Sept 2, 2012 ,"The Love Poems of God"

Song of Solomon 2 John 7: 1-31 On this Festival Weekend, we shift from summer to autumn, from vacation to school, for this is an all or nothing people who play hard and work hard; but before today's picnics, before the parade, before the fireworks, we would name:“These are the best years of our lives!” Over the last few weeks, parents have been taking their daughters and sons away to school, and walking the campus of their alma mater, parents have recalled this is where we first met, this is the rock where we had that long talk. Somehow in the midst of all the education, and experience of life, this is where they fell in love, and created the best years of their lives. Despite what the drought will do to farm prices, most of us would claim this having been one of the most glorious summers we can recall. As those who bask in the sun, we affirm the Spring came early, there were very few rainy days, and the long hot dog days of summer began in July and have carried us right through to September. We know in the backs of our minds that “after tomorrow” the pace will change and as days grow shorter, nights darker, so work will become more intense and winter comes. But that is not the Biblical revelation! The people of God are not a people standing in summer dreading the long dark night to come...we are a people who profess life a gift and these to be the best years of our lives! As if we had outgrown love and romance, we have become those who recount “That it is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all” and yet the point of Solomon's Song is not to stand at the end of summer grieving the coming winter with melancholy grey skies and bitter winds. NO, instead as God's people having known God's absence, having known that longing for what would complete us, we are to witness and claim the coming of a new and glorious spring to come! Our greatest problem is that we are a backward people, blind to where we are going, continually looking over our shoulder at what was, and what is gone, rather than living today and hoping for tomorrow. We long for housing values to return to just before the bubble... we long for the stock market to again have one day more bullish than another... we yearn for times we took for granted. Our world, our culture have changed so quickly, we have closed our mind's eye and closed our hearts and emotions to all that takes place around us. We have witnessed Tsunamis slapping down cities, women and children with bombs beneath their clothing intentionally walking into crowded market places, one college and high school after another where children have acted as terrorists, where coaches have not mentored but have abused, we have come to expect inhumanity and insincerity, surprised only by what is novel and new. Our fear, our greatest fear is that: no longer able to control our destiny, no longer able to control fate and whether we succeed or fail, we agonize that going through the motions perhaps our lives will make no difference and we never will have lived at all. Rationally, logically, we can conclude that when God formed every element out of the chaos, and God created humanity, there was not a scribe present blogging everything on Facebook or Twitter. When Moses saw the burning bush and heard the voice of God, there was no historian narrating what took place. When Mary heard the angel's pronouncement, when she gave birth to the Son of God, despite what the Pageants portray there were no recorders copying it down. When a Carpenter's Son was crucified and the Savior died on the cross of the Roman Empire, there was no witness to our loss. In all likelihood, after the Nation of Israel had become the greatest most powerful nation on the face of the earth, and the people had taken life for granted, had taken God for granted, they were beaten and carried off in bondage, THEN the people began to tell stories and to write down their need for God, their human need for a Messiah sent from God to save us. After the Day of Pentecost, in the centuries of persecution, the church found identity as a people searching for God, a people thankful for every day as a gift from God. The Song of Solomon is description of love and infatuation, flirtation and playfulness, both between a man and a woman, as well as between humanity and God. Increasingly, we take ourselves too serious, having too little room for playfulness! We anesthetize ourselves, we amuse and entertain ourselves, but we forget our joy at play! The Bible invites us to know the feelings and emotions of Adam and Eve. According to Genesis, in the beginning God formed one creature to be a companion for God. Yet we wanted something other than God, and loving us God formed every living thing, still we wanted other than God. Like a skilled-surgeon God anesthetized humanity into a deep sleep, and when they awoke where previously there had been one, now each was altered, irreparably changed; for completeness we now need one another to be whole. Tragically, we have convinced ourselves we have grown too old to love! Song of Solomon is invitation to claim our joy at love, at playfulness, at infatuation and desire. Even more, as this is description of both a human couple, and God with us, to affirm that love not only changes us, everyone of us, but love also changes God. For God so loved the world... We have grown accustomed when shopping to look for the expiration date, when milk is passed its prime, when meat is reduced for quick sale. Everything in our lives seems to have an expiration date for when it will wear out, or go bad. Do me a favor, and take the Bibles out of the pew in front of you. Show me where in all of Scripture, there is an expiration date? The Word of God is as fresh and new a gift today, as ever before. The Letter of James calls us, as those who are Baptized in the Trinity, to claim that all of life, every good gift is an act of Grace from God. How different our lives would be, if instead of acting like Clint Eastwood having a chip on our shoulder, defiantly claiming “Go Ahead Make My Day,” we chose to see everything in life as a gift! If the empty chair were not for an invisible opposition figure, but as in the Passover to set the door ajar and leave a Chair empty for the expected Visitor, for Elijah, for God in our midst. Would that instead of a plaque on one single pew in the whole of the Sanctuary being designated for a Stranger, we treated every pew as an open and inviting place for others in our midst worshipping God? The problem Jesus faced in the 7th chapter of the Gospel of John was that people seemed to know him too well. His own brothers and family took him for granted and did not believe in him. The people knew where Jesus had come from, they had seen him throughout all the years, so how could this be the Messiah sent from God. The Gospel of John is a strange and wonderful telling. Different from the other Gospels, this is not the narrative of Jesus' life. This is not told to convince us to believe, or what to believe. The Gospel of John is a love story. Before we read the first word, before we know what transpires, we need to know this very basic fact: “God loved the world so much as to give God's own child, that who so ever believes in him shall not perish but have ever lasting life.” Christ enters the world as a Gift of Grace from God. Continually, over and over again, Jesus demonstrates and explains the depth of God's love, that no matter what, we can never be separated from that love. When you have been in love, have you felt as if you were walking on air? Jesus walked on water! When you have been in love, have you felt as if life itself were your food, and you could not share enough of yourself with the other? Jesus described my flesh is food, my blood is drink. Would that this day, even for just a moment, we could stop to smile and to laugh, and to know that these, these are best years of our lives! For we have known what life was like when we felt distanced and separate from God, and we now know we are loved.