Friday • 10/21/2022 • Proper 24
This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 31; Song of Songs 3:1-5; Revelation 9:1-13 (and Saturday’s Revelation 10:1-11); Luke 10:38-42 (and Saturday’s Luke 11:1-11)
This morning’s Canticles are: following the OT reading, Canticle 10 (“The Second Song of Isaiah,” Isaiah 55:6-11; BCP, p. 86); following the Epistle reading, Canticle 18 (“A Song to the Lamb,” Revelation 4:11; 5:9-10, 13, BCP, p. 93)
For our Old Testament reading this week and the next two, I am treating the Song of Songs instead of the lectionary’s choice, Ecclesiasticus (Wisdom of Ben Sirach). Together, I hope we are discovering or rediscovering some of this “Best of Song’s” enchantment. Today’s portion is Song of Songs 3:1–5.
Feeling love’s loss. I sought him whom my soul loves, I sought him but found him not; I called him, but he gave no answer … I will seek him whom my soul loves — Song of Songs 3:1,3. Today’s verses in Song of Songs unfold as a mini-drama of love sought and love found.
Night after night, our singer lies on her bed longing, longing, longing for “him whom my soul loves.” Her pining drives her (unwisely, no doubt!) into the nighttime streets. Happily she meets, not muggers, but the city’s “sentinels” or “watchmen” or “guardians” (Hebrew shomerim). They have no answers as to the whereabouts of her lover. And, suddenly, he “whom my soul loves” appears. She clings to him, and he brings her to her mother’s home. And, as she had done in the previous chapter, she warns her friends not to awaken love before its time.
The logic of the story is hard to follow—it reminds me of trying to narrate a dream. I suggest a more indirect and analogical approach. In this passage, the Targum imagined errant Israel feeling the loss of the presence of the One she was called to “love with all her heart, soul, mind, and strength.” Even “the sentinels/watchmen”—that is, Moses and the Levites, who are tasked, in Deuteronomy 33:9, with “guarding” (shameru) the people through teaching—even they can only point to the mercy of God. Only the return of the Presence will satisfy Israel’s longing. Only the Presence can bring Israel home.
For Christian interpreters, our deepest longing has been answered—the Bridegroom has come. As Jesus says, in John 3:29, “He who has the bride is the bridegroom.” However, until Jesus returns for the consummation of Revelation 19’s Marriage Feast, there are long nights of the Christian’s longing, longing, longing. Blessed be the gracious God who provides songs (this “best of songs” and psalm upon psalm — e.g., Psalm 4, 31, 91, 139) for those nights.
And, parenthetically, in the best and most satisfying of marriages, there are periods of separation, when there is longing, longing, longing. Keenly felt too are the yearnings of those called to singlehood, and those widowed or divorced. The Song of Songs meets us in whatever state of need for love our life finds us.
We’re not always given the full picture. “Seal up what the seven thunders have said, and do not write it down” — Revelation 10:4. Unfulfilled longings and unanswered questions are part of the Christian’s experience. Fearsome images announce destruction upon the earth in Revelation 8 & 9, in preparation for final judgment. Then in Revelation 10, just when the reader is expecting some explanations—what do the various symbols mean? when does all this take place?—we have a curious note. John is about to write down the meaning of seven thunders he has heard, only to be told: “Seal it up, and don’t write it down.” Then he is told that with “no more delay, … the mystery of God will be fulfilled, as he announced (euangelizesthai) to his servants the prophets” (Revelation 10:7). And as though that weren’t enough mystery, John is told to take a little scroll from an angel’s hand, and eat it: “it will be bitter to your stomach, but sweet as honey in your mouth” (Revelation 10:10). Finally, he’s told he must resume prophesying about “peoples and nations and languages and kings” (Revelation 10:11). From this point on in Revelation (looking ahead for a moment), we will see the unfolding drama revolving around the contrasting destinies of the Bride of Christ (chapters 12 & 19) and the Whore of Babylon (Revelation 17 & 18).
For all the speculation about its details that the Book of Revelation has brought in its wake, there are three simple messages Revelation wishes to convey:
Don’t write it down. We only get, and apparently only need, a limited amount of insight.
… it was sweet as honey in my mouth. Nonetheless, we know that God is working a “mystery” that is “good news.” Ultimately, there will be release from all the pain for “peoples and nations and languages and kings.” Telling that story of victory and offering the hope of the gospel brings sweetness to our mouth.
but when I had eaten it, my stomach was made bitter. Until that victory, death, destruction, and decay are part of earth’s story, and thus, what God’s people must live through, right along with everybody else.
Persevering at Jesus’s feet. “Ask … search … knock” — Luke 11:9. Mary’s desires are superior to Martha’s because, like the singer in “the best of songs,” she wants nothing more than to bask in the Presence and to hear the voice of “the one whom [her] soul loves.” Mary’s great privilege is to be in the room with the very One whom Israel’s “sentinels” had long awaited.
What an apt follow-up is the subsequent section containing the Lord’s Prayer, and the Lord’s encouragement to persevere in prayer. Like Martha, we find life’s distractions (some important, some unimportant) pressing upon us. Unlike Mary, we don’t have the option of sitting physically at Jesus’s feet and listening to his physical voice. However, we have the profound words of the prayer he has left us. Furthermore, we have his promise that if we ask, search, and knock, we will find him faithful to give what we need, to be himself the end to our searching, and to open the door to his presence at our knocking.
Be blessed this day,
Reggie Kidd+