One Hundred Great Anglican Books

I am compiling a list of "One Hundred Great Anglican Books." This is entirely for my own edification and amusement, although I hope it will provoke thoughtful discussion. Currently, the list skews heavily toward white, British, male 19th and 20th century writers, so I am seeking additional authors who are (1) women; (2) evangelicals; (3) from Australia, New Zealand, and the farther reaches of the Anglican Communion; (4) from the 16th, 17th, and 18th centures; (5) from the developing world. I welcome suggestions, however keep in mind that (1) this is completely subjective; and (2) I am the benevolent overlord and my decisions are absolute and final. That said, please send your suggestions to anglcan@aol.com. Thanks.

1	Lewis	Bayly	The Practice of Piety
2	Joseph	Butler	Analogy of Religion
3	Samuel Taylor	Coleridge	Aids to Reflection
4	Thomas	Cranmer	Book of Common Prayer (1662)
5	Samuel	Crowther	The Bible (Yoruba translation)
6	Joy	Davidman	Smoke on the Mountain
7	John	Donne	Collected Poems
8	John Stott & David	Edwards	Essentials
9	T.S.	Eliot	Four Quartets
10	Austin	Farrer	The Glass of Vision
11	Austin	Farrer	The Essential Sermons
12	Joseph	Fletcher	Situation Ethics
13	Charles	Gore	The Incarnation
14	George	Herbert	The Temple
15	Richard	Holloway	Leaving Alexandria
16	Richard	Holloway	Signs of Glory
17	Richard	Hooker	Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity
18	Susan	Howatch	Glittering Images
19	Susan	Howatch	Glamorous Powers
20	Susan	Howatch	Ultimate Prizes
21	Trevor	Huddleston	Naught for your Comfort
22	John	Jewell	Apology of the Church of England
23	Festo	Kivengere	I Love Idi Amin
24	William	Law	A Serious Call
25	Madeleine	L'Engle	Walking on Water
26	Madeleine	L'Engle	The Irrational Season
27	Madeleine	L'Engle	A Wrinkle in Time
28	C.S.	Lewis	Mere Christianity
29	C.S.	Lewis	The Narnia Chronicles
30	C.S.	Lewis	The Screwtape Letters
31	C.S.	Lewis	The Great Divorce
32	John	Macquarrie	Principles of Christian Theology
33	E.L.	Mascall	Words and Images
34	E.L.	Mascall	The Importance of Being Human
35	Frederick Denison	Maurice	The Kingdom of Christ
36	Eric	Milner-White	My God, My Glory
37	Stephen	Neill	Anglicanism
38	Stephen	Neill	A History of Christian Missions
39	John Henry	Newman	Parochial and Plain Sermons
40	John Henry	Newman	Oxford University Sermons
41	John	Newton	Thoughts upon the Slave Trade
42	William Cowper & John	Newton	Olney Hymns
43	J.I.	Packer	Knowing God
44	J.B.	Phillips	The New Testament in Modern English
45	John	Polkinghorne	The Faith of a Physicist
46	John	Polkinghorne	The God of Hope and the End of the World
47	Michael	Ramsey	The Gospel and the Catholic Church
48	Charles	Raven	Creator Spirit
49	Charles	Raven	Science, Religion, and the Future
50	John A.T.	Robinson	Honest to God
51	Dorothy	Sayers	The Mind of the Maker
52	Colin	Stephenson	Merrily on High
53	John	Stott	Basic Christianity
54	Jeremy	Taylor	Holy Living and Holy Dying
55	John V.	Taylor	The Go-Between God
56	William	Temple	Readings in St. John's Gospel
57	Anthony	Trollope	The Barchester Chronicles
58	Desmond	Tutu	Hope and Suffering
59	Desmond	Tutu	No Future Without Forgiveness
60	Evelyn	Underhill	Mysticism
61	Evelyn	Underhill	Worship
62	Izaak	Walton	Walton's Lives
63	Charles	Wesley	Hymns and Sacred Poems
64	John	Wesley	Journal
65	William	Wilberforce	A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System
66	Harry	Williams	Some Day I'll Find You
67	Harry	Williams	True Wilderness
68	Rowan	Williams	A Ray of Darkness
69	Rowan	Williams	Tokens of Trust
70	N.T.	Wright	The New Testament and the People of God
71	N.T.	Wright	Jesus and the Victory of God
72			The Bible (Authorized Version)

The Greatest in the Kingdom (J. Barry Vaughn)

Today’s gospel reading is one of the most touching stories in all of scripture. Jesus says,”’Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.’ Then he took a little child and put it among them; and taking it in his arms, he said to them, ‘Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.’”

 

And we all say a collective, “Awwww… isn’t that sweet?”

 

I have a small confession to make: One of the highlights of my week comes when Brian and Stephanie bring Brooke to the altar and Kevin and Krystal bring Sydney to the altar and I get to bless them. They are adorable. When I make the sign of the cross on them and tell them that God’s blessing is upon them and they look at me with those sweet and innocent eyes, I go a little bit gooey inside.

 

But we need to remember the context for this story about Jesus and the little child. It begins in a very different key. “"The Son of Man is to be betrayed into human hands, and they will kill him, and three days after being killed, he will rise again.’ But they did not understand what he was saying and were afraid to ask him.”

 

Betrayal… violence… murder… fear…

 

The catalyst for this story about the little child is a quarrel among the disciples. “What were you arguing about?” Jesus asked them. And then there was that embarrassed silence.

 

You know what an embarrassed silence is like. You’re telling a joke. It might be a little off color or it might be a joke that stereotypes people of a different race or religion or gender. We all know jokes such as that, and if we’re honest, we have to admit that we’ve told jokes such as that. So you’re telling this inappropriate joke and your boss walks in or your wife or husband or maybe even your priest.

 

So the disciples are quarrelling about who’s the greatest, the best, and all of a sudden, Jesus pulls the car over to the side of the road and turns around and looks into the back seat and says, “OK! Stop it! What’s all the fuss about?” And there’s complete silence for a very long, embarrassing minute.

 

Then one of them speaks up. I’ll bet it was Peter. “We were talking about… uh… well, I mean it was really John… and he said you liked him best… and I said, ‘Nuh uh!’ He likes me best…”

 

So then Jesus sees a school about a hundred yards up the road on the right. And they drive up there. And there a bunch of kindergarten kids in the playground. And he scoops one up in his big, calloused carpenter’s hands and puts the little girl on his shoulders and says, “Do you see her? She’s the greatest. If you want to be great, then be like her.”

 

And the disciples look at the little girl’s face. She’s been playing kick ball and there’s some chocolate on the side of her mouth, so she needs to wash her face. But she’s completely adorable.

 

But remember what the disciples were arguing about. And remember what Jesus was saying about his own death before the argument.

 

Jesus wasn’t saying that children are great because they are innocent. He was saying that the disciples were arguing about the wrong thing. They thought that Jesus’ kingdom was just like every other kingdom in the world. They thought that Jesus’ kingdom would be about power and glory.

 

But Jesus and his kingdom are not about power. They are about loving and serving others. He picked up the child because the child was completely powerless. The greatest in the kingdom is not the most powerful but the least powerful. The kingdom is about the powerful serving the powerless. It is about the strong serving the weak.

 

Jesus picked up a child because his day and our day are a lot alike. Both in his time and in our time, children are powerless and vulnerable.

 

NYTimes’ columnist Nicholas Kristof has a particular interest in the plight of women and children in the developing world. In June he wrote a column about Katum, a 28 year old mother in Sudan who had just lost a 2 year old daughter to starvation and who feared that her 4 other children would starve, too.

 

Children are vulnerable in Sudan because a civil war is going on and the government is bombing its own people. Children are vulnerable in China because in traditional Chinese culture, there is a bias against girls and because China’s one child policy means that parents sometimes practice selective abortion to eliminate female fetuses or even abandon girl babies.

 

And children are even vulnerable right here in America. Last year Sesame Street ran a one hour special about a little girl named Lily who sometimes went to bed hungry. The Dept of Agriculture estimates that 1 in 5 American children is at risk of under-nourishment.

 

One of the things that upsets me is the popular image of religion. People seem to have the idea that religion is other worldly, out of touch with reality, and unconcerned about the real world. Well, maybe sometimes that’s true. Sometimes we do close our eyes to the real world and sometimes the music of our hymns drowns out the cries of hungry children.

 

But the Bible is realistic. If we read the Bible and really hear what it is saying, then we will get a big dose of reality.

 

Listen to Psalm 54:

 

Save me, O God, by your Name; *
in your might, defend my cause.

2

Hear my prayer, O God; *
give ear to the words of my mouth.

3

For the arrogant have risen up against me,
and the ruthless have sought my life, *
those who have no regard for God.

4

Behold, God is my helper; *
it is the Lord who sustains my life.

5

Render evil to those who spy on me; *
in your faithfulness, destroy them.

 

Save me… defend me… hear my prayer… give ear to the words of my mouth…

 

These are the words of someone who is desperate. This is what that 28 year old mother in Sudan would say to God.

 

“For the arrogant have risen up against me… the ruthless … those who have no regard for God… have sought my life…”

 

I’m glad that we read from the Psalms every week. And I’m especially glad that the congregation gets to say the words of the psalm. The psalms are the prayers and praises of Israel.

 

But there are different kinds of psalms. Last week we read Psalm 19. “The heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament shows forth his handiwork.”

 

Psalm 19 is a magnificent psalm of praise. It has the cadence, the rhythm, the vocabulary of the Book of Common Prayer.

 

But not all the psalms are so stately. Some of the psalms are pleas for help from people who are in desperate situations.

 

Think of Psalm 22: “My God, my God… why have you forsaken me and are so far from the cries of my mouth?”

 

Psalm 54 was not composed by a monk in a cell or a seminary professor who spent all her time in a library. Psalm 54 comes from the heart; it comes from the gut. Psalm 54 is fortissimo, not pianissimo. It is composed in dark E flat minor, not sunny C major.

 

But perhaps the most difficult verses in Psalm 54 are these:

 

“Render evil to those who spy on me; *
in your faithfulness, destroy them.”

 

“Render EVIL to those who spy on me… destroy them…”

 

How can we say these things, much less pray them in church?

 

Remember that the Bible is profoundly realistic. Jesus did NOT say that we would have no enemies. He told us to love our enemies. He did not say that it would always be sunny and mild with the temperature between 75 and 80 and with no humidity.

 

Jesus told us that we would have enemies. He said that he would suffer and die and invited us to follow him and take up our cross and that what happened to him would happen to those who followed him.

 

When the disciples were acting like a bunch of high school boys in a locker room, he picked up a child and said, “Look at this little girl. If you want to be great, then be like her.”

 

To make sense of the psalms, we have to remember that before they were printed on on gold edged paper and bound between leather covers, they were the prayers of people who sometimes faced hunger and violence and were in desperate circumstances.

 

The theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer put it like this: “The words of men to God have become the Word of God to us.” In the Psalms, we are allowed to listen in as Israel prayed, and we find that they were just like us.

 

They were astounded by the beauty of nature: “like a strong man runs its course with joy. Its rising is from the end of the heavens, and its circuit to the end of them; and there is nothing hid from its heat.”

 

They overflowed with the praise of God: “God is in his sanctuary; praise him in his mighty firmament! Praise him for his mighty deeds; praise him according to his exceeding greatness! Praise him with trumpet sound; praise him with lute and harp! Praise him with timbrel and dance; praise him with strings and pipe!”

 

And they even longed for God to kill their enemies: “Render evil to those who spy on me… destroy them…”

 

The Reformer John Calvin said, “The Holy Spirit has here drawn to life all the griefs, sorrows, fears, doubts, hopes, cares, perplexities, in short, all the distracting emotions with which the minds of men are wont to be agitated."

 

So let’s be honest: sometimes, maybe a lot of the time, we want God to destroy people. There are one or two people… well, maybe even more than one or two… maybe a whole lot of people whom we think really deserve God’s wrath. We think God should really let ‘em have it.

 

But remember the disciples? Remember what they were quarrelling about? Remember the little child?

 

You and I are not powerless. No one here is going to be hungry tonight. And if you are, then there’s something you can do about it. This is a congregation full of genuinely caring people.

 

The psalms give us permission to tell God what we really think. The psalms give us permission to tell God that we’d like him to hurl a thunderbolt at our boss or at the neighbors who don’t cut their grass often enough.

 

But when we do that, we need to remember the little child. The terrible verses of the psalms really belong to her, to the truly vulnerable and powerless. And when we call down the wrath of God on our boss or the mayor or the guy who cut us off in traffic, then we should stop and think about who really deserves the wrath of God and who really deserves the mercy of God. Then we should pray about what we can do for the mother in Sudan with four hungry children … and maybe even for the family down the street.

Good girls, bad girls, and the cost of discipleship (J. Barry Vaughn, Sept. 16, 2012)

From beginning to end the Old Testament is full of loose and dangerous women. You  know who I’m talking about. They’re the ones your mother warned you about. The kind who lurk in dark door ways and smoky bars and whose voices sound like Lauren Bacall.

 

Think of Eve. “Here you go, Adam. Doesn’t this apple look delicious? And you won’t believe the way you feel after you take a bite.”

 

Or Delilah. “Short back and sides and a little off the top as usual, Samson?”

 

Or Jezebel. Do you remember her? The queen of Israel, the northern kingdom, in the 9^th century before Christ? She and the prophet Elisha were on different sides of the whole church/state debate. She worshiped the god Baal, and Elisha worshiped the God of Israel but she and her husband Ahab were overthrown in a palace revolt and she was unceremoniously thrown out of an upper window.

 

But there are plenty of other women in the Old Testament.

 

The prophet Deborah led Israel to victory against the Canaanites.

 

Or Hannah, who longed for a child and when God gave her Samuel, she consecrated him to God’s service in the tabernacle.

 

Or Esther, the Israelite woman who became a power to be reckoned with in the court of the Persian king Ahasuerus, and who saved Israel from the evil Haman’s plot to exterminate them.

 

But today the Book of Proverbs introduces us to one of the most important but least known women in the Old Testament – Lady Wisdom.

 

The Hebrew for wisdom is hokmah, a feminine word. So when the Jews pictured wisdom, they saw her as a woman.

 

The books of Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Job are part of Israel’s wisdom literature. The wisdom tradition tells us that if we live our lives according to certain basic principles that can be discerned from the created order, then we will (to quote Mr. Spock from Star Trek) “live long and prosper.”

 

In other words, we should avoid extremes and live moderately and treat others with kindness and justice; we should heed the counsel of our parents and teachers and be diligent in our work; avoid too much strong drink; above all, we should attend to God’s word. And if we do all these things, then we will find life to be satisfying;  we will be content, and life will be worth living.

 

But the strange thing is that although we know all this to be true, we know from our own experience that wisdom really does offer the key to a happy life, we do not heed wisdom’s call.

 

So Lady Wisdom goes out into the streets and says,

 

"How long, O simple ones, will you love being simple?

How long will scoffers delight in their scoffing

and fools hate knowledge?

Give heed to my reproof;

I will pour out my thoughts to you;

I will make my words known to you.

Because I have called and you refused,

have stretched out my hand and no one heeded,

and because you have ignored all my counsel

and would have none of my reproof,

I also will laugh at your calamity;

I will mock when panic strikes you,

when panic strikes you like a storm,

and your calamity comes like a whirlwind,

when distress and anguish come upon you.”

 

In other words, the problem is that so many of us have heeded not Lady Wisdom but her sister Lady Folly. You know what they say – good girls go to heaven but bad girls go everywhere!

 

Although Lady Wisdom calls to us, even though we know that she is correct when she tells us to live moderately and avoid extremes, to listen to our parents, to brush our teeth, and say our prayers, so few of us do that. Lady Wisdom may be right, but Lady Folly is a whole lot more fun.

 

However, today’s readings include another summons, another invitation.

 

In today’s gospel reading, Jesus, like Lady Wisdom, takes his place before his followers and says, "If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it.”

 

On the face of it, Jesus’ invitation appears to be exactly the opposite of Lady Wisdom’s. She invites us to lead a long, full, and happy life; to do everything in our power to preserve and extend life. But Jesus invites us to throw our lives away, to lose our lives for the sake of the gospel.

 

Jesus seems to say that we have a choice – either him or the world.

 

Although Lady Folly may be a lot of fun to take to a party, her sister, Lady Wisdom, is a whole lot better for us in the long run. If we choose Lady Wisdom then we will do well in our careers, we will have money in the bank, and we will be respected in our communities.

 

But Lady Wisdom is also worldly wisdom. Jesus offers us something completely different. Jesus tells us that there is more to us than our bank accounts and our careers, that there is something even better than gaining the whole world.

 

Jesus invites us to an adventure, but make no mistake – it is dangerous. He invites us to to give up everything and follow him.

 

So why does the Bible present us with these two radically different choices – the invitation of Lady Wisdom to lead “sober, honest, and godly” lives and Jesus’ call to be his disciple? How are we to make a choice between these two very different invitations?

 

Lady Wisdom really is right. Follow her and listen to her and we will live happy and long lives, and most of the time, that is exactly what we should do. Lady Wisdom offers us good, practical advice for daily life.

 

The problem is that the time comes when that is not enough. The time comes when we have to pay the cost of discipleship.

 

The cost of discipleship means telling the truth even though it will cost us our job. The cost of discipleship means giving someone a hand even when we are tired and have already worked a 12 hour day. And sometimes the cost of discipleship may mean giving up our lives for the sake of the gospel.

 

The great majority of the time Jesus and Lady Wisdom go down the same path, but sometimes they part company. Sometimes wisdom summons us in one direction, but Jesus invites us to follow him in completely different direction.

 

So when we stand at that crossroads, when wisdom beckons us one way and Jesus a different way, when wisdom goes the way of safety and prudence and sobriety but Jesus goes the way of risk and uncertainty and adventure, then we need to follow Jesus. It may not be wise in the eyes of the world but it will lead to life abundant and everlasting.

O Lord, open thou our lips (J. Barry Vaughn, Sept. 9, 2012)

(Note: I borrowed several of my ideas from Peter Marty's sermon, "It's time we open up.")

All of us have a phobia. You know what a phobia is. It’s the Greek word for “fear.” Psychologists have borrowed that Greek word to mean an irrational fear, such as a fear of spiders. Most spiders are completely harmless, but some of us look at those little multi-legged, dark, hairy critters and just turn to jelly inside. Unfortunately, living alone as I do, I have to kill spiders myself. There’s just no one else to do it.

 

I am told that more people fear public speaking than anything else. There are people who would rather take on a whole army of spiders than stand up in front of a bunch of people and talk.

 

I suppose I was afraid of doing this at one time. In fact, I know I was. I remember my first attempts at public speaking. I don’t think I was very good at it, but I kept at it. We had a very good debate coach in high school, and after I participated in a few debate tournaments, I became more comfortable, and … well, here I am talking to you!

 

A few years ago, the Academy award-winning film, The King’s Speech, explored the dilemma of Britain’s King George VI who was crippled by a stammer but who needed to speak publicly to give his people hope and encouragement in the second world war.

 

In the climactic scene of The King’s Speech, the king and his speech therapist, Lionel Logue, are preparing for the king’s coronation in Westminster Abbey. The king is terrified at the prospect of having to take the oath of coronation. Logue sits on the enormous throne placed squarely in the middle of the abbey’s chancel. The king explodes in anger, telling Logue to get off the throne, that only monarchs may sit there. Logue goads him further and says, “Why can’t I sit here? You don’t want the job.” “You can’t sit there because I am the king. I have a voice!” the king shouts. And quietly Logue replies, “Yes, you do.”

 

It’s not all that different from what Jesus does with the man afflicted with a speech impediment in today’s gospel reading. Like Lionel Logue, Jesus’ techniques are unorthodox. He takes the man aside; he sticks his fingers in his ears; he spits and touches the man’s tongue. Finally, Jesus looks up to heaven and utters a single Aramaic word like a magic incantation, “Ephatha!” (Be opened.) And the man speaks.

 

It’s a fascinating story and makes me wonder if the man’s speech impediment was a physical problem or a spiritual problem.

 

Jesus found spiritual illnesses more difficult to heal than physical illnesses. Do you remember the story of the paralytic whose friends brought him to Jesus? When Jesus sees the man, he realizes that his greatest need is to have the burden of sin lifted from his spirit, so he first says, “Son, your sins are forgiven.” But the bystanders are shocked. “Who does this man think he is? Only God can forgive sins.” So Jesus says, “Which is easier – to forgive sins or to say ‘take up your bed and walk’?” So to convince them that he has the power to forgive sins, he also heals the man of his physical illness.

 

So perhaps the elaborate ritual of putting his fingers in the man’s ears, spitting, touching the man’s tongue, looking up to heaven, and saying a mysterious word, are because Jesus knew he was dealing with a problem that was more spiritual than physical.

 

All of are blocked spiritually. All of us need to hear Jesus say, “Ephatha… be opened.” All of us need God’s power to unbind us from the various spiritual knots in our lives.

 

What is holding us back from telling others about the power of God in our lives? Are our tongues tied when it comes to telling people about God? Do we have a speech impediment when it comes to inviting people to church? Do we have a phobia of telling others that we know a God who heals and frees people from the things that bind them? How many of us would stutter and stammer if people asked us if we believe in a God with the power to save?

 

We need Jesus to free us and open us up. We need to feel a little of the surprise and maybe even alarm that the man did when Jesus stuck his fingers in his ears and spit and touched his tongue.

 

Now, I know that part of the problems is that we are Episcopalians. All this talk of sharing our faith with others and inviting people to church, much less spitting in public, makes us extremely nervous. But we need to learn how to share our faith with others.

 

One alarming study of church members showed that 90% of teenagers whose families attended church could not tell if their parents believed in anything.*

 

We have a speech impediment when it comes to faith. It’s strange because we are so quick to tell people what we believe about other things. We quite freely tell strangers about the political candidate we support. And God knows, we tell people which football team we cheer for. It’s plastered all over our cars and our t shirts.

 

So why don’t we tell people about the difference that Jesus has made in our lives? Ephatha, be opened, be set free.

 

When the German Reformer Martin Luther put together a baptismal liturgy in the early 16^th century, he required the pastor to take some of his own saliva and touch the ears and lips of the child being baptized. And at the same moment, he was to say to the child being baptized, “Ephatha. Be opened.”*

 

Now, don’t worry. I’m not going to do that in baptisms here. Bishop Sloan is an easy going guy, but I’m pretty sure I’d get a call from him if I started doing that.

 

But it’s not a bad idea. From the very beginning of our Christian life, we need to be told to open up, to let go, to stop being tongue-tied about what we believe and whom we believe in.

 

I was a little surprised that the movie The King’s Speech did not include the Christmas broadcast that George VI made in 1939. Only a few months after Nazi Germany had invaded Poland and World War II had begun, at one of the darkest moments in Western history, George VI conquered his fear and his stammer and said to his people and to the people of the world, “I said to the man who stood at the Gate of the Year, ‘Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown.’

And he replied, ‘Go out into the darkness, and put your hand into the hand of God. That shall be to you better than light, and safer than a known way.’

May that Almighty Hand guide and uphold us all.”

 

And so it will. There is an almighty hand that unbinds us, that touches our tongues and frees us to speak of God’s love, that gives us the power to to love more freely, to support the weak, to strengthen the faint-hearted. And to keep looking for ways to open our lives to the power of the Holy Spirit.

 

As the psalm says, “O Lord, open thou my lips, and my tongue shall declare your praise.”

 

 

---

* Borrowed from Peter Marty’s sermon, “It’s time we open up.”

Comfort me with apples (J. Barry Vaughn, Sept. 2, 2012)

I come to the garden alone,

While the dew is still on the roses,

And the voice I hear falling on my ear

The Son of God discloses.

 

And he walks with me

And he talks with me

And he tells me I am his own

And the joy we share as we tarry there

None other can ever know.

 

Now, that is probably the first and the last time that the gospel song “In the garden” will be quoted in St. Alban’s!

 

One of the reasons that I and perhaps you, too, was attracted to the Episcopal Church was the music. Not only was the music of a very high caliber, but the words of the hymns had real theological meat on their bones.

 

If the hymn “In the garden” helps some in their spiritual life, if it gives them inspiration and hope, then that’s great, but I find it too subjective, too sweet, too personal.

 

Nevertheless, I want to say a good word for “In the garden.” Compare “In the garden” with today’s reading from the Song of Solomon or Song of Songs:

 

My beloved speaks and says to me:

 “Arise, my love, my fair one,

and come away;

for now the winter is past,

the rain is over and gone.

The flowers appear on the earth;

the time of singing has come,

and the voice of the turtledove

is heard in our land.

The fig tree puts forth its figs,

and the vines are in blossom;

they give forth fragrance.

Arise, my love, my fair one,

and come away.”

 

It makes “In the garden” look main stream!

 

The Song of Songs is one of the most unusual books in the Bible. It is one of two books in the Old Testament that makes no mention of God. The other is Esther. The Song of Songs is a collection of love poetry that was probably written only about 300 years before Christ.

 

No one knows why the rabbis included this passionate love poem in the canon or official list of books of the Old Testament.

 

However, as soon as it was given the imprimatur, the theological seal of approval, and regarded as an acceptable religious book, people began to reinterpret it. The rabbis said that the Song of Songs was an allegory of God’s love for Israel. And the Christian church did the same, but instead of God’s love for Israel, Christians saw it as a story of Christ’s love for the church or God’s love for the human soul.

 

The medieval monastic reformer and mystic, Bernard of Clairvaux, preached 86 sermons, although he covered only 2 chapters and 3 verses. I suspect that 86 sermons can take the joy out of anything!

 

But the Song of Songs makes us uneasy. What is this love poem doing in the Bible? What are we to do with these images of passionate love?

 

“Sustain me with raisins, refresh me with apples; for I am sick with love. O that his left hand were under my head, and that his right hand embraced me!”

 

I believe it’s some of the most wonderful love poetry in all of literature, but I wouldn’t be comfortable quoting most of it in the pulpit!

 

I want to make 2 points about the Song of Songs.

‘

The first is this: The Song of Songs tell us that passionate love is God’s good gift.

 

In his book The Four Loves, C.S. Lewis reminds us that the Greek language has four words for love:

 

Agape is perfect, disinterested, self-giving love. It is God’s love for us, and it is the love we aspire to return to God and to others.

 

Philos is brotherly or sisterly love, as in Philadelphia, the city of brotherly love. It is also the love we have for our friends.

 

Storge is love for inanimate objects, as in “I love strawberries.”

 

And eros is the kind of love spoken about in the Song of Songs. It is passionate love. The Greeks believed that eros or erotic love was caused by emptiness or need. We love passionately to fill up an emptiness in ourselves. In other words, eros is a kind of hunger.

 

The Christian faith has traditionally been uncomfortable with passionate love. Jesus and Paul were both unmarried. Jesus urged his disciples to give up all earthly attachments and follow him. In First Corinthians, Paul says that one should not marry because the end of the world is near.

 

Furthermore, at a fairly early point many Christians began to hold up celibacy or the unmarried state as something to aspire to. It is central to the monastic tradition. And around the 11^th c celibacy became mandatory for priests in the western church.

 

But the mystics borrow the language of passionate love to describe God’s love for the human soul.

 

Commenting on the Song of Songs, the medieval mystic Teresa of Avila said that, “It seems to the soul it is left suspended in those divine arms, leaning on that sacred side… It does not know how to do anything more than rejoice, sustained by the divine milk with which its Spouse is nourishing it and making it better…. When it awakens from that sleep and that heavenly inebriation, it remains as though stupefied and dazed and with a holy madness.” (Meditations

4:4)

 

Surely if God loves us with a passionate love, then the passionate love we have for our husbands and wives is God’s gift, a gift given to sustain us and fill life with joy.

 

Martin Copenhaver, the pastor of Wellesley Congregational Church, writes of discovering love letters that his grandparents wrote to each other. He says that he was surprised to discover that they, too, had been young once and in love. “They were real people, after all, animated by the kind of impulses and yearnings I knew quite well. These dignified and upright people—who before my discovery I could only imagine going to bed fully clothed—also had a love for one another that was as hungry and tumultuous as the sea. And as their lives demonstrated, passionate love for another person need not eclipse God, but can enlarge a life in ways that make room for God to be manifest.” (from “Reveling in Romance”)

 

Exactly. Our passionate love for the person with whom we’ve chosen to spend our lives does not eclipse God. Rather, it enlarges life and creates a place where we can experience God in our love for one another.

 

The second thing I want to say about the Song of Songs is that it is also a model for our experience of God.

 

We are Protestants and Protestants are more comfortable with experiencing God as an abstraction rather than as a person.

 

Now, I know that many of you would rather think of the Episcopal Church as a small “c” catholic church. That’s true; we are catholic - liturgically catholic and even theologically catholic to a degree. Culturally, however, we are Protestants.

 

We are more like the Lutherans at Garrison Keillor’s Lake Woebegone Lutheran Church than like the Catholics down the road at Our Lady of Perpetual Responsibility. We like God to stay safely at a distance and we keep our passions carefully in check. And Western Christians, in general, and Protestants, in particular, treat God more as an abstraction than as a person.

 

The medieval theologian Alcuin prayed to God this way:

 

Light eternal, shine in my heart.
Power eternal, deliver me from evil.
Wisdom eternal, scatter the darkness of my ignorance.
Might eternal, pity me.

 

Power eternal… wisdom eternal… might eternal…and light eternal (sounds like a theological utility company!).

 

20^th c theologian Paul Tillich said that God was “ultimate concern.”

 

And frankly, it’s difficult to get very passionate about any of that.

 

The Old Testament, on the other hand, is passionate about God.

 

The Israelites argued with God. When God told Abraham that he was going to destroy the city of Sodom, Abraham argued with God, and finally God agreed to spare Sodom if only ten righteous people could be found there.

 

The Israelites shouted at God.  Psalm 18 says, “In my distress I called upon the LORD; to my God I cried for help. From his temple he heard my voice, and my cry to him reached his ears.”

 

 

They got angry with God.  “My God, my God! Why have your forsaken me, and are so far from my cry and from the words of my distress?”

 

We are even told that Jacob wrestled with God.

 

They fell in love with God. “As a hart longs for flowing streams, so longs my soul for thee, O God.  My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and behold the face of God?”

 

And finally they gave us the Song of Songs.

 

Do you remember what it was like on Valentine’s day when you were little. In grade school, you had to bring a card for everyone. You couldn't just bring a card for Sarah Beth or Billy Joe; you had to bring one for everyone, even for the kids you didn’t really like.

 

It’s like that with God. When God sends Valentines, God sends one to everyone. Every single one of us  is treated as if he or she is the special one, as if every single one of us is the object of God's own heart's desire.

 

When we love one special person that way, we catch a glimpse of how God feels about each one of us. And that, I think, is the biggest reason why this passionate ode to romantic love, made it into the Bible. (The last three paragraphs are paraphrase from Martin Copenhaver’s “Reveling in Romance.”)