Readings: Song
of Solomon 2:8-13, Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30
Let
us pray: Faithful and ever-loving God, may your word for us be embedded in our
hearts and outpoured in our lives we pray.
Amen.
I have titled this
sermon: ‘Are we an extravagant people for God?’
As I prepared the
liturgy for today, I found it difficult to move on from the words of welcome,
psalm and praise – I wanted stay in the groove of extravagant celebration, to
immerse myself in the joy of God with us; the immensity of God’s love and
purpose in this world. Beautiful are you
O God. I wanted to rest awhile in the
beauty and joy, in the praise of an abundant and loving God. The sheer wonder of God with us kind of
stopped me in my tracks.
We are, I suspect,
in relative terms, a measured people. We
are uncomfortable with words like extravagance or passion, find it difficult to
express over-the-top emotion and feel it we need to remain reasonably in control
lest we make a fool of ourselves and embarrass others. That will not be all of us but possibly
enough of us to make it our expectation of proper behaviour, especially in
church.
So what does it
feel like when we read the superlatives, the passionate language of the Song of
Songs. Which some of us did a couple of
months ago at our monthly bible book evening.
There was some squirming at the evocative wording. Why is it in the
bible, we might even ask? How many have
read it through, not just the single lectionary appearance of 2:8-13? Is it a single poem or a collection? Is it about love between man and woman or
Israel and God or Jesus and the church or the soul’s spiritual union with God? Allegorical or literal? Sacred or profane?
This is a discussion for another time – today, reading it as Christ
followers, it is helpful to see it through the lens of the church’s
relationship with Jesus, our relationship with God through Jesus. A passionate outpouring of what it means to
love and be loved.
But whatever the lens, whoever is the lover and the loved, it is brim full of extravagance.
And if we read it as an allegorical tale of the relationship between God
and humankind, it demands of us an enthusiasm, an excessiveness for our God, for being the body of Christ, that might not
come naturally to a measured people.
Do we celebrate
God? It’s very easy to linger in the
subdued reverence of a distant God, the darkness of confession, the
hopelessness of an ugly world, the tiredness of traditions that no longer
connect us with God. For hundreds of
years we have been suspicious of emotion, preferring instead to be a prudent,
serious people of God. In our music from
early on emotion was looked upon with suspicion, in our traditional liturgy the
language can be so formal as to disengage us.
We use the language of praise but sometimes it is so heavy if feels like
a burden.
Have we turned the
yoke of God, despite the words of promise to the contrary, to an encumbrance
that is weighing us down, keeping us immobile? Too much ‘serious’ training as
responsible adults has squeezed the capacity for joy and delight out of us?
Well, maybe it is
time to redress the balance. To use the
language of celebration: that we are the beloved of God, that we are blessed
and the world is blessed by the presence of God.
No one does it
better than Joy Cowley: Extravagant Praise.
“We’ve been
looking for a suitable word to praise you, God. Something enthusiastic but not
too formal, the sort of happy shout a child gives to its mother.
We’ve
tried Hallelujahs, Glorias and Hosannas, but really, what we’d like is a word
from our own language, a word that is more us.
If
we were a bellbird, we’d fill our throats with ecstatic song.
Or,
as a lamb, we could fling ourselves into spring dance.
As
a child playing in the snow we would whoop with new delights.
As
a mountain stream we would spill out inarticulate babblings of joy.
And
if we were the sea, our waves would explode in a thunder of love for you
Lord,
you overwhelm us with your great goodness.
Praise
should not be difficult and yet we can’t find the exact word. Perhaps it
doesn’t exist, though if it does,
we’re
sure that it sounds like ‘Yippee!’”
So how do we live
under the yoke of Christ and see it as a reason for dancing and shouting
yippee.
I want to share a
story from Friday night: I was at the folk club enjoying a wonderful night of
music – and I wanted to be part of it. I
don’t sing well, don’t play an instrument, can tap my foot with the best of
them but it wasn’t enough. And I
suddenly wanted to express my participation, my delight in the rhythm and the
beauty of the music – and the thing that I really wanted to do is let my hands
loose to dance the music. I sort of did but discreetly – maybe I should have
made it more of a yippee moment!
Extravagant
movement – once in Amberley we had a combined service with the Anglicans and it
was decided that we would ask a woman who had been a professional dancer – with
Limbs if any of you remember that – to interpret in the dance the psalm as it
was read. It was beautiful – an
expression of both the word and her involvement in it. Some people sat with eyes averted – dance in
church? I had to adjust my thinking too
and I am so glad I was able to. And I
was part of a group that line-danced in church to a Christmas carol – mostly to
support a young woman who felt inadequate at whatever she tried to do but this
was her passion – and it felt beautiful for God.
But it is not just
in words and movement that we might need to push the boundaries.
Jesus said: ‘Come to me, all you that are weary and are
carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you,
and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest
for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.’
Extravagant
rest! In Jesus we are promised a peace
and restoration unlike any other we might know – a giving up of our burdens to
one who understands the power of love to both hold us safe and to free us from
the tyranny of our burdens. Do we trust
in that promise of rest? It seems to me
that we don’t altogether embrace the concept of handing all our cares and
burdens over to God. We tend to keep
some of them close, preferring the burden to be ours to carry and to deal with,
the failure ours to live with. The sense
of incredible peace that comes from walking with Christ instead of separate
from him, from knowing you are not alone in your struggle is beyond
measure. The presence of God in our
lives makes the burdens light and the joy indescribable. Nothing measured about that.
For it is a light yoke, this taking on of
love, this learning of the way of Jesus: we are offered the chance to step out
from all that wearies and dismays us into a place of celebration and hope –
that we can make a difference in a world full of pain, that we are beloved no matter what, that love will conquer death, that light will shine
in the darkness and the darkness will never put it out.
For is that not
the extravagant promise of the cross – that in the midst of the pain and
suffering, love conquers all, love remains with us and love reconciles the
world to God. How else can we respond to
the crucified and risen Christ than with extravagant love to him and to each other. Amen.
Margaret Garland
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