Exposure in Creation

Exposure in Creation
Sycamore Creek Church
Song of Songs 4:1-7
Tom Arthur
February 20, 2011

Peace, Friends!

Exposure.  That simple word has several different meanings.  Exposure can be a disclosure of something secret.  It can also mean vulnerability to the elements or being in a general state of vulnerability.  Today we continue our series on the Song of Songs called Exposure, and we’ll be exposing the Song of Songs through the lens of its second meaning: vulnerability to the elements.

Over the centuries Christians have tended to debate about the Song of Songs.  Early in history, before the sexual revolution of the 60s, Christians tended to be very uncomfortable with the eroticism of the Song of Songs.  Why is that in the Bible?  So they allegorized everything and made the book all about God’s love for God’s people.  They exposed Song of Songs through a spiritual lens.  So then came the 60s, and today commentators want to say that the Song of Songs is all about sex.  They expose the Song of Songs through a literal lens.  Which one is right?  I’m not sure this is a helpful question.

I love photography.  I studied it extensively while in college, and one of the things I came to realize is that you can take a picture and expose it three or more different ways and get multiple different images.  Which one is right?  That’s probably not the right question to be asking.  Rather, what do we see more clearly in one that we don’t see in another?  What comes to the foreground and what recedes to the background?

In the same way, Song of Songs can be exposed at least three different ways: literally, morally, and spiritually.  Through the literal lens, we learn something about sex.  That’s what we did last week.  We learned that sex is faithful, equal, emotional, physical, and spiritual.  Through the spiritual lens, which we’ll be looking through next week, we learn something about God’s love.  Today we’re going to be exposing the Song of Songs through a moral lens, and we’ll learn something about creation.  Song of Songs is definitely about sex, but it’s also about a whole lot more.

Peace with Creation

Let’s go back to the beginning of the Bible for a moment.  In Genesis we run into what is usually called The Fall.  Adam and Eve disobey God and eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  There are three consequences of The Fall.  The first is that there is a brokenness between Adam and Eve and all lovers and spouses who follow them.  Then there is a brokenness in creation.  Lastly, there is a distance that forms between humanity and God.

Through each of these exposures of the Song of Songs, we find a correction and healing to the brokenness and sin of The Fall.  Through the literal exposure of Song of Songs, we see a healing in the exposure between husband and wife.  In the spiritual reading we see an intimacy and vulnerability between God and humanity.  And in the moral reading we see a delight and peace with creation.

We can see the effects of The Fall all around us in creation.  I asked Lori Miller, a member of our church who works for the City of Lansing’s Capital Area Recycling and Trash what were some of the ways that we are vulnerable to the elements of pollution in creation right here in Lansing?  She pointed out several to me.  For those who live along heavy traveled corridors like Pennsylvania and Cedar, there’s exposure to exhaust and the pollutants that get into the soil along those streets.  There’s the greenhouse gas emissions that BWL’s coal power plants create.  If you live in an older home there’s the potential for exposure to asbestos, lead paint, and radon.  Then there’s the landfills.  She told me that while landfills have improved significantly over the years, there is no 100% safe  landfill.  When we throw especially tech trash into the landfill the contaminants in our electronics and computers will eventually make their way into the environment.  Getting more specific, she pointed me to the Motor Wheel Landfill on the north side of Lansing on High Street.  This was a pre-regulated landfill that has contaminated the ground water.  She also pointed me to the Adams Plating sight on the west side on Rosemary Street which has contaminated the soil with chromium.  Chromium causes all kinds of problems with health including skin, lung, immune system, kidney, and liver problems.  It also causes cancer.  She did say that this site has been stabilized and that there are no immediate risks because the soil has been cleaned up.  But still, you walk outside your house (or stay in it), and you’re exposed to the broken and polluted elements of creation.

In contrast to this experience of creation, Song of Songs presents an image of delight and peace with creation:

Song of Songs 4:1-7 (NLT)

Young Man: “How beautiful you are, my beloved, how beautiful! Your eyes behind your veil are like doves. Your hair falls in waves, like a flock of goats frisking down the slopes of Gilead. Your teeth are as white as sheep, newly shorn and washed. They are perfectly matched; not one is missing. Your lips are like a ribbon of scarlet. Oh, how beautiful your mouth! Your cheeks behind your veil are like pomegranate halves — lovely and delicious. Your neck is as stately as the tower of David, jeweled with the shields of a thousand heroes. Your breasts are like twin fawns of a gazelle, feeding among the lilies. Before the dawn comes and the shadows flee away, I will go to the mountain of myrrh and to the hill of frankincense. You are so beautiful, my beloved, so perfect in every part.

This is God’s story for us today.  Thank you, God!

Peace with the Land

So what is this?  Isn’t it just an erotic poem?  Yes it is that.  It’s actually a very specific kind of poem.  It’s called a “wasf” and was used by many different kinds of poets in the culture of its day.  The poet attempts to connect the emotional experience of different body parts with the emotional experience of different moments in creation.  Does it sound a little strange?  It shouldn’t.  Our modern day poets do the same thing.  Consider John Denver’s song, Annie’s Song.  He sings:

You fill up my senses
like a night in the forest
like the mountains in springtime,
like a walk in the rain
like a storm in the desert,
like a sleepy blue ocean
you fill up my senses,
come fill me again.

This isn’t intended to be a literal description.  You can’t go in a room and pick out the woman that this describes.  Um…Yeah…go find the woman whose hair is like a frisky flock of goats, who fills up your senses like a night in the forest.  Doesn’t work.  Because that’s not what it was intended to do.  This kind of poem is intended to connect emotional experiences.

When we look closely at those emotional experiences in the Song of Songs we see that there is a deep delight in creation rather than creation being something that we are exposed to in a vulnerable fashion where there is no peace with the land.

Back to Genesis for a moment.  In The Fall we see no peace with the land.  God says to Adam, “Because you listened to your wife and ate the fruit I told you not to eat, I have placed a curse on the ground…” (Genesis 3:17, NLT).  I said this last week, but it is worth repeating again.  I don’t think this “curse” is that God is saying this is how it should be.  I think it is God saying this is how it is now that sin has entered into the story.  If we thought that this is how it should now be, then we wouldn’t allow men to use tractors.  That would be cheating them of the “benefits of the curse” on the ground.

Continuing on, we see that Adam and Eve are separated from this idyllic garden of paradise.  We read, “So the LORD God banished Adam and his wife from the Garden of Eden, and he sent Adam out to cultivate the ground from which he had been made” (Genesis 3:23, NLT).  Here there is no peace with creation.

The Song of Songs exposes a different image than that of The Fall.  We read:

Song 2:10-13 (NRSV)
Now the winter is past, the rain is over and gone.  The flowers appear on the earth; the time of singing has come, and the voice of the turtledove is heard in our land. The fig tree puts forth its figs, and the vines are in blossom; they give forth fragrance. Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away.

The winter is past.  It reminds me of The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe where because of the White Witch, Narnia is stuck always in winter and never Christmas.  There is no spring.  But then one day the snow starts to melt and spring starts to come.  The Narnias know that something has happened.  Aslan, the Lion King, has come back to remake Narnia.  So too in the Song of Songs.  Winter is past.  The Fall is coming to an end and creation is remade.  We partake in this remaking through the care and service of the land.

This image of peace with the land goes quite far in the Song of Songs.  At the end of chapter one, we read about a bedroom where the ceiling is made of timbers.  It is as though the couple is so at peace with creation that they are like God’s making love on the tops of mountains.  What a beautiful image of being at peace with creation.

Peace with People

Of course creation isn’t just made up of animals and trees and flowers and mountains.  Part of creation is you and me and all the people that are creatures too.  Going back again to Genesis and The Fall we see right off the bat after being banished from the garden that peace between people disappears.  Adam and Eve’s sons have a run in with one another.  We read, “Later Cain suggested to his brother, Abel, ‘Let’s go out into the fields.’ And while they were there, Cain attacked and killed his brother” (Genesis 4:8, NLT).  Yikes!  The first murder.  It didn’t take long for humanity to lose the peace of the Garden of Eden.

Song of Songs exposes us to a different image of being at peace with people.  The groom says to his bride, “O my beloved, you are as beautiful as the lovely town of Tirzah. Yes, as beautiful as Jerusalem! You are as majestic as an army with banners!” (Song 6:4, NLT).  Unless you’re up on ancient geography, what just happened here probably passed you by.  The groom compares his bride to two cities: Tirzah and Jerusalem.  So what?  Well, he’s comparing his bride to two capitals that have been in civil war with one another.  Tirzah is the capital of the Northern Kingdom of Israel, the Washington D.C., if you will, of Israel.  Jerusalem is the capital of the Southern Kingdom of Israel, the Richmond, if you will, of Israel.

Let’s make this whole thing a little more understandable.  We’re talking about the Sue Sylvesters and Will Shusters getting together (the geeks, or gleeks, and the jocks/cheerleaders).  Batman and Joker.  The USSR and the US.  North Korea and South Korea.  East Jerusalem and West Jerusalem.  The Israelis and the Palestinians.

What a comparison!  Who compares their beautiful bride to two warring cities and people groups?  Only one who thinks that peace between them is more beautiful than the current hostilities.  We keep reading and the groom takes this a step further comparing the bride to a dance between two armies: “Return, return, O Shulammite! Return, return, that we may look upon you. Why should you look upon the Shulammite, as upon a dance before two armies?” (Song 6:13, NRSV).  Whew!  How do two armies dance together?  They do so by bringing both peace and justice.

Did you notice that the bride is given another name here?  She’s called the “Shulammite.”  Umm…What’s that mean?  Well, “Shulammite” comes from the same root as the word “shalom” which means peace.  Shalom means peace, but it also means a whole lot more.

We read in Psalm 34:14, “Turn away from evil and do good. Work hard at living in peace [shalom] with others.”  Friendship.  Contentment.  Tranquility.  And of course, no war!  Shalom is all these things, and more.  We read in Psalm 72:3, “May the mountains yield prosperity [shalom] for all, and may the hills be fruitful, because the king does what is right.”  Justice.  Wellbeing.  Welfare.  Ethical living.  The word “shalom” has a kind of grand vision for the whole person—mind, body, spirit.  Care for the whole person and you’re participating in shalom.

Yes, the Song of Songs is about sex, but when you expose it a little more, you realize that it’s not just about sex.  It’s also about creation. Song of Songs exposes us to the best of the best: an image, vision, imagination of peace or shalom with all of creation—both the land and other people.  So…

Shalom, friends!