A love story - Song of Solomon 2:8-13 (8:6-7) and Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23

Good morning and welcome to what I think is the millionth Sunday after the start of the pandemic. We’re all tired, or at least feeling less than optimal these days. If you happened to find this past week particularly difficult, especially in the news, I’m right there with you. From the violence in Afghanistan to severe weather and even more havoc caused by COVID-19, the bad news has been unrelenting. I’m so thankful that we can gather in church and connect online. We need time together to reflect on it all, to take a deep breath, and to be renewed. As if on cue, knowing exactly what we need, our lectionary just tossed us one of the loveliest passages in scripture from the Song of Solomon - “Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away; for now the winter is past, the rain is over and gone.” The promise of brighter days ahead full of love and joy? Yes, please, let’s start there.  

As words between two young people falling in love, this passage is one of the recommended readings for a wedding, for obvious reasons. I used it in my own, although, I will say, it did not go as planned. The backstory is that, as Jason and I were getting ready for the wedding, we worried about everything that could go wrong based on other people’s horror stories. People told them as a way to prepare us, I guess. There were stories about disorderly, intoxicated attendants, for example. Or the bride or groom passing out or crying, or both. Or the fist fight that could break out among the uncles. We had contingency plans about all of these, including the uncles. What we didn’t worry about was the ceremony itself. We were in seminary at the time and some of our professors would be there, so we made sure to follow the prayer book to the letter. Our orders of service were perfection. 

What I didn’t anticipate was a rogue lector. We asked one of the attendants, an ordained pastor who reads all the time in church, to do the first reading. She began, “Arise my love, my fair one, and come away.” Things were going well, according to plan, until she skipped a line. The wedding lectionary includes an additional verse. It reads: “Set me as a seal upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm; for love is strong as death, passion fierce as the grave.” I guess she thought that was too grim for a wedding. All I could think about was the seminary faculty noticing the omission. I realize now that seminarians, or maybe clergy in general, worry too much about such things.

But over the years, I’ve come to see that omission as theologically significant. At first, it seems strange that there is language about death in the wedding ceremony, and not just in one of the lessons. The service starts pleasantly enough, teaching the dearly beloved that Christ blessed married life by his first miracle at a wedding in Cana, and that our human bonds signify the union between Christ and the Church. In other words, our small love stories reflect a cosmic one. But toward the end of the ceremony the priest pronounces God’s blessing, including blessing the couple in their life and in their death. Sounds grim for a wedding, and it leaves us wondering why the church feels the need to mention mortality on happy occasions. Kind of like when us preachers bring a room down talking about sin on an otherwise sunny day. 

But as odd as it may sound, the fundamental message here is not a depressing one, but a hopeful one, rooted in a much larger story. Our lives, from beginning to end, are part of a cosmic love story. The story that contains our lives is this: that God so loved the world that Christ came among us, stretched out his arms upon the cross, and drew us all to him, in love and reconciliation. That’s the gospel, the fundamental truth that shapes and gives meaning to all of our days. It’s especially helpful to remember that big picture when we find ourselves bogged down in difficult days. 

We are also reminded that being a part of this bigger love story is like any other long-term relationship. There are things we need to work on along the way. That’s where Jesus’ teaching from today’s gospel comes in. At first glance, the scene looks a spat between Jesus and the Pharisees about proper hand washing. Not unlike the mask and vaccine spats we’re all in today. The argument is about much more than hygiene and safety, however. It’s about belonging, who’s in and who’s out. The ritual practices in question were central to Israel’s identity, taken from the holiness codes in the Torah. When asked, Jesus was less concerned about hand washing and other rituals than with what’s in the human heart. Work on your hypocrisy, he says in response. We need to hear that, too. There’s a prayer in the prayer book about this very thing, and it’s powerful: “We confess to you, Lord, all our past unfaithfulness: the pride, hypocrisy, and impatience of our lives.” In these troubled times of ours, our faith requires us to look within, to take stock of the ways in which we contribute to the troubles, and to amend our ways. That’s important work in any relationship - with God, with a spouse or friend, and in our communities. 

This kind of personal work and growth are essential in the life of faith. At the same time, we should not reduce Christianity to a self-improvement project; it’s a love story. The priest and scholar Robert Capon wrote that banquets and weddings happen throughout our sacred texts for a reason. The whole biblical story, from Genesis to Revelation, is one “long development of the theme of boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl,” with apologies for the narrow, heteronormative language, but you get the idea. 

We are God’s beloved. Occasionally we skip a line in that story, like a rogue lector. We get tired, we grieve, we slip into impatience and even hypocrisy in our daily lives. We occasionally lose faith, and sometimes we lost heart. But nothing we do or don’t do will change the course of the larger story, which is one of grace. Already God has been set as a seal upon our hearts. For God’s love is strong as death, with passion as fierce as the grave. One day, at the conclusion of this grand love story, we, too, will hear the words we long to hear, “Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away; for now the winter is past, the rain is over and gone.”