Imagine a reader standing before the congregation on a Sunday morning. "Our Old Testament lesson today," he begins, "is from Sonnets from the Portuguese by Elizabeth Barrett Browning. 'How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. . . .'" Such a reading might raise a few eyebrows. Some congregants might be indignant. "Why is he reading that? That's clearly not scripture!" Others might find it refreshing. "Well, we finally have a reading that's a little bit different!" Others might just find it amusing. "Someone must have tricked this guy into reading love poetry instead of the real reading. What a dope!" Today's reading is from a collection of love poems known as the Song of Solomon, the Song of Songs, or Canticles. Some people over the years have disputed its right to a place in the canon. Others have allegorized it so that it is read as an idealized description of God's love for Israel or God's love for the church. The allegorical interpretation probably best explains its acceptance into the canons of both Judaism and Christianity. Its attribution to King Solomon probably sealed the deal. How else would a collection of love poems gain recognition as sacred text? The historical-critical approach to biblical interpretation that has been prevalent for the last hundred years or so has little use for allegory. Conservative detractors of the historical-critical approach largely agree with their opponents that a more literal approach to the Bible is better. However, I think that an allegorical approach to a passage such as the one before us today has some value, particularly if we are interested in how it has been understood by previous generations of believers. Taken allegorically, this passage paints a luscious portrait of God's love for believers. He is likened to a gazelle, running swiftly over the mountains, leaping high in the air, beautiful to behold. And this exotic, mysterious being longs to share our company! "Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away." This reading of the passage reminds us that we don't seek God, God seeks us. God initiates the relationship, and if we respond to God's overtures, our lives will never be the same. When we move from an allegorical to a literal (or, better, literary) approach, the poems in this book say something profound about the love of one human being for another. Human love at its best inspires, exalts, and transforms us. When two people love each other, their lives together are more than just the sum of the two individuals, for their love causes each one to grow. "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." Love makes the heart feel like spring. Without love, life is drained of its joy.
"A God can do anything," said Peachey, in Rudyard Kipling's "The Man Who Would Be King." "If the King is fond of a girl he'll not let her die." Peachey and Dan had conned a group of people in a small, isolated country in the Middle East into thinking that they were gods. Because Dan was clearly the dominant of the two, the people made him king. All was going well until Dan decided that a king needed a royal consort, and he forced the people to let him take a wife. His wife, afraid of dying if she were taken by a god, bit him, and Dan bled, proving he wasn't a god at all, but only a man. People today show respect to their leaders in various ways. Britons curtsey to the Queen, and Americans stand when the President enters a room. In the ancient Near East, kings were often spoken of as though they were divine. Is ancient Israel, the usual manner of associating a king with God was to say that he was the (adopted) son of God, but in Psalm 45:6, the king is actually called God. Because of the unusual nature of this appellation, scholars have labeled this verse a crux interpretum, that is, a passage that has long been recognized as particularly difficult to interpret. Despite the rather straightforward Hebrew syntax, scholars have proposed a number of alternate translations: "Your throne is a throne of God forever," or "God is your throne forever." One of the most ingenious proposals is based on evidence from Ugaritic, an ancient Canaanite language closely related to Hebrew: "God has enthroned you forever and ever." All of these alternate translations have problems of their own, so perhaps it is best to follow the Hebrew (and the Greek Septuagint, which is quoted in Hebrews 1:8) and try to make sense of it. The setting of Psalm 45 is a royal wedding, and the king is addressed in glowing exaggerations. Verse 2 says, "You are the most handsome of men; grace is poured upon your lips; therefore God has blessed you forever." It is not too much of a stretch to imagine calling the king elohim, a god, or divine being, even though the term is normally restricted to God and to other heavenly beings (cf. Psalm 82:1). Isaiah 9:6 is another example of the king being called a god (Heb. el). It is evident from the context that the divine status of the king is lower than that of God, for in verse 7 the psalmist says, "Therefore God, your God, has anointed you" (originally this read "Therefore Yahweh your God has anointed you; this psalm is part of the so-called Elohistic Psalter, Psalms 42-83, in which the name of God [Yahweh] was regularly, though not with absolute consistency, replaced with the word elohim). To recap: the king is addressed in exalted terms, calling him the greatest mortal and equal to the heavenly beings that surround the throne of God. Is it right to glorify leaders to such an extent? What are the limits? What are the responsibilities of leaders? While modern leaders--political, corporate, religious, etc.--should be treated with respect, praise should not be such that it either goes to the leader's head or causes followers to follow the leader blindly. The psalm points out some of the responsibilities of leaders: to stand up for truth, to defend what is right, to lead fairly, to love justice, and to oppose that which is wrong. These demands of leadership apply in the statehouse, the courthouse, the White House, the boardroom, the classroom, the office, and the home. Leadership is something to which many aspire, but only leaders who exhibit the qualities the Bible demands have earned the respect to which their position entitles them.
The planet Mars is as close to Earth as it has been in over 50,000 years. The last time the Red Planet was this close, it was seen by Neanderthal eyes. The English word "planet" comes from a Greek word that means "to wander, to stray." When the ancients looked at the sky, the stars remained fixed in their proper places in the night sky. There were a few heavenly objects, however, that moved over the course of the year with respect to the other celestial objects, and they called these objects wanderers, or planets. James uses celestial imagery to illustrate the Christian life. Unlike planets, which move from place to place (the verb form of the word is found in verse 16, "deceived"), or the moon, which goes through phases, God is constant, more constant than the stars. Those who follow God are likewise to be constant in their behavior. They should be quick to listen and slow to speak. A Peanuts cartoon pictures Charlie Brown telling Linus that we have two ears and only one mouth, indicating that listening is more important that talking. Linus sees Snoopy and asks, "And what about four feet?" Charlie Brown replies, "I guess running is the most important of all!" Whether running is the most important is debatable, but listening is clearly more important than talking. The person who doesn't know how to listen will not be an effective speaker. We learn about life by watching and by listening. Only after we have observed life are we in a position to think about it, and only after thinking for a sufficient amount of time are we ready to speak about it. That's why the next admonition is for Christians to be slow to anger. Anger has its place, but only when it is controlled. Lashing out, even against wrong, is usually counterproductive. Issues must be thought through, events must be carefully evaluated, and only afterwards should we decide rationally whether anger is justified, and how to channel it constructively. Jesus' anger at the merchants' desecration of the temple grounds teaches us that there is a time for anger, if properly managed. Injustice, wrongdoing, oppression of the weak, and hypocrisy may be causes for anger. However, we need to be careful not to label every policy with which we disagree as unjust, and we need to be especially careful pointing out the hypocrisy of others, when we know that we are often hypocrites ourselves. The point of the passage is constancy, living a life that others can watch and learn from. James moves on to stress the importance of right acts over right beliefs. A characteristic of too many churches today is the idea that purity of doctrine is the defining feature of Christianity. James would disagree, and so would Jesus. Jesus said that it was not those who spoke his name who were his true followers, but those who acted according to his example. Ah, some would say, but believing orthodox doctrine is a righteous act. Baloney, James would reply. Those who talk the talk but don't walk the walk are deceiving themselves about being faithful followers of Christ. Then he gives two examples of what it means to be "religious" (a term that is avoided for some reason by many more conservative Christians): caring for widows and orphans in their distress, and keeping oneself unstained by the world. Mars is close to Earth now, but in a few months it will be on the other side of the sun. Its presence in the night sky, though impressive at times with its bright reddish glow, is inconstant. It does not provide a good model for Christians to follow. Instead, we can follow the example of the North Star, Polaris, at the end of the Little Dipper's handle. It is not always as bright as Mars, but it is always present, always in the same place. Not even the rotation of the earth, which makes most stars appear to revolve slowly in the sky at night, affects Polaris. Constancy in doing God's will is the hallmark of a faithful Christian.
A newlywed couple were about to celebrate their first Thanksgiving together, and they invited the girl's family to dinner. As she prepared the ham, her husband noticed that she cut the end off before putting it in the pan and sticking it in the oven. "Why did you cut the end off?" he asked. "That's the way you make ham," she said. "Why?" "I'm not really sure, but that's the way Mom always made it, so I'm sure there's a reason." When her mother arrived later that day, the girl asked, "Mom, why do you cut the end off the ham before putting it in the oven?" "I don't know, honey, I guess I do it because my mother always did it. We'll ask her when she gets here." When the girl's grandmother arrived, they asked her, "Why do you cut the end off the ham before you put it in the oven?" "That's easy," she replied. "I cut the end off so it will fit in the pan!" Traditions often derive from practices that made sense at some point in the past, but they might not continue to be reasonable in this day and time. Jesus was confronted with a group of people who followed a number of religious rituals and wondered why Jesus' disciples did not do the same. The particular rituals described all deal with ceremonial washings, and they weren't problematic in and of themselves. In fact, washing hands, dishes, and food is a good, sanitary idea. However, the religious leaders wanted to elevate these rituals from the level of custom to the level of prescribed activity. They failed to realize that rituals have no intrinsic value; they are simply symbols that can point the believer to a spiritual truth. Rituals that are followed blindly can turn into superstitions, and superstitions are more likely to do harm than good. Instead of focusing on external factors as a possible source for evil, Jesus told his disciples to focus on what comes out of a person. Indeed, it is clear that fornication, theft, murder, adultery, avarice, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride, and folly are a good bit more dangerous than ritual impurity. Christians need to fight the tendency to take something good and turn it into a superstition or an idol. The Ten Commandments boulder in the Alabama courthouse that was removed this week is a prime example. The Ten Commandments themselves are important words and deserve to be thought about and studied by all of God's followers. However, engraving them on a boulder, then sneaking them into a courthouse in the dead of night to avoid opposition, turns the monument into an idol, cheapening the Ten Commandments that are inscribed on it. Christians get upset at the silliest things. There are plenty of serious problems in the world that deserve our concern: hunger, poverty, health care, education, global warming, conservation of natural resources, Third World debt relief, war, and many others. In comparison to these important issues, a slab of rock just doesn't seem that important, especially when it's clear that the monument was created and installed in the courthouse to make a political point of opposition to the principle of the separation of church and state. What do you get when you squeeze an orange? Normally you get orange juice. However, if someone squeezes most of the juice out of the orange first, then uses a syringe to inject grape juice into the orange, what you'll get when you squeeze it is grape juice. Thus, the right answer to the question, what do you get when you squeeze an orange is, whatever is inside. Are our hearts filled with love, joy, kindness, and peace, so that when we're squeezed, that's what come out? Or are we filled with greed, selfishness, and pride? If so, then we will defile ourselves when those traits come pouring out of us.