbrage at this. Sure, the Disciples’ hands were dirty, But they weren’t *dirty*.

For Jesus, what contaminates us spiritually comes from our hearts. Spiritual contaminants aren’t dirt, or mud, or germs. Spiritual contaminants are evil thoughts and evil actions. In fact, in verse 23 when Jesus is talking about evil thoughts and evil actions he implies that the thought leads to the action.

And it’s true. We can’t steal without first thinking about theft, then acting on that thought. If we never think of stealing, we can never steal. On the other hand, if we constantly think about theft, thinking about likely approaches and possible get away routes, obsessing about the likely value we get when we pawn the stuff, well… there’s a chance we might act on those ideas.

The idea that a heart full of sinful thoughts will corrupt a person seems similar to another idea Jesus had. This idea is that here must be *something* in our hearts. Jesus tells the story (Matt 12:43-45) of an exorcism where a demon is cast out, finds seven more demons, and returns to the empty heart. So we must have something in our hearts. We can store up treasure in our heart. But if we store up refuse in our hearts, there is no room for Jesus.

Which reminds me of another love song. It has the chorus, “Come to my heart, Lord Jesus / There is room in my heart for thee.”

Tomorrow is September 1st, the first day of Spring. Is it time for a spiritual spring clean? Is there plenty of room in your heart for Jesus? Is everything spick and span, awaiting the return of the King of Love? Are we like the Bride in the Old Testament reading, listening for the return of the Bridegroom of Our Church? Are we hoping to hear His call? Are our longing hearts on fire as we wait in readiness for those words: “Come away, come away, come away with me, my love.”

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, amen.