Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost; 29 August 2021; Proper 17B (RCL); Song of Solomon 2:8-13; Psalm 45:1-2, 7-10; James 1:17-27; Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23.
We’re following Track 1, the semi-continuous track. Today’s Old Testament reading takes a big leap from last Sunday’s — hardly semi-continuous. I suspect the lectionary places it here because of its purported authorship by King Solomon — we’ve just heard of his dedication of the Temple. But, we take the jump from historical account to love poetry. Whew!
The Song of songs is unique in biblical literature in that it purports to be in a woman’s voice (at least two thirds of the stanzas are on the lips of the female speaker). And it is clear that she delights in her sexuality — something clearly never mentioned of any other women in the Bible, who are always portrayed from a male point of view. And she is unapologetic in her delight.
Many Christians have read the Song of songs allegorically, as the love between Christ and his church, or between God and the soul. Some have read it as the love between God and God’s people (cf. with Hosea). There is perhaps some justification for such a reading in the multiple allusions to the garden; is this perhaps the first love affair not gone wrong?
In any event, the delight of both lovers in each other shines through the poem. The Gospel reading for this week ends with a list of all the disgusting things that come out of the heart of a person. It’s a shame that the lectionary leaves out the scatological joke in Jesus’ retort. What goes into a person enters the stomach, and passes from there to the latrine, and therefore cannot defile a person. When potty training our children, we read the book, Everybody poops. Jesus is making a good cynic joke; everyone is unclean by virtue of pooping. It’s not just that all foods are clean, its that everyone is defiled. So, forget your precious traditions to avoid defilement.
The list of evil things that proceed from the heart stand in stark contrast to the delight of the lovers in the Song of songs. And not accidentally. Each of those things requires treating another as less than human, as unworthy of being delighted in. Amnon’s disgust at Tamar is the symptom of his viewing her as a sexual object. Once conquered, she is disgusting.
Humans set up all sorts of traditions and divisions that separate the delightful from the disgusting. Jesus punctures them all. Perhaps the reason that such a racy love poem as the Song of songs is in the canon is to remind us that delight is so much the better option that disgust. Can we learn to see in the rest of creation the source of God’s delight? Can we desire others in the same way God desires them and delights in them? Even if that is not why the poem was written, its situation in the canon of scripture allows us to read it this way. Every aspect of creation is delightful. It is only our misuse of creation that leads to disgust.