SermonStudio

This ode to spring and to love is almost always used at Passover. It is part of the most ancient of Passover liturgy. The language dances, like the lover, over the mountains. Imagine a human leaping upon mountains. Imagine a human like a gazelle or a young stag. I saw two men just yesterday on Broadway. I was about to pass out from the heat -- they were racing each other to the hot dog stand. I couldn't decide if I was happy or not and finally decided to choose happiness. What joy to see young men leaping in 100-degree heat, like gazelles. Broadway can be as formidable as any mountain. There was joy in their dance down the street.

The next part of the passage, after the gazelles leap, is that the gazelles stop at the window and stare in through the lattice. The image is so descriptive and so full of longing. After we dance, often we want to sit quietly and not dance. We want to gaze. From gazelle to gaze -- we know the passage. Then after the dancing and the gazing, the loved one beckons to us to arise and come away. Such great preparation! I think the next time my husband asks me out to dinner, I am going to recommend first a leap down Broadway or over a mountain, then a gaze at each other through a window, then the date. "Arise and come away": these are beautiful words, whether between lovers or in courtship, or even in a more subdued and less lively context.

When vacation time comes, as it does, we are beckoned to arise and come away. The vacating part of vacation is different than going out to dinner. Dinner dates are filling, both spiritually and actually; vacations are emptying. We are beckoned by those who love us and by common justice to arise annually and go away. Why does this Solomon script invitation come? It comes not as an August vacation at all but instead as the winter passes and the spring comes. What an evocation of spring we have here: The winter is past, the rain is over and done, and the flowers come. Human singing joins nature. The time of singing has come and in the background, singing with us, we hear the voice of turtledoves. Smack dab in the middle of this springtime symphony, the fruit comes to the fig tree. As the melody of spring increases, we are to "arise and come away."

Why is vacation so important to people? Or is it just an idea whose time no longer comes? Why is spring so important to people? Do we still know just how deep the cycle of nature is? Or have we forgotten to note the ripeness of figs, given the packages we can get any time of year in just about any store?

Are the cycles of spring and vacation still important to people? Or have we grown beyond the sensuality of these cycles? A conversation helped me understand that we are most definitely not beyond these cycles. We were with a group of people making the old joke about faculty meetings. "The fights are so hard because the stakes are so small." Surely you have heard this joke. My academic husband differed: He said the stakes about the truth are large. What gets taught is huge. What makes it into the canon and curriculum is what forms and shapes truth. I found myself agreeing with him. The deeper and longer the cycle, the longer the ideas held within, the more important it is. We dare not be fooled by packages of figs in the store.

Natural cycles matter no matter how postmodern or industrial we have become. Liturgy joins cycles to show us how important trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored, in Julia Ward Howe's famous words in her hymn, "Battle Hymn Of The Republic." Our language and hymnody is filled with natural images. We lose them and we lose the meaning of much of our tradition.

Many think Christianity is the least sensual of religions. Nothing could be further from the truth and you have only to read the book of Solomon to know just how sensual it is. We are not, however, the only sensual religion. Consider the description of Hinduism in the Life Of Pi.

I am a Hindu because of sculptured cones of red kumkum powder and baskets of yellow turmeric nuggets, because of garlands of flowers and pieces of broken coconut, because of the clanging of bells to announce one's arrival to God, because of the whine of the reedy nadaswaram and the beating of drums, because of the patter of bare feet against stone floors down dark corridors pierced by shafts of sun light, because of the fragrance of incense, because of flames of arati lamps circling in the darkness, because of bhajans being sweetly sung, because of elephants standing around to bless, because of colorful murals telling colorful stories, because of foreheads carrying, variously signified, the same word -- faith.1

I once made a Christmas garden, which also became an Easter garden, too. We had 55 poinsettias left over from the Christmas service. No one wanted to take them home as they had dried out and were drooping. In southern Florida, we have almost no dirt, only sand and coral rock. I was always composting and buying dirt and fertilizer just to grow a few gnarled tomatoes. I took the entire group of poinsettias home, turned them on their bottoms and watched my new garden appear every day. I added the Easter lilies, too. I upended them, too -- and sure enough the next spring, they shot little shoots up out of the ground. "Arise," they said to me, "arise." I loved my Easter/Christmas anti-waste garden. And I took all the pots back to the garden store. They were very happy to have them rather than to see them end up in the trash. These plants had a good life while blooming; they may as well have a good life as dirt. Most of us hope for the same for our bodies. When they say ashes to ashes and dust to dust over us, we hope our bottoms will turn up good soil. When I think of resurrection, I will be able to think of this soil I built, gleaned from the old flowers. When I think of resurrection, I think of springtime and I hear the voice of God saying to me, "Arise, my loved one, and come away, the voice of the turtledove is heard in the land."

Let me tell you something about the Spanish colonialists, which you may not know. They tried to stop the cycle of spring. They destroyed the seed corn when they came in. They didn't just plop churches on top of everything. They institutionalized waste. That's what we do when we ignore the power of the seasonal cycles. We institutionalize waste. Fortunately, the same people who put cayenne on grapefruit on corners in Mexico today also hid the seed from the Spaniards. They knew how not to waste, how to stay in relationship. They knew how to be sensual about food and spring, flowers and figs.

Some people find the Song of Solomon a little much, a little too sexy as a book of scripture. I think just the opposite. I remember when a church I served was having a big fight about homosexuality. The entire congregation had come out to vote one way or the other. People were being brought in from nursing homes in vans. The entire confirmation class showed up on a Tuesday night. I was amazed and I said so to one of the children I knew well. "So why is everybody here tonight for this discussion?" She responded without blinking, "Because you are finally talking about something important." What an amazing statement. A fifteen-year-old girl showed up at church because we were finally talking about something that interested her. I wish I had shown her Solomon before. I wish I had shown her how deeply human sexuality fits into the cycles, the seasons, the great and awesome reproductivity of earth and spring, of fig tree and gazelles, of dinner dates and gazing at each other through lattice.

The church is always talking about something important: life and death, birth and fecundity. We have a lot to say about the subject. Most of it is terribly important. No wonder there are so many good fights about it.

Spring is important. How we think about is important. Spring is connected to important matters like sensuality, seed corn, sexuality, and vacation. Solomon knew it all early. Amen.


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1. Yann Martel, Life Of Pi (Orlando, Florida: Harvest Books, 2003), p. 47.