Sermon: “When Words Aren’t Enough: A Biblical Song of Love”, Selections from Song of Solomon (December 11, 2022)

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We couldn’t have a sermon series about biblical songs without an excerpt from the Song of Solomon, and what better week to explore it than the week of Advent that we focus on love? This book (also known as “Song of Songs”) describes a love so powerful that prose can’t adequately express its sentiments – music is required. It’s best known for its detailed, borderline scandalous, depictions of physical love between humans. It doesn’t shy away from specifics (which is part of the reason we’re reading “selections” in worship today). But that’s kind of the point: polite, chivalrous love isn’t an especially accurate representation of love’s true potential and power, is it? You couldn’t convincingly make the assertion that “love is as strong as death” at the conclusion of a poem written in the style of an Arthurian legend or a Jane Austin novel. So, instead of trying to censor or avoid this book (as many have done throughout its history), it’s better for us to accept it for what it is and try to discover what we can learn from it.

Sermon: "God Sings the Body Electric", Song of Solomon 4:1-7/Acts 1:6-11 (May 8, 2016)

5/8/16

Sermon video here.

Every good sermon starts with a flashback to English class, right? Well, this one does, anyway: in 1855, poet Walt Whitman published “I Sing the Body Electric”, his ode to the human form. This poem celebrates the body’s magnificence in both its function and beauty. It’s an incredibly detailed work, including entire sections that are nothing more than lists of body parts—albeit, lists that manage to convey the poet’s sense of awe: “Mouth, tongue, lips, teeth, roof of the mouth, jaws, and the jaw-hinges…/Wrist and wrist-joints, hand, palm, knuckles, thumb, forefinger, finger-joints, finger-nails …” Over the course of its nine sections, Whitman describes the human form in exquisite detail and proclaims ALL bodies—male, female, black, white, young, old—as awe-inspiring and worthy of honor.