Song of Solomon 2:8-13

Listen! My beloved! Look! Here he comes, leaping across the mountains, bounding over the hills. My beloved is like a gazelle or a young stag. Look! There he stands behind our wall, gazing through the windows, peering through the lattice. My beloved spoke and said to me,

    “Arise, my darling, my beautiful one, 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 with me.”

Sermon Text

A wise man once said that “love is a many-splendored thing.”[1] I am inclined to agree. It is hard to find, in any ten-minute stretch of radio or Spotify play, a song that is not in some way about love. From Chart Topping hits like “All You Need is Love,” to more obscure pieces like, “The Museum of Idiots,” love is a major underpinning of how we understand each other.[2]^,[3] That love takes many forms, but if we are true to our Christian ideas we have to acknowledge a single source for all love – God in all of God’s manifold splendor.

There is a fallacy that the Church has perpetuated for centuries, and that was popularized in our own century by people like C.S. Lewis, that there is a magical hierarchy of love in scripture. We speak of the divine agape of God and compare it to the way that we love each other. The reality, both etymologically and theologically is that love is not a bunch of diverse things, but a single force that takes forms relative to who is involved within the situation we find ourselves in. Yes, Greek has words for familial love and friendly love, romantic love, and a multitude of other categories, but those categories are all part of one singular love, agape. To say that God is agape is not to say God is a part of some otherworldly love we have to strain to understand, but that God is revealed in every love that we feel – as long as we pursue that love well and in truth.

Let’s break away from abstract concepts for a minute. I love my family in a way different from how I love my wife. I love my family, but I do not see them every day, and it would probably cause us all some issues if I did. I love my wife in a way that makes me happy to be with her every day – to actively choose day after day to be around her. Likewise, I love my friends in a way that is different from either my family or my wife. The ways I love these people are not ranked by the intensity of affection or care – I would argue I care for each as much as I can – the difference in the love expressed comes down to how we interact with one another, what the right kind of interaction for each kind of love is.

I love my friends, which means that I uplift them in every way I can. I will go out of my way to help them, travel many miles to see them, and celebrate them. I do not, however, interact with my friends as openly and frankly as I do with my wife – not because I cannot, but because that just isn’t the relationship we have. With my family, I might express myself in ways I never would to a friend, and in ways different to how I talk to my wife. I love my brother, for example, and that manifests in us being generally insulting and antagonistic to each other at family gatherings. We will move heaven and earth to help the other in a bind, but we express our love with as much maturity as two brothers ever would – which is to say, not with much.

Love in a Church context is likewise as intense as love for friends or family. However, the manifestation is different from either in many cases. While there are some people in the Church who become friends or as close as family, the wider association of Christians in a single building or across many is never as intimate as family or friends. Yet, we still do all we can to help each other, to promote the good of one another, and to make sure that everyone is able to thrive with the life that God has given them. Still, we treat each other a little differently than we would family, friends, or a spouse. There are always unique boundaries, signs of respect, and general decorum associated with any relationship, and they are all incredibly important to maintain.

I hope my point is clear at this point – love is one singular thing, but the way it expresses itself is contextual to the relationships we have. All relationships, if they are healthy and rooted in genuine care for each other are reflections of God’s love. As scripture says, we learn how to love from God loving us first![4] I love my friends because God first loved me. I love my wife because God first loved me. I love the people of the world because God first loved me!

Our scripture for today, or more properly the entire book it comes from, is often dressed up to be completely different than it actually is. In hundreds of study Bibles and books, Song of Songs is treated as a metaphor for God’s love for the believer. I am here to tell you that this is only true insomuch as we believe all love has its origin in God. No, Song of Songs is not a metaphor for God and humanity, it is a book dedicated only to expressing love between two lovers. It has some really graphic descriptions of the physical features of both parties and of acts between them. If it is a book only meant to express how God interacts with humanity, then the metaphor is a bit… unnecessarily thirsty, to draw from the vernacular.

Why would the Bible include a book just about love between two people? I think it is because, in a bizarre way, those trying to make this book a metaphor are on the right track. If all Love has its origin in God, then we can learn about God through loving others. When scripture gives us a whole book about romantic love and does not elaborate on why it is there, that tells me that romantic love is worth lifting up and celebrating on its own. Because while there are many ways to love, there is ultimately only the love we first learned about from God.

What if we loved everyone with the ferocity that God has loved us? How much more willing might we be to support our friends if we thought of our love for them as coming from God? For our family? For our spouses? It is a heavy example to live up to, but I think it is a very important one. The words of love we speak to one another, are rooted in the word of God itself, and the word of God says time and time again. Love is all you need.

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[1] Fain, Sammy & Webster, Paul Francis. Love is a Many-Splendored Thing. 1955

[2] McCartney, Paul & Lennon, John. All You Need is Love. Abbey Roads Studios, 1965.

[3] Linnell, John & Flansburgh, John. Museum of Idiots. Idlewild, 2004.

[4] 1 John 4:19