[H!PS] this is not an evangelism testimony [Stuttering Sisters; June 27, 2013]

For some years now, I've been part of what started as a women's preaching circle. I opted out of this most recent round, as the spiritual journey slant (or however it was framed to me) wasn't something I really connected with. But then one of the sisters was visiting me in January and as she said to the list, "I met up with Elizabeth and she was talking about all these conversations she's been having with others regarding the substance of her faith and what difference it makes and I thought - that's what we're doing too!"

The month that I rejoined, one of the members explained: "This month we had an assignment to speak to someone in our lives about Jesus (to testify and evangelize) in a way that was new, uncomfortable, even scary."

This continued to be the theme for the duration -- though when I met with a couple of the sisters a few weeks before the season's closing session (in which I had the floor), one of them reminded me that technically I could do whatever I wanted with my portion of the time.

Since I'd rejoined, I'd been sporadically trying to cultivate some sort of practice of evangelizing, but nothing really stuck. In trying to help me brainstorm, the sisters who were visiting asked me why it is that I do all the church stuff I do -- which answer was basically the theme I'd already been thinking about talking about, but I felt somewhat more legitimated in my choice of topic.

(The name of the circle this season was, "Graceful Stuttering: Testifying to Intimate Encounters With Grace." Which I reminded myself of at times as I was attempting to write a draft and feeling off-topic.)

Below is the draft I wrote -- which is fairly close to what I actually said, except I ended up extemporizing at length about community at the end.

***

A few years ago, I was attending weekly events at 5 different churches in 4 different denominations. "You frequent ALL the houses of worship on [this street]," one of my then-pastors said, her innuendo both intentional and appreciated by me.

I routinely tell people that I live in in my head and while I have plenty of emotional response, I don't really have ~spiritual experiences~ -- so I often get asked why I do so much church, and 5 years later I have yet to come up with a good answer.

Marcus Borg uses the family analogy for religious traditions -- many of us grow up in one, and it feels like home because of that -- though he also acknowledges that some people justifiably need to leave their family of origin and find a new one.

Definitely a lot of my attachment to Christianity is because I grew up with it.

My mom brought my brother and I to church regularly when we were growing up, but the pastor's sermons put me to sleep, so I experienced church as more of a community than a theological anything.

When I started college and again when I moved out of my parents' house after college, it took some time for me to start attending church on Sunday mornings again because hey, sleeping in, pretty appealing.

I grew up without a denominational affiliation, so I tried out churches in various denominations -- but it didn't occur to me to try out Judaism or anything. Which is arguably in part a sort of blinkered privilege, but it is also true that Christianity is my home.

There's something about this Christian story that has a hold on me. Every time I think, "It would be good for me to have a better understanding of religions not my own," I am reminded that I am interested in, in decreasing order of interest: Christianity, Judaism, Islam, everything else.

But the fact that I will spend hours down the rabbit hole that is Wikipedia or other parts of the Internet researching obscure parts of Christian tradition doesn't explain why I attend so much church stuff -- since I was definitely accumulating worship services, not just Bible studies and small groups.

For all that I'm a misanthrope, I think I have to admit that one of the reasons is community.

I used to comment frequently that I didn't know how people who weren't part of a faith tradition met people when they moved somewhere new. Coffee Hour has free food and people are obligated to be friendly and welcoming to you but you can also hang out on the fringes for as long as you want until you feel comfortable actually engaging.

And then churches go even further and organize social events -- and do-gooder events, for people who like that sort of thing.

Also: physical contact. I am weirded out when I'm visiting a church and we get to the Passing of the Peace part and people just shake hands with the people in a 360 degree circle around them, not actually moving from the floor right in front of their pew. I have literally climbed out of pews so I can go peace people when whoever's at the end of my pew isn't moving. I will hug just about everyone -- though I try to remember to ask when it's someone I don't know, since people have different levels of comfort with physical contact.

Chelsea and Eda and I were talking about this when they were visiting, and then over ice cream after Bible study earlier this week it came up with some folks from First Church Somerville -- for most of us, church is basically the only physical contact we have all week. One of my friends literally worries about deciding to go home with a guy for a one-night stand just because the prospect of touch is so appealing.

First Church has grown big enough that I can't peace everyone I know on a given Sunday morning, and I keep being confronted with people I don't know at all, whom I feel obligated to greet and welcome even though part of me wants to weave past them to hug more of my friends.

The peril of built-in community, of course, is that it's not a community you built yourself, and so it may contain members you wouldn't have chosen for yourself.

There are people at First Church Somerville who when I first met them, I didn't like them all that much. Some of them I still don't like that much, but most of them have grown on me. Being in community forces me to live into Kindom reality -- even when I resist it.

[33] "Do not stir up or awaken love until it is ready." [Song of Songs; H!PS: Sophia Circle; Feb. 13, 2012]

“Do not stir up or awaken love until it is ready.” (NRSV)

My dominant impression of the Song of Songs is a passionate love song -- overflowing with that positive energy of being so very much in love. Somehow it’s easy for me to forget about all the moments of withdrawal, of absence, and even of violence.

While the two lovers spend much of the book caught up in their love for each other, this is not a love without risk.

The Shulamite woman is black and beautiful. As Christopher King points out [in The Queer Bible Commentary, p. 358]:

She is as exotic and elusive as the black shelters of desert nomads (‘tents of Kedar’). Yet, as she has come as close to the privileges coveted by Jerusalem’s insiders as the ‘curtains of Solomon’ are to the intimacies of the king’s bedchamber.

This is the first thing she says to the daughters of Jerusalem -- the song opens with a hymn directed at her beloved, but when she first explicitly addresses the daughters of Jerusalem, it is to say, “I am black and beautiful.” She has worked for her family -- this outdoor work implicitly contributing to her appearance being other than model perfect -- and now her brothers reject her.

Life is full of tradeoffs -- who she has become is someone who might well be undesirable to many potential partners, but having found someone who desires her just as she is, she finds herself rejected by her family. Our whole lives, we risk rejection.

She moves on to praise her beloved, building to descriptions of her fantasies of their physical activities together and she adjures the daughters of Jerusalem, "Do not stir up or awaken love until it is ready." (Song of Songs 2:7b)

“Sustain me with raisins, refresh me with apples; for I am faint with love.” (Song of Songs 2:5)

In reading through the Song of Songs in preparing for this preach, one of the things that struck me was how frightening this intense love is sometimes. The ways in which the overwhelmingness of this love is frightening (and later, the withdrawal and the seeking) really resonated with me -- to be so caught up in one’s passionate adoration of, and desire for, another so as to feel faint.

In their book Radical Ecstasy, Dossie Easton and Janet Hardy talk about how ecstatic experiences dissolve the boundaries that define our sense of ourselves as existing separate from other people, from the rest of the world, and from the Divine.

They cite Merriam-Webster’s definition of ecstasy as “a state of being beyond reason and self-control” -- reminding us that this experience isn’t always a “feel good” experience, even though “bliss” may be our primary connotation of “ecstasy.”

I love that the Song of Songs puts forward this so very embodied love as a good good thing -- and I also appreciate that it acknowledges the real complexities of such passion, including the not so nice parts.

As we move on in the book, the Shulamite woman praises her beloved again -- this time from more of a distance ... watching him traversing the mountains; being entreated by him from outside the wall, outside the windows, outside the lattice. He entreats her: "Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away." (Song of Songs 2:10b)

But then she does, and she cannot find him.

"Upon my bed at night I sought him whom my soul loves; I sought him, but found him not; I called him, but he gave no answer." (Song of Songs 3:1)

She goes out into the city, is encountered by the sentinels, but then,

Scarcely had I passed them, when I found him whom my soul loves. I held him, and would not let him go until I brought him into my mother’s house, and into the chamber of her that conceived me. I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem, by the gazelles or the wild does: do not stir up or awaken love until it is ready!
(Song of Songs 3:4-5)

And for the second time she adjures the daughters of Jerusalem, "Do not stir up or awaken love until it is ready!"

A love like this, it will challenge you, it will pull you out of your comfort zone, put you in conflict with those who have power over you… Do not get yourself involved in a love like this unless you are ready and prepared for what lies ahead of you. And the Shulamite woman certainly has that strength and determination -- “I held him, and would not let him go until I brought him into my mother’s house.” Her brothers may be angry with her, but she is determined to bring her beloved home with her -- and she will not lose him again.

As the book continues, we continue to telescope temporally and/or geographically -- once again the Shulamite woman beholds her beloved approaching and praises him to excess. He responds with erotic invitations ("I come to my garden, my sister, my bride" [Song of Songs 5:1a]), and they approach consummation ("My beloved thrust his hand into the opening, and my inmost being yearned for him. I arose to open to my beloved, and my hands dripped with myrrh" [Song of Songs 5:4-5a]) but this consummation is not to be -- "I opened to my beloved, but my beloved had turned and was gone." (Song of Songs 5:6a)

This time she adjures the daughters of Jerusalem, "If you find my beloved, tell him this: I am faint with love." (Song of Songs 5:8)

At this the daughters of Jerusalem respond for the first time -- "What is your beloved more than another beloved, O fairest among women? What is your beloved more than another beloved, that you thus adjure us?" (Song of Songs 5:9)

Despite all the praises they have been listening to from the Shulamite woman about her beloved, at this moment they ask, "What's the big deal about this guy?"

Christopher King plays up the Shulamite's outsider status versus the insider status of the daughters of Jerusalem, including the way this is negatively valenced re: her physical appearance -- but here they call her, "O fairest among women."

I hear them sympathetically here -- "Listen, girl, you are AWESOME. This guy's being a big tease and here you are falling for it. WHAT is so great about this guy that you are so focused on him, so determined to win him back? You could do better, girl!"

She praises his physical attributes and concludes, "His speech is most sweet, and he is altogether desirable. This is my beloved and this is my friend, O daughters of Jerusalem." (Song of Songs 5:16)

Given the emphasis on the beloved’s physical beauty, I am struck by the line, “This is my beloved and this is my friend.” The contemporary ideal of romantic love between equals, soulmates and all that, isn’t something we encounter much in the Bible, but here it is.

I am unconvinced of her beloved's merits, but the daughters of Jerusalem, whether they buy it or whether they merely recognize that argument is futile, agree to help -- "Where has your beloved gone, O fairest among women? Which way has your beloved turned, that we may seek him with you?" (Song of Songs 6:1)

She tells them, and in this way she seems almost to narratively enact the meeting -- she tells them where he has gone, and then we switch to praises directed at her, voiced by her beloved. Initially I actually thought that SHE was speaking to her beloved -- "terrible as an army with banners. Turn away your eyes from me, for they overwhelm me!" (Song of Songs 6:4) This is not language we expect from a man to a woman, certainly not in Biblical texts.

“I went down to the nut orchard, to look at the blossoms of the valley, to see whether the vines had budded, whether the pomegranates were in bloom. Before I was aware, my fancy set me in a chariot beside my prince.” (Song of Songs 6:11-12)

And again we are regaled by praises. And once again the Shulamite woman expresses her desire to bring her beloved home with her:

O that you were like a brother to me, who nursed at my mother’s breast! If I met you outside, I would kiss you, and no one would despise me. I would lead you and bring you into the house of my mother, and into the chamber of the one who bore me. I would give you spiced wine to drink, the juice of my pomegranates. O that his left hand were under my head, and that his right hand embraced me! I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem, do not stir up or awaken love until it is ready!
(Song of Songs 8:1-4)

This logistical mapping of where she would like her beloved’s hands echoes the early section where she is faint with love --

He brought me to the banqueting house, and his intention toward me was love. Sustain me with raisins, refresh me with apples; for I am faint with love. O that his left hand were under my head, and that his right hand embraced me! I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem, by the gazelles or the wild does: do not stir up or awaken love until it is ready!
(Song of Songs 2:4-7)

This time we have combined the risk of rejection, her desire that their relationship be accepted, with her yearning desire for physical intimacy with him. “Do not stir or awaken love until it is ready” -- be prepared for all the yearning you will experience, yearning for things to be different than they are.

But there is a firmness underneath this yearning, grounding it and sustaining the one who is yearning.

Set me as a seal upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm; for love is strong as death, passion fierce as the grave. Its flashes are flashes of fire, a raging flame. Many waters cannot quench love, neither can floods drown it. If one offered for love all the wealth of their house, it would be utterly scorned.
(Song of Songs 8:6-7)

For all the risk we have encountered in this story -- risk from others and even risk from the beloved -- we are still reminded of the fierce strength of love.

The book continues, with the Shulamite woman’s brothers re-entering the conversation, and the book ends with the lovers again not yet reunited --

O you who dwell in the gardens, my companions are listening for your voice; let me hear it. Make haste, my beloved, and be like a gazelle or a young stag upon the mountains of spices!
(Song of Songs 8:13-14)

But for me, that passage is the culmination of the text -- “love is as strong as death.” Which I can’t say without adding that love is STRONGER than death -- God who is Love, incarnated as Jesus the Christ, triumphed over death. The love that God has for us, like the love between the Shulamite woman and her beloved, makes us faint sometimes, frightens us sometimes, but it always endures, bidding us out of our comfortable places -- and so perhaps the ending of the Song of Songs isn’t so off-putting after all … that promise of union that is both already and not yet.

Amen.

[28] "Your faith has saved you; go in peace." [Luke 7:36-50; H!PS: Luke & Us; Feb. 22, 2011]

My friend Rae let me know about Hosanna! People’s Seminary, and so I’ve been a part of their Luke and Us women’s preaching circle since September. It meets once a month via the magic of technology, and I preached tonight.

Luke 7:36-50

³⁶One of the Pharisees asked Jesus to eat with him, and Jesus went into the Pharisee’s house and reclined at the table.

³⁷And a woman in the city, who was a sinner, having learned that Jesus was eating in the Pharisee’s house, brought an alabaster jar of ointment. ³⁸She stood behind Jesus’ feet, weeping, and began to bathe them with her tears and to dry them with her hair. Then she continued kissing Jesus’ feet and anointing them with the ointment.

³⁹Now when the Pharisee who had invited Jesus saw it, he said to himself, “A prophet would have known who and what kind of woman this is—a sinner.”

⁴⁰Jesus spoke up and said to him, “Simon, I have something to say to you.”

“Teacher,” he replied, “Speak.”

⁴¹ “Two people owed money to a creditor. One owed the creditor the equivalent of two years’ wages; the other, two months’ wages. ⁴² Both were unable to pay, so the creditor wrote off both debts. Which of them was more grateful to the moneylender?”

⁴³Simon answered, “I suppose the one who had the greater debt canceled.”

And Jesus said to him, “You have judged rightly.”

⁴⁴Then turning toward the woman, Jesus said to Simon, “Do you see this woman? I entered your house; you gave me no water for my feet, but she has bathed my feet with her tears and dried them with her hair. ⁴⁵You gave me no kiss, but from the time I came in she has not stopped kissing my feet. 46You did not anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with ointment. ⁴⁷Therefore, I tell you, her sins, which were many, have been forgiven; hence she has shown great love. But the one to whom little is forgiven, loves little.”

⁴⁸Then Jesus said to her, “Your sins are forgiven.”

⁴⁹But those who sat together at the table began to ask among themselves, “Who is this who even forgives sins?”

⁵⁰And Jesus said to the woman, “Your faith has saved you; go in peace.”

     -NRSV, edited with help from The Inclusive Bible and my best friend

A religious leader invites Jesus to dinner. While Jesus is reclining at the table, a woman identified only as a “sinner” shows up. She stands behind Jesus’ feet, weeping, and her tears fall on Jesus’ feet -- which are still dusty from the outside as we learn later that Simon was remiss in his host duties and didn’t offer Jesus any water for foot-washing (desert plus sandals? you get the picture). She washes Jesus’ feet with her tears and then dries them with her hair. She then goes on to kiss Jesus’ feet and anoint them with ointment.

This is a strongly embodied interaction. The woman doesn’t come to Jesus with an eloquent plea for forgiveness -- or an eloquent screed against the Pharisee -- or an eloquent statement of faith. She just shows up.

She draws near to this person Jesus, even though the atmosphere is hostile to her.

She stands behind Jesus, perhaps feeling hesitant, but she also doesn’t hide. When her tears fall on Jesus’ feet, she doesn’t apologize for the interruption, she moves with it into an offering of love.

Simon is appalled that this sinful woman is behaving so intimately with this rabbi, especially in public, and thinks this must be a sign that Jesus isn’t really a great prophet, because of course a prophet would have recognized her sin and recoiled from her touch.

Jesus, of course, has a very different perspective.

A couple chapters earlier, some Pharisees and other religious scholars asked, “Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?” and Jesus replied, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick” (Luke 5:30-31a).

Of course, all of us are in need of healing and forgiveness, but unlike Simon, the sinful woman in this story recognizes her need.

Whereas the woman experiences Jesus’ forgiveness like the debtor who had two years’ wages worth of debt forgiven, Simon would have experienced a statement of forgiveness as a much smaller burden relieved -- and, actually, I think it equally likely that Simon would have been insulted by the idea that he had anything he needed to be forgiven for.

The woman is transformed by this forgiveness. “Your faith has saved you; go in peace.” She has been saved. The weight of all that sin and guilt has been lifted from her. Like the woman in Luke 13 [verses 10-17] who had been bent over for 18 years, this woman has been released from her bondage.

Being “saved” is not a simplistic transaction -- insert repentance, or statement of belief, or whatever … receive free pass to Heaven. Rather it is a transformation. We are released from the death-dealing forces which have kept us trapped, released into abundant life. The stress and turmoil which have weighed us down, which have confused our path … these are wiped away, like water washing dust and dirt off our feet. We are given a new lease on life -- except that a lease implies debt, and this new life is a gift, no repayment required.

However, while nothing is required of us, it would be inappropriate for us to sit smugly with our gift, making no motion to behave in a similarly gracious fashion toward others.

Jesus reminds us, “the one to whom little is forgiven, loves little.” It is easy for us to feel like the debtor forgiven of a relatively small amount -- and to therefore be stingy in our generosity toward others. Who invited you to this party? What will you buy with my spare change if I give it to you? We erect barriers to keep people in their place, administer tests to decide who goes where...

But God meets us where we are, just as we are -- and calls us to meet others likewise. God meets us in the dusty, dirty feet of Jesus. God meets us in the tears of an unnamed woman.

God meets us in all the mess of our bodies, in all the mess of our lives. And all God asks is that we show up, that we allow ourselves to touch and be touched in return -- to be transformed by that connection … and to live out that peace in our lives.

“Your faith has saved you” isn’t about statements of faith you sign onto, it’s about faith in the transforming power of God … faith in the power of that connection.

“Your faith has saved you; go in peace.”

Amen.