Preached on Sunday, September 1, 2024, the Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost, at Trinity Cathedral, Little Rock.

From the Song of Solomon: “The voice of my beloved! Look, he comes, leaping upon the mountains, bounding over the hills. My beloved is like a gazelle or a young stag. Look, there he stands behind our wall, gazing in at the windows, looking through the lattice” (Song of Solomon 2:8–9).

Christians believe that the Bible gives us a vocabulary for our life with God. Scripture is a kind of lexicon for the Christian faith: it gives us concepts and phrases and ways of talking about God. And if Scripture gives us a vocabulary for our life with God, the Song of Solomon gives us a unique portion of that vocabulary. This book of the Bible gives us language in terms of love and intimacy and ecstasy.

Just consider how this book begins, one chapter before our passage today: “Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth! For your loving is better than wine; your anointing oils are fragrant; your name is perfume poured out; that’s why the maidens love you” (Song of Solomon 1:1–3, my translation). This is pretty spicy for the Bible, and it gets a lot spicier. Frankly, our portion of the Song for this morning is fairly G-rated, but the dynamic of desire is there. Look, “the voice of beloved,” it begins (Song of Solomon 2:8a). Look, he comes, leaping upon the mountains, bounding over the hills. My beloved is like a gazelle or a young stag,” running this way, running right towards me (Song of Solomon 2:8b–9a). And there he is, standing “behind our wall,” gazing in at us, “looking through the lattice” (Song of Solomon 2:9b). And then, he says something to me. He says: “Get up, my dear friend, fair and beautiful lover…Look around you: Winter is over; the winter rains are over, gone! Spring flowers are in blossom all over. The whole world’s a choir––and singing! Spring warblers are filling the forest with sweet arpeggios. Lilacs are exuberantly purple and perfumed, and cherry trees fragrant with blossoms. Oh, get up, dear friend, my fair and beautiful lover” and let’s go (Song of Solomon 2:10b–13, The Message). That’s what Eugene Peterson’s famous translation of the Bible does with that passage. Just this is our relationship with God, a relationship marked by love and intimacy and ecstasy, a kind of whimsy known only by two people in love, ready to run out into a world made just for them. That, says the Song, is what a life with God is like.

Now, Solomon’s Song hasn’t always been the most popular book in the Bible, and not necessarily because of its fixation on romantic love––although, that did stir up some controversy when the Song was added to the canon in the first and second centuries. No, people have been skeptical of this book not only because of the kind of language it introduces into our life with God, but in fact, because it doesn’t ever clearly mention God––not once. In a very real way, God is invisible in this book.

But when you think about it, God’s invisibility in the Song makes a good deal of sense. This book of the Bible is trying to tell us that God is the object of our desire, yes––like a gazelle or a young stag, it says, running to meet us––but even more so, God is in our desiring. God makes our desires possible. We learn from our desires about our relationship with God. And in that way, God doesn’t really appear, but only our longings.

And that has made people really nervous. It makes me nervous! We are nervous to say that God is in our desires. After all, if God is in our desires, how can we distinguish our poor creaturely desires from those desires that are of God?

That’s one of the questions Mark’s Gospel seems to be asking us this morning. Look at what can come from the human heart, says Jesus, all sorts of evil intentions: “fornication, theft, murder, adultery, avarice, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride, folly” (Mark 7:22)––you name it. These are all desires gone terribly wrong. And so, why should we trust our desires? Desires are so risky. It’s so easy to desire the wrong thing. How, then, could God possibly be in our desires?

And really, isn’t it just wrong to desire something? That is, it’s not only bad to desire something inordinately, but to desire at all––right? Doesn’t desire fly against humility, that greatest of Christian virtues? Why should we care about what we want? What relevance do our desires have in a religion characterized by self-sacrifice?

I’ve had to really wrestle with these questions as I’ve listened to God calling me to ordained ministry. One of the things I’ve most worried about over the years is that ordained ministry is something that I want, something that I desire––which just feels wrong, doesn’t it? That’s something that all of us in leadership need to be mindful of: is our desire getting in the way of what’s actually needed? And yet. And yet, when I try to make sense of my calling, especially when that calling first began in me, the only thing that makes sense is this notion of “desire.”

I was called to the priesthood at an early age, around 7 or 8 years old. And when people ask me, “How do you know you were called?” All I can say is, “I don’t know, but I know I desired it.” And like any of our desires, I don’t know why I desired it, but I did. I’m not sure where the desire came from, or why it was there, but it was.” Of course, there have been many other layers to that discernment, but at the center was this strange desire to serve in the Church in this way––a desire. And over the years, understandably, that’s made me nervous: is this desire of God, or is this just Thomas? I imagine that’s a commonly shared worry, in some form or fashion.

If, in fact, Scripture is the way in which God gives us language for a life with Him, then one of the particular gifts of this book of the Bible––the Song of Solomon––is that desire is part of a life with God. Of course, our desires need to be kept in check, moderated and regulated. Other passages of Scripture help us to do that. And of course, our desires need to be discerned in community, just as we all have to do in our daily lives: sometimes, our desires do not meet the needs of our community. But my point––no, Scripture’s point!––is this: we don’t need to be bashful about listening to our desires as a means of discerning what God wants for our lives. What is it that we want? What is it that we long for? These are questions that Christians ask ourselves, because God works in us and on us through our desires. God works quietly in doing so. We don’t always see God at work in this way, but He is working, “stirring our hearts with a noble song,” as the Psalmist puts it (Psalm 45:1a).

So, my friends, I encourage you to be mindful of your desires: to take note of them, to take stock of them, to think with them, to pray on them. And it’s my prayer that our desires lead us ever closer to the living Lord who, this very day, desires us. Amen.