Songs of Sex

Sermon 24th January 2010 (Songs of Songs 1:1-17)

We live in a sex obsessed culture.
Pick up a magazine in a supermarket (and not even one from the top shelf) and what are the topics? – sex, relationships, body image, how to be desirable, how to find or keep the perfect partner.
The statistics are frightening.
Americans now spend more than $10 billion a year on pornography. That’s more than is spent on foreign aid. Indeed it is also more than is spent on baseball or football. So, if you ask what America’s national pastime is, well the answer, statistically....
And before you think I’m just getting at evil Americans again, a recent survey suggested that the average British teenager spends 90 minutes a week viewing soft porn on the internet.
We have a culture that says that Sex is God.
It is the most important thing in life.
It is the thing you should spend your time, energy, money and thoughts on.
Our culture says that if you are not in a fulfilling sexual relationship then you are incomplete.
Sex is God, and lot of people worship it.
On the other hand, the Church has a long, long history of running in the opposite direction.
Sex has often been presented as shameful, horrible, and not be spoken of or contemplated.
Certainly not in Church:
as the line goes “sex is dirty, disgusting and gross, so save it for the one you love”.
There’s a long history here.
Origen, a church leader from Egypt at the end of the third century and a great thinker, was, like many of the early church, influenced by Greek thought that saw the physical body as suspicious. He saw physical things like sex and desire as getting in the way of being a good spiritual Christian.
Origen read Matthew 5:28, where it says “if it offends you, if it causes you to stumble, - cut it off!” And he took it literally, and he did. He castrated himself.
Now, Origen is an extreme case, but he sort of indicates one attitude to sex in Christianity. “Sex is OK for procreation, but it is not for fun, don’t enjoy it, and desire is sinful.”
St. Jerome, the great Bible translator, used to throw himself into a thorn bush any time he felt desire.
In the Middle Ages, the church saw marriage as good for some people, but if you wanted to be a really good Christian – a Christian leader – then you’d be a priest, monk or nun, and you’d be celibate. Sexual pleasure was sinful.
And that’s an attitude that still kicks about today. Since Victorian times sex is seen as something not to talk about , when the church occasionally decided to broach the subject it was to scream “thou shalt not” at someone.
And this hang-up actually causes pastoral problems.
Society is talking about this – non-stop, but we are ignoring it.
And the statistics show that people in churches are just as broken, confused and troubled as any other group in society:
Some of us have had bad experiences,
Some of us have been in abusive situations – and we don’t feel we can tell anyone in Church,
Some of us have messed up, and we’ve scared that if people knew they’d condemn
Some of us are in situation or relationships that are not right, and we can’t get any help.
A sh-sh-sh attitude has existed.
And so as we look at the Songs of Songs, I want to dare to break the silence – because the Bible has something to say – and it is certainly not negative.
Sex is not God, but Sex is not bad either.
And appropriately, faithful and graciously, we need to open the conversation.
(And if any of these sermons strike a note with your life and situation, I’d like you to find another Christian to speak to. Someone you trust. It could be an elder, or myself or Therese.)
So to the “Song of Songs”. Well, what is it?
It is a collection of poems that explore love, desire, and physical intimacy.
It is erotic love poetry and it is pretty explicit stuff.
It speaks of two lovers who delight in and desire each other – and each other’s bodies.
It speaks about erogenous zones (yes in the Bible), breasts, and other bits too.
It starts with a woman, who is being upfront and taking the initiative.
Now, you might ask “What on earth is this doing in the Bible?”
We never got this in Sunday School.
Well, one answer that the Church has given is to claim that this isn’t about sex at all.
Origen and others said it is really an allegory.
It is really a story about how God loves Israel, or how the Christian loves Jesus,
and so many have tried to “de-sex” this book.
One 5th century writer took 1:13which says “my beloved is to me like a bag of myrrh that lies between my breasts” and he said: this isn’t about breasts. The two breasts are the Old and New Testaments which feed us for our spiritual life. And the myrrh? That was Jesus.
That’s an allegorical interpretation.
But before we laugh at that, we used to sing a song in Sunday Schools which went:
“He brought me to his banqueting table, and his banner over me is love”
and the second verse was
“I am my beloved’s and he is mine, and his banner over me is love”
Now, that comes straight from the Song of Songs.
The beloved says:
2:4 – “He brought me to his banqueting house and his intention to me is love”
2:16 – “My beloved is mine and I am his, and he pastures his flock among the lilies”
Now, did anyone tell us in Sunday School that we were singing verses of erotic love poem? No.
O.K.
So the first thing we want to do is to read this book as it is, and not as an allegory, we want to read it in its plain sense – as a poem about physical love.
The title is (1:1) “the Song of Songs”.
Now, for the linguists among you, this is a superlative – it means “the best of the songs”
(Just as the Bible will speak of the King of Kings, the God of Gods or the Holy of Holies.)”
So, here are two people, deeply, physically in love – full of desire
and Scripture does not moralise for us
it does not allegorise for us
rather it sings a song of celebration - this is the greatest of songs – this is Good
just as when God made Adam and Eve for each other
put them naked in a garden
said they were to be “on flesh”
and pronounced it “Good” – naked and unashamed.
What a contrast to the Church’s uptightness!
I remember as a teenaged going to a Scripture Union weekend away,
and there a middle aged man, slightly bald, came to give us a talk on “relationships”.
I remember him saying “you teenager are full of hormones, anticipation, you can’t wait to find a partner, you can’t wait for sex”
and then he said
“let me as an old married man tell you, it’s not all it is cracked up to be!”
I always wondered what he wife would have thought if she’d known.
Maybe they should have read the Song of Songs together!
Now, let’s not get it wrong.
The Song of Songs is not advocating free love.
Indeed, it warns us that desire is powerful and significant.
It is never “just sex”.
You hear people saying that today.
A man has an affair, he says “it didn’t mean anything, it’s just sex”
Song of Songs would have none of it.
And the Song comes to us a part of the whole canon of Scripture.
Whoever wrote it (and some people think it may well have been a woman) she was deeply steeped in the language of the rest of the Scriptures.
And the Scriptures have more to say about how God intended sex
about marriage and faithfulness
about the dangers of abusing sex
and about the goodness of singleness too.
Indeed, the Bible is just full of stories of people who got it wrong,
of adultery, abuse and unfaithfulness and even incest
and it shows how they mess up lives.
The Song was probably not written by Solomon, we should interpret his name in the title as meaning “associated with Solomon” or “in the wisdom style of Solomon”.
But Solomon is a case in point – he got involved with the wrong women, women who lead him astray from God, and it destroyed him as a King.
Sex can be powerful and destructive – handle with care!
But, in the right context
in godly marriage
it is good.
Physical things are good – and they are not opposed to being a spirit-filled Christian.
Indeed against a background of a wrongheaded Christian tendancy to see the body as suspect – and they best things as being to do with the mind and the soul – the Song celebrates the physical – the emotions and the sense. Its poetic language celebrates the imagination.
It opens talking about desire – and the senses
“let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth” – touch
“love is better than wine” – taste
“your name is perfume poured out” – smell
We are not platonic souls in regrettable bodies – we are physical creatures of a loving Creator.
We need kissed and hugged and patted on back – we enjoy our senses.
So, in the plain sense, this is a sensuous love poem, and as we look over it in the weeks that come, we won’t forget that.
But, Scripture often uses human love to help us understand God’s love for us.
It uses the language of human desire to help us understand how we are designed to desire God.
For the linguists here, this isn’t allegory, it is analogy.
The Bible often speaks of God’s love using the language of lovers.
God loves Israel and wants her to love him.
He wants to have a unique relationship with her.
He wants her to be faithful.
The Lord is a jealous God – he won’t share her love.
Israel is adulterous.
And Hosea speaks of a day when Israel will be married to the Lord and never divorced.
The New Testament takes up there theme.
We are united with Christ – we are “one spirit” with him, just as Adam and Eve were “one flesh”. (1 Cor. 6)
The Church is the Bride of Christ – his beloved.
Husbands are to love their wives as Christ loved the Church, and gave himself for her. (Eph 5)
Indeed we are to desire Christ, anticipate his love, and look for a consummation in heaven.
So maybe applying “I am my beloved’s and he is mine” to Jesus is not so wrongheaded.
Human love points to God’s love
Human desires point to God’s desires
The oneness of husband and wife – reflect the oneness of God.
And that’s not surprising, because God made human loving.
St Augustine said:
“you have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless, until they find rest in you”
In the western Church we tend to say that we need God’s forgiveness, we need God’s salvation, we need God’s righteousness,
but in the Easter Church they tend to say, we just need God himself.
We need to be in union with him
to have a relationship with him
to experience something of him now, which promises more to come,
like courting lovers anticipating marriage,
like a kiss that promises so much more to come.
Our experience of God is not just to be thoughts and souls and minds
it is not to be a platonic relationship.
It is about desires, and feelings,
it is about imagination and emotion
it is about the body and the senses.
That’s why our central sacrament isn’t a set of thoughts, but an experience.
The Lord’s supper, where we experience the worship, hear the words and music, see the table, taste the bread, smell the wine, touch on our lips and in our hands – and anticipate that great feast in the consummation of heaven.
Origen may have got castration wrong, but he got it right when he wrote, quoting this passage of the Song of Songs:
“Send him, that he may no longer speak to me just through prophets, but may come in person and ‘kiss me with the kisses of his mouth’ that pour his word from his mouth into mine.”
And so the Song of Songs
is about a sexual relationship
it is about the goodness of all that God gives
in sense
in creation
in life.
But we all of this goodness that he gives, is not God himself
and we appreciate all this goodness more, when our first desire is to know the living God who made all things good.
In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, Amen.

1560 - The Birth of the modern world?

To mark the 450th anniversary of Scotland's Reformation, I am beginning the year by reading Harry Reid's new book "Reformation: The Dangerous Birth of the Modern World". It isn't the best book on the Reformation I've ever read, but it has the advantage of spending a good deal of time narrating Scottish events - it is also sympathetic, although fair, in its dealings with the important figures. I'm still reading it, but so far I'd highly recommend it. (And it is unusual for me to find myself recommending a book published by the Church of Scotland's own St. Andrew's Press.)

(I also notice SAP are charging less than I paid on Amazon.)

International Men's Day

from International Mens Day on Vimeo.

Since I'm on the subject of men and the Church...

I'm never very sure about the fad of "days" to highlight issues, but the idea of celebrating maleness in a positive, but equality affirming, way seems excellent.

To quote a bit from this video:
*"The world needs men ... Men are the key architects of our bridge to the future, and our children are our future. Yes, men are necessary."

*"Highlighting positive male role models.... not just movie stars and sportsmen, but everyday working-class men who are leading decent and honest lives."

*"Maybe you could open the door for a lady, and when she asks you why say 'proud to be male'- happy International Men's Day."

There's something in the sentiment here are strikes me as deeply Biblical and prophetically timely. Just as we celebrate and affirm the feminine, so we need to recognise and encourage that which is manly and godly. For too long we've been presenting all male differentials in a negative light, where one may praise females as more intuitive, cooperative or less aggressive, and yet when anyone suggests that men are generally better at something, they are immediately accused of sexism. In a society of male underachievers and rising suicide rates, boys need to know that it is (equally) good to be male - and that we can celebrate maleness without being the sexist macho boors of so much stereotyping.

Rise up, O men of God

As a father of two bright daughters for whom I am naturally ambitious, I am usually not unsympathetic to feminist agendas. I never want them to hear “but you can’t, because you’re just a girl”.

However, my male hackles rose on discovering that, since 2007, the Church of Scotland has been resourcing an investigation into why fewer women are applying for the ministry than men, and that a recent advert for a trainer with the Ministries Council stated a preference for female applicants “as we work towards greater gender balance”.

To get this into perspective, in 2008/9, 32 women applied to be ministers compared to 40 men. That hardly indicates a large gender imbalance … except if one takes into account that the majority of Church members are women. If one considers that fact, then the lower level of female applicants is clearly significant.

But that’s the elephant in the room, isn’t it?

Why is it that men are not joining the Church? Why do we have this massive gender imbalance? And where is the agonising, the research, and positive action to address that? No doubt if the investigation into female ministry candidates shows an off-putting macho culture among ministers we’ll want a remedy. So, why is the culture of Church so off-putting to men, and what’s the remedy to that off-putting culture?

The majority of elders I have ordained (by 2:1 ratio) have been women – that’s a far greater gender imbalance than that of ministry recruitment. Further, our Sunday morning children’s leaders are overwhelmingly female. Now, bless these godly women, but where are the men?

And so if a young boy is brought to church, typically by his mother, to be taught invariably by other women, and to see all too few male role-models, can I be forgiven if I don’t think that the Church’s first priority should be to ensure that there is a 50/50 chance he’ll see a woman in the pulpit?

Now, I rejoice that the Church of Scotland ordains all those in whom it recognises God’s call to ministry, and does so regardless of their gender. I see no valid Scriptural reason to set a gender bar on the ministry of word and sacrament. But, I don’t see any evidence that the Spirit works with quotas – or worries about “gender imbalances” in church officers either. Maybe God is calling slightly more men than woman to this role – why should that worry us?

Whom the gospel is preached to, should concern us more than whom the gospel is preached by. And that means at this time in the history of our church, we are failing our men. Perhaps our church culture has simply become too feminine. Certainly, the feeling that this isn’t a place for men is self-perpetuating. So can we rejoice that a previous generation liberated woman for the ministry, and then press on to face the greater issue of today?

Today (Thursday 19th) is International Men's Day.

Presumptuous?

I've been agonising over this for a while: to blog or not to blog?

My main reason for not doing it is that it seemed so presumptuous. What with all the words out there, why one earth should I presume anyone would want to read mine?

Archbishops, theologians, authors and celebrities constantly publish profound and erudite words on the Christian faith, the vast majority of which I have neither the time nor the inclination to read. Why should I presume anyone wants to listen to mine? To think otherwise seemed like pride - arrogance of the worst type.

But in then end, another thought did it for me. Every week, as I climb the pulpit steps, I dare to presume that people will benefit from my words. But at least on Sundays, I have a guaranteed audience. Here, on this blog, it may well be that no one is listening at all - that is a humbling thought.

Thus, was it my humility that stopped me blogging, or was it my pride? Was I too proud to risk wasting my words on an audience that probably wouldn't exist? We shall see.

If nothing else, I shall put my sermons up here most weeks. So, some words will have been heard, even if no more are read.

How have you loved us?

Sermon 15th November 2009 (Malachi 1:1-5)

It is six weeks now until Christmas, and only two until Advent.I want to start a new sermon series this morning, one that will run into Advent, and so I’ve decided that we should look at the book of Malachi.

It is an appropriate book because it contains two of the Advent prophecies that point towards the coming of John the Baptist, but also because sitting as the last book of the Old Testament it is quite literally the “book before Christmas” – the book before the coming of Jesus.

However, it does come 450 years before Christmas (which is probably about the length of time we’d all like to have to be prepared for Christmas too!) To give you a little background, Malachi is set in what is known as the “post-exilic period”.
Now, if that means nothing to you, let me explain.

God’s people entered the Promised Land, but generation after generation they were unfaithful to God. They were warned by prophet after prophet, until God’s patience finally wore out. In 587 BC, Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon, conquered Judah, sacked Jerusalem, destroyed the Temple of Solomon, and took all the leaders of the people into exile in Babylon.

70 years passed, and then the Babylonian Empire was conquered by the Persians. Persia had a more enlightened policy, and allowed the exiled peoples to go home. And so, some of the Jews returned to Jerusalem under Zerubabel, they found the ruined city and they rebuilt the Temple of God. (You can find this in the Book of Ezra.)
However, in the years that followed, the people became very discouraged:
the new temple was smaller than the old,
the conditions were difficult,
they were harassed by the Persian officials in Samaria,
they were not at all prosperous.
And they became fed up and depressed.

And so, at the time of Malachi, the relationship between God and the people is not good. It is not that they were idolatrous – the Exile had taught them not to do that – it was more that they had no real enthusiasm, their religion was half-hearted at best. They were going through the motions, they were ignoring the Law and its call for justice, their priests were corrupt, and their sacrifices were second rate.
And the people begin to question God’s love:
“Where is the proof that you love us?”
“Where is the evidence?”
“Where is our prosperity?”

You can see this questioning in 1:2 “How have you loved us?” – “What have you given us God?” “If you really loved us, surely our life would be better – surely we’d be prosperous, surely we’d be victorious. You say we are your special people, well, it doesn’t feel like it.”

Into that situation, comes the prophet Malachi.(Or we might call him Malchy, being Scots)Strangely, we know nothing about Malachi. The book gives us none of the biographical clues we are given about other prophets. Indeed we can’t even be sure of his name. “Malachi” means “my messenger”, and so 1:1 may simply say “the Word of the Lord to Israel by his messenger”.

But whatever his name is, Malachi might be described as a marriage guidance councillor.He has God and Israel in his surgery.
Israel is bitterly asking “How have you loved me?”
and Malachi is encouraging Israel to stop, and to listen to God’s response – both God’s assurances of his great love, but also God’s string of counter accusations:
“Where is your love for me Israel?”
“Where is your respect? Where is your faithfulness? Where is your worship? Where is your commitment?”
A lot of this concerns the nature of love.
When Israel asks “How have you loved us?” it amounts to saying:
“What’s the benefit to us? What are we getting out of this? Where’s our blessing?”
Actually, that is the response that a lot of Christian people have when things get tough.
“What’s the point in having faith if bad things happen to me?”
“If God isn’t going to look after my interests, my family, my health, my business, then why go to Church? Why be a Christian?”
“If I’m not getting something out of this, why should I persevere?”
The problem with this is that it is a very shallow view of love.
It’s like a child who stamps their feet and says “you don’t really love me!”,
and when the parent replies “yes I do”
the child pipes up “no, if you loved me you’d buy me that bike!”
The child ignores all the past provision, all the long-term care and faithfulness of the parent, and focuses on the now.
We call this “cupboard love”.
It is conditional love, which looks for personal benefit and immediate gratification.
It is selfish, shallow and immature.
The message of Malachi is that God’s love is not conditional.
It is not conditional on us pleasing him, or giving him immediate pleasure (thankfully).
Nor does it promise us immediate gratification.
God’s love (and this term is important) is rather Covenantal.
That is, it is based on God’s long term commitment,
God’s eternal promise of faithfulness to us.
God promises to love us come what may.
God promises to love us whatever we may do.
God promises to love us to the end – even to the cross.
He made his covenant with Abraham – “you shall be my people, and I shall be your God”
He made it again with Moses and the people at Sini,
and the whole story of the Old Testament is how God kept that covenant, kept his side of the bargain, even as the people constantly broke theirs.
The covenant was based not on gratification but on God’s promise.
When couples come to me for marriage, I often discuss with them the difference between covenant love and conditional love.
So much love today is conditional.
People enter into a relationship, be it friendship or romantic, because it gives them something:
happiness, sex, good-feeling, shared experiences.
Often, they hope, they imagine, they aspire, that the relationship will last – but the hope is based on the condition that the relationship with deliver, that it will “work for them”.
And if the condition is not met, or it becomes too hard, too difficult, or not fun, they turn away disappointed and say “well, sadly, that didn’t work out.”
That’s why in a pleasure-seeking, instant-gratification society, divorce will always increase.
(Look at Malachi 2:10-16, and what do you see? Quickie divorces were in vogue in Malachi’s day too.)
Marriage must not be based on conditional love – not even on optimistic conditional love – but on covenanted love.
Marriage is not based on the hope that it will gratify (although we do hope it will).
Marriage is not based on the expectation of happiness (although we do hope it is happy – and it certainly can be).
Rather, Marriage is based on a deliberate decision, on an act of the will, on a choice to love unconditionally.
A wedding should not be simply a recognition that I love you -
A wedding involves a promise that I will love you, I choose to love you, I decide to love you …“for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health” come what may, till death us do part, Amen.
That promise, that covenant, makes the marriage.
Marriage is a covenant that reflects God’s decision, God’s promise, to love his own.
And, if a couple comes with a clear covenant view of marriage, then when times get tough, they say not “sadly that didn’t work out” but “we need to work this out.”
But, this is not just about marriage.
In so many other ways today we live in a society where we refuse to commit – and any commitment is temporary and conditional.
People stick things out only as long as they are fun.
That’s true of hobbies, education, the clubs we join, friendships, church membership, charitable work, or projects we help with. We have a tendency simply to quit when they begin to disappoint or when they no longer suit us.
Once upon a time, people joined a bowling club, or a tennis club, or a social club, or a union, or the scouts, and that was their club and they were committed for years, maybe for life.
But now we go to some activity this week, and we’ll only come back next week if we are still enjoying it, and if nothing better to do comes along.
I noticed the Chief Rabbi has given a lecture recently where ,speaking of our selfish pleasure seeking culture, he argued that the reason that the birth rate is falling alarmingly among Western Europeans is that we are simply too selfish to have children. Children involve commitment, sacrifice and long-term limitations, and since we don’t want to restrict our lifestyle and limit or fun we either opt not to have kids, or to have very small families.
Anyway, let’s get back to Malachi. We are only on the first verse.
Chapter one, verse one “An oracle: The word of the LORD to Israel through Malachi.”
Now, the word “oracle” can equally be translated “a burden”.
Malachi feels the message he has to deliver as a burden – a compulsion he has to deliver to the people.
Interesting, the introduction will be about love, and the Scripture uses the word “burden”.
But actually, that’s right – love is a burden.
Love is a heavy load.
Love constrains us.
Love prevents us doing what we want.
Love restricts our choices.
Love binds us when we’d rather escape.
Love forces us to stay put and buckle down.
Whoever called marriage “the ball and chain” had a good point.
But our permissive society tries to use love as an excuse to do the opposite, as a permission to do what I selfishly want to do.
Adultery is justified because “well we fell in love”
Sexual immorality is justified “well we are in love”
and “If you love me, you’ll sleep with me”.
But true love, covenantal love, isn’t about me doing what I want, and getting what I want.
It isn’t about me gratifying my desire of the moment.
It is about me choosing to commit myself – choosing to take on a restriction – choosing something that isn’t about me and my wants at all.
And that’s true of the love that leads to marriage, to friendship, to community, to charity, to service of the needy, or indeed to the worship of God.
I wear a wedding ring – as do many of you.
A wedding ring is a stop sign.
It is a sign that closes possibilities down.
It says “I am in a covenant”
It says “I am not available”
It says “certain things are not possible for me”.
(And it prevents all the young women here throwing themselves at me – that is not allowed either.)
A wedding ring says – I am not free. I cannot gallivant. I need to be home. I have responsibilities.
All covenant commitments are burdens.
They are not about doing what we want to do, what gratifies us, what makes us instantly feel good.
They are all about long-term commitment, even when we’d rather not. They are about sacrifice and laying aside myself, come what may.
And because our God is the God of the covenant, and has promised to love us,
we are called as Christians into covenant love:
in our commitment to God
in our commitment to each other
in the work into which he calls us
in our commitment to the congregation
in our relationships with our friends.
Christian people are to be people who commit, and not people who quit,
people who keep their promises and not a people who duck out because there’s more fun over there.
What then is the nature of God’s love?
Verse 2, "I have loved you," says the Lord. "But you ask, 'How have you loved us?
And God responds to that question, not by rehearsing all that he is giving them, and listing their blessings – rather he responds by reminding them of a story, the story of Jacob and Essau.
Israel was descended from Jacob (indeed Jacob was later named Israel),
but there were two brothers – Jacob and Essau.
Essau was the elder;
Essau was the stronger;
Essau was the more obvious choice for God’s love and God’s plan of blessing.
Jacob was a rascal, a cheat, a thief. He deserved nothing.
But God chose Jacob. God made Jacob into a great people. God made his promises to Jacob.
What’s the point of the story?
God has chosen us.
God has chosen us to be his people and bear his promise.
We are not the obvious choice.
We have nothing much to offer.
But God’s choice and love is not conditional.
It is not based on out goodness, out suitability or our righteousness,
it is not based on our potential to please him, or to satisfy him.
But he chose us – he decided for us – he promised to us – he committed to us – all by his own will and decision.
And that’s the doctrine of election.
God chose me. And why he chose me is a mystery.
But he has utterly committed himself.
He has covenanted.
He will not quit
He will not take his love from us
He will not change his mind
He will not stop
He will not say “sadly, that relationship didn’t work out”.
And we are to know that this non-quitting love of God is based on his eternal promise.
This is important because it means that we can be assured of God love, even when we don’t get instant gratification, even when the blessings and benefits are hard to see.
Our love for God does not have to be cupboard love.
Of course there are times when we are well aware of God’s blessings.
We sang earlier “Great is thy faithfulness” which has the line “morning by morning new mercies I see”.
But sometimes it is very difficult to see the mercies of God.
Later we will sing “O love that wilt not let me go” – a hymn written in suffering, grief and pain, which contains the line “I trace the rainbow through the rain, and feel the promise is not vain, that morn shall tearless be” – and that speak to the times when the rain is pretty clear, and it can seem for the time that the promise is almost vain.
But we know God’s love is bigger than our inability to see the immediate benefit.
But there’s something else here.
Sometimes when Christians speak of the love of God, they imagine that God is some sort of a gooey, lovey-dovey sort of God, who just can’t help being nice.
God just loves because that’s what he does.
And they imagine that such a lovey God must be permissive.
Such a lovey God must always indulge – always tolerate – always forgive – never condemn.
And the love of God is then used as an excuse for permissiveness, indulgence, pleasure seeking, and basically me doing what I want to do.
But that’s not God’s love.
God’s covenant love is directional, it is aimed at you, and it is all about commitment.
God’s love is a burden to him.
It is a heart-breaking, son-sending, cross-taking, self-dying, costly love.
And it invites us into a relationship of sacrifice, discipline, commitment and response.
For Malachi, this love was a burden.
Paul states that the “Love of Christ constrains us”, or “compels us” in our service.
It drives us to love and to serve and to sacrifice and to commit.
The last thing this is an indulgent love that invites self-indulgence.
This is the love that is obedient to death on a cross, the love of Christ crucified.
There’s the challenge.
Are we to be fair-weather Christians?
Coming to Church for what we get out of it?
Our commitments conditional on there being something in it for us?
Doing things as long as we feel we’re “getting something out of it”?
Or are we willing to be those who have experience the covenant Love of God.
The love that calls us to love unconditionally, because we have been unconditionally loved.
The love that calls us to choose to take up a cross and to commit to bearing a burden, because we have been loved by the one who chose us, and committed to us.
May we know the covenant love of God.
Amen.