“The Fifth Season”

Matthew 28:16-20

Song of Solomon 2:8-13

Rev. Martin C. Singley, III

Sandy and I had a wonderful time vacationing in New England! Both of our kids and their families were able to spend a week with us at our camp up on Highland Lake – the first time in several years we’ve all been together at once. The grandchildren were there – Ryan who, at age seven, is all about Star Wars – and little one-year old granddaughter Becca who is all about EVERYTHING! Sandy had done a masterful job remodeling our rather primitive “camp” and we now have kitchen cabinets, an island with a stove that actually works, new floors, plumbing, electrical service, and all sorts of fancy stuff! It is beautiful!

We had a wonderful time on vacation in New Hampshire. But when the leaves of the swamp maples started turning red and hints of orange and yellow began appearing in the upland forests, we knew the seasons were changing and it was time to head back home to beautiful East Tennessee.

I love the changing of the seasons, don’t you?

And we are so blessed here where we live to have four seasons – a relatively short winter, a nice long spring, a warm and sunny summer season just perfect for boating and golf and growing flowers and vegetables – and, of course the best season of all – football season in Tennessee. Other people, less informed and sophisticated than we, refer to it as autumn. But WE know what this season really is!

Seasons.

The Bible talks a lot about seasons. It teaches that God has arranged the seasons and how they unfold as a means of bringing order and structure to our lives. Ecclesiastes reminds us that there is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven.

And today’s scripture reading from the Song of Solomon introduces us to a new season – a fifth season, if you will.

Now I will readily admit that this passage is not one we often read in church services! The Song of Solomon is not your typical Bible book. It is a very sensual and erotic collection of poems describing in rather R-rated detail the unbridled excitement, pulsating sensuality of passionate love. When one of my all-boy confirmation classes sneered at the idea that the Bible could be worthwhile reading, I read for them a passage from this book. Then I promised that I would read more if they behaved and did their work. They are all Bible scholars now!

“Listen! My lover! Look! Here he comes, leaping across the mountains, bounding over the hills. My lover is like a gazelle or a young stag. Look! There he stands behind our wall, gazing through the windows, peering through the lattice…” – which is just another way of saying, “peeking through the peephole!”

For centuries now, people have wondered what in the world a racy book like this is doing in the Bible! Well, in ancient times, the Song of Solomon was the week-after-week #1 book on the New York Times bestseller list! It was HUGELY popular with the people. I wonder why?! But when the Christian branch of the faith began, this more modest crowd decided to make the poem less erotic and more “religious.” So they decided that it was a poem about Christ and his Church, and that’s the interpretation most of us grew up with.

That’s a cute idea. But it’s not correct.

The Song of Solomon is simply a book of love poetry, celebrating human love with all its erotic, passionate intensity as one of God’s greatest gifts.

Do you remember falling in love for the first time? Do you remember how it made you feel? Do you remember the stupid look on your face, and your inability to speak a whole sentence without babbling incoherently? Other people could see what was going on with you, even if you couldn’t.

I came home from the party where I first discovered love with Sandy Angell. My mother knew it right away. She could tell just by looking at me that I was in love. I later asked her what it was that actually tipped her off. She said it was the way I slumped against the door when I came into the house, and the absolutely goofy smile that was plastered on my face, and the fact that my cranberry colored shirt was covered with pink angora fur from Sandy’s sweater.

Falling in love.

And do you remember how love inspired you to do things you’d never do if you were in your right mind?

Sandy and I were married in the summer between my junior and senior years in college. Our parents thought we were nuts. How are you going to support yourselves, my accountant father asked? You can’t live on love, my protective mother warned!

But we got married anyways. And as crazy as it was, and as challenging as it is, and as imperfect as we both are, we just came home from that awesome vacation with our wonderful son and his wife, with our incredible daughter and her husband, and our beautiful little grandchildren – none of whom would be here had we not risked the crazy things you do because of love.

Winter is pretty predictable. Spring follows a certain order. Summer comes in regular patterns. Autumn follows like clockwork.

But then comes along this wildly unpredictable fifth season. The season of love.

Why do you suppose God made the world this way?

I think the answer is described in Solomon’s poem:

“My lover spoke and said to me, ‘Arise, my darling, my beautiful one, and come with me. See, the winter is past; the rains are over and gone. Flowers appear on the earth, the season of singing has come, the cooing of doves is heard in our land…Arise, my darling; my beautiful one, come with me.’”

Love bids us to get up and go to places unknown – to risk our lives and our future into the hands of the one we love and who loves us.

Love lures us to step out of the box where we have everything under control and to risk leaving behind the security of the past to claim the promise of the future.

So Jesus came by the shore and said to some fishermen, “Come and follow me and I will make you fishers of men!” And against all rational analysis, and the advice of their accountant fathers, protective mothers, financial advisors, sociologists, psychologists, dermatologists, urologists and even their daily horoscope, these men left their boats behind and followed Jesus. It made no SENSE at all! But off they went with the one who loved them.

And look what happened! They became the Church!

And a few years later, Jesus gathered them together – these fishermen and the men and women they had caught – and said, “Go now and make disciples of all people…”

It was an impossible command. They were only a small number. They had no budget or resources to evangelize the world!

But go they did. Out of love.

And look what happened!

You and I are here today because of what they risked for love. Our church is here today because of love.

Today we break ground on our new sanctuary. The engineers have had their say. The accountants have done their work. The preachers have preached and brought forth their best theology. And besides all that, EVERYBODY has voiced an opinion.

But the orderly and predictable and quantifiable seasons of winter, spring, summer and autumn are now past. No one knows what the future holds. We stand at the brink of a new season - the season of love.

Love for God and God’s love for us.

Love for each other.

Love for the people we seek to serve and the world we hope to make better.

Sixteen or so months from now, when we walk through the doors of our new sanctuary to claim the larger ministry of serving others, it will not be because we risked money, effort or talent.

It will be because we risked LOVE!