first sermon. Sexy.

Song of Songs 7:1-6
How beautiful are your feet in sandals, O prince's daughter!
The curves of your thighs [are] like jewels, The work of the hands of a skillful workman.
Your navel [is] a rounded goblet; It lacks no blended beverage. Your waist [is] a heap of wheat Set about with lilies.
Your two breasts [are] like two fawns, Twins of a gazelle.
Your neck [is] like an ivory tower, Your eyes [like] the pools in Heshbon By the gate of Bath Rabbim. Your nose [is] like the tower of Lebanon Which looks toward Damascus.
Your head [crowns] you like [Mount] Carmel, And the hair of your head [is] like purple; A king [is] held captive by [your] tresses.
How fair and how pleasant you are, O love, with your delights!


I love the Gospel of Song of Solomon; it’s easily my favorite book in the Bible. I think it’s pretty rare that you find a gospel that’s simultaneously beautiful and awkward, wonderful and really hard to talk about in public. And its still a mystery in the greater church; I rarely meet someone conversant in Song of Songs like people are in the Gospel of Mark or Luke. But it is a Gospel: Martin Luther was fond of saying that the Bible is composed of Law and Gospel—gospel meaning good news—and that is exactly what this book is. Especially for me.

Song of Solomon was the first book of the Bible that I ever read. I was about 15 years old at the time, and it was a great kindness to call me a “late bloomer”. Let me describe myself. My hair was like straw, the color of strained carrots. My eyes were like Coke bottles, my teeth like the chrome grille of a Cadillac. My breasts were…non-existent, and my body was like a fourth grade boy; short and thin and mostly knees and elbows. Oh but my heart! My heart was like the heroine of a romance novel! Wild! Free! So when I decided that I wanted to read a book of the Bible (because even I wanted to know God better) I chose Song of Songs. Simply put, its one of the shortest books in the Bible, and it’s largely about sex. And it doesn’t mention Jesus at all. He and I didn’t get along at the time, so I wanted to avoid him. Or at least I thought so at the time. And what I heard from Song of Songs was this: God wanted me. God wanted me like I only dreamed of someone wanting me, like Romeo wanted Juliet, like every romantic song. God wanted me body, mind and soul. And in that order.

And I’m not the only one who has come to Song of Songs in this way. Biblical commentator Alicia Ostriker says this, “I first sat down to read the Song of Songs as a teenage, for a high school English class. I had no trouble understanding it. I was sixteen and in love with a boy two years older, whose eyes and laugh and body were so lovely to me that they appeared to contain and enclose the stars, and the spaces in between the stars. He stood with the grace of trees. He came leaping upon the mountains. Our kisses were sweet, playful, intense, almost unbearable, just right. Whatever phrases in the poem that eluded me did not matter. I understood the tone. Meeting and parting, parting and meeting—in love and playing at love in a state of entire confidence. I had no doubt that this experience, in the poem and in my life, was the most holy thing I knew.”

I think that the worlds needs to hear this gospel. AND I think that the world has heard a part of it, or at least American society thinks it understands: that the body is good. That physical love is good, that being in a relationship with physical love is amazing. What society doesn’t have is what the church has to say about this gospel. Because for many people in the world today, the closest they think they can come to God is between the sheets.

And why is that? I think part of the answer is the modern reality of the “emergent adult”. Emergent adults—as opposed to established adults—are those between the ages of 18 and 28, out of high school but not yet fully adult, unmarried and without kids. And this age group doesn’t have a clean definition of the relationship between their physical body to God and the church. I mean, this is a group isn’t IN the bible, because the Bible assumes you marry early and have kids right away. And right now, today, this is a group that saw a president of the United States lie about NOT having sex with his intern, that see reality shows glamorize sordid affairs—even the Presbyterian church is unsure of the definition of chastity. So what are we saying to our young people? What do they hear?

A good barometer might be the young Bristol Palin, who despite her sudden notoriety and whatever you might think about her mother, is a remarkably average young woman. Church going. Smart. Athletic. Fell in love with a boy and pregnant at 17. Recently Bristol gave an interview after the birth of her son—ok, that’s not so average—and this is her most notable quote: ““I think abstinence is, like-- I don’t know how to put it — like, the main — everyone should be abstinent or whatever, but it’s not realistic at all.” I’m not saying that I agree with her; far from it. But I am saying that our lexicon, as a church, is failing to meet the people today in matters of physical attraction, the body and love. For if society understands (and if we too believe) that physical love is good and of God—which is a part of the Gospel of Song of Songs—then how do we share the rest of that gospel? That physical love is a gift from God in how it affects the soul. That desire in a relationship can bring us closer to the Lord, that sex isn’t bad—but good—in the right context. And that’s the key.

Our society isn’t perfect. That we must answer these questions at all is less than ideal and a testament to both our current ineffectiveness in society, and a current opportunity for our witness to society. That’s where we stand. Bristol’s mother had this to say during her interview: “Let me put it this way. I think Bristol’s an example of, truly, this can happen to anybody. It did happen to her (in) less than ideal circumstances, but we make the most of it.”
I think that sounds like a pretty good idea. We might not be able to change society, but we can change how we relate to it. I’m not suggesting that we change the gospel, but change how we speak of it. Song of Songs can be a gospel to the world today.

"the hair of your head [is] like purple; A king [is] held captive by [your] tresses.
How fair and how pleasant you are, O love, with your delights!"

That is, if you dare to talk about it.

Day 1: part 1: lecture and lunch

Our first full day in South Africa was a doozy. This is only half.

We spent the morning in lecture with Prof (I'll-get-his-name-from-my-notes-later), a doctor of Theology in the Dutch Reformed Church. His story was one of a man, notably a white, well educated man, who had realized that he was part of a great evil against his fellow man. And it was quite moving; his understanding that he, too, was trapped in a system of racial segregation that made everyone less human. But at the same time, you could see that he thought and hoped that his realization would somehow absolve him of the fundamental racism that was bred into himself. He struggled to connect the racism of society and within the church to the ways in which to actively make himself un-racist. How do you remove this poison from yourself?

**it is here that I should make my first personal note. It's an excellent question, one that's I'm struggling with too. How does one honor one's own past while acknowledging the sin of your forebears? How can one become an antiracist when it has possibly--horribly--become as much as part of your being as your very DNA? It's within your childhood, your environment, a portion of the fabric that sustained your life before you were born and continues to nurture you today. It's sickening. And I saw in this man a life that had acknoledged the evil, fought courageously to end apartheid, and now stood inert, confused as to why the work of the past wasn't good enough anymore. He had helped to end apartheid, and had been a loud voice for the movement of the Dutch Reformed Church as well, but 15 years out of the end of apartheid, the system remained and he couldn't figure out why.

So 50 years after the end of our apartheid, after the passing of Civil Rights, how do I respond to the fact that civil apartheid continues in America? That the color of your skin still affects how much you will earn, where you will live, and the quality of your life? This battle is much more insideous, because it is harder to see the system once its gone underground. In this regard South Africa and the U.S. seem eerily similar. And I must find a better answer for myself.

After the lecture we went to lunch at a restaurant known as "Roots". This restaurant is in the little shantytown of Khayamandi. It's not exactly a township per se, as it is more like a very poor suburb of Stellenbosch itself. It's more prosperous than most, as it is basically located within a larger and wealthier city, making it more possible for its inhabitants to get jobs, transportation, food, water, healthcare, etc. But more on that later.

Roots is owned by a young man who grew up in Khayamandi, and wanted to give back to his community. The restaurant, let me first say, was fantastic. Now that I can look back on the whole experience, it was the most authentic and good food that I had during the entire trip; homemade, like something Id've found in a great soul-food spot somewhere in the Arkansas river bottoms: Simple food made well. The young man who owned the restaurant actually introduced himself as Roots, so I don't want to be confusing--Roots WAS Roots.

Roots was situated on top of a hill not far from the main entrance of the community. I think it is a nice spot, overlooking the better portion of the community; the actual small homes with brick walls, real roofs and a small yard enclosed by a fence. It looked a bit like what my grandmother would call "base housing", in that most all of the homes were built the same (by the government, incidentally) for higher class 'coloreds' during Apartheid.

Ah, FYI: During apartheid, all life was governed by the National Party (NP) of South Africa according to strict racial lines, of which four were most clearly recognized. Each had subsets of class within them, but the major ones were (in order of importance)

Whites

Coloreds (depending on who you talk to, these were either native Cape Townians, or people of mixed heritage. They were literally darker than white folks, but lighter than black folks).

Indians (As in, East Indians, from India)

Blacks (specifically NOT referred to as natives or South Africans).

Apartheid was developed within many Acts of Government over several decades. You can read about most of them here: http://africanhistory.about.com/library/bl/blsalaws.htm

Of these I foudn the most damaging to be:

""Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act, Act No 55 of 1949

Prohibited marriages between white people and people of other races. Between 1946 and the enactment of this law, only 75 mixed marriages had been recorded, compared with some 28,000 white marriages.

Population Registration Act, Act No 30 of 1950

Led to the creation of a national register in which every person's race was recorded. A Race Classification Board took the final decision on what a person's race was in disputed cases.
Group Areas Act, Act No 41 of 1950Forced physical separation between races by creating different residential areas for different races. Led to forced removals of people living in "wrong" areas, for example Coloureds living in District Six in Cape Town.

Group Areas Act, Act No 41 of 1950

Forced physical separation between races by creating different residential areas for different races. Led to forced removals of people living in "wrong" areas, for example Coloureds living in District Six in Cape Town. " http://africanhistory.about.com/library/bl/blsalaws.htm

Apartheid didn't end officially until 1994.

The continuing social damage of these Acts were still very apparent in society, literally drawn on the streets of Khayamandi. On one side of Roots were these tracts of decent housing, if dull. But on the other side were the shacks--I am told, good shacks.

There isn't an easy way to describe what they looked like other than to say that most shacks were one story and one room, although some had two or even three rooms added to a main one. Some buildings were obviously once trailers or storage blocks, but the vast majority were cobbled together from found objects: wood, fencing, sheets of corrugated iron, shipping pallets and recycled siding. This is not to say that they weren't well put together or neat; the insides were often quite tidy and clean. Some were clearly carefully constructed of well purchased materials, but most did not have electricity (if it did, it was from a line radiating off a pole like a bristle-brush...and certainly didn't look safe). I'm told the greatest danger in the townships is fire, and I believe it. The shacks reminded me of chicken coops and backyard storage sheds; thin structures that did the job, but not necessarily very well. We were also told that most people fall ill during the rainy season, because their homes cannot keep them dry or they literally wash away.

Although the road we entered was paved, many were not. We stuck to the paved roads. After lunch we headed up the hill to meet Joseph, the unofficial mayor of Khayamandi and the man in charge of leading and maintaining relations between the Khayamandi Legacy Center (day care, creche, meeting house and preschool), the soon-to-open HIV clinic, and the orphanage, as well as a host of other community organizations we did not see.

The picture I have posted (hopefully) is the best one I have of the moment of the view in front of the Legacy Center. It is of a pile of brick rubble from a destroyed building, backed by the security fence surrounding the center and school's playground. Razor wire is pretty common, and beyond it was both the excellent playground and the centers lush garden, which it uses to stock a market stall. Proceeds go to the Center's working budget I believe. And beyond all that is a phenomenal view of the valley and far off mountains. It's this kind of picture that I found myself before all the time in South Africa--a vista of breathtaking beauty behind a difficult human scene, but one in which resilience and humanity were vibrantly aware of itself.

There was no pity here. That's important. Pity was not a useful emotion, because this town was full of people working hard and doing the best they could with what they had. The thing that made me the most angry was that they had to try so damn hard in the first place.

Maybe it was because I had left my own young daughter behind, but I kept seeing small children, about two years old, wherever I looked. And its images of them-- playing alone, in a street full of glass, hugging mothers, running, laughing, barefoot, scarred and smiling--that I think of the most. Because as soon as I think of the kids, I think of their mothers.

I'm thinking a lot about the mothers.

just some philosophy

So James got the brunt of a theological discourse last night in the wake of the movie "Slumdog Millionaire". great movie, by the way, I highly recommend it.

Yeah, I'm still annoyed at God, but we're working on our relationship. It's understood that we're going to disagree sometimes, but we can still be friends.

I realized that all my education and life lessons haven't done anything to disturb the basic rock of my childhood faith, which admittedly was pretty basic.

God is my friend, and God loves me. That's it. That's all I've got.

There's a lot else that's come and gone and that I've wrestled with, but those to things, thankfully, remain. I think I can add one more:

God feels this way about everyone.

But as I'm not God, I don't know that one for sure. It's a hunch.

But as for the theological whirlwind that attacked James last night, the thoughts went like this:

The world is broken, so broken.
God created the world.
Q. 1 Did God create a broken world or did humanity break it?
Suppossing humanity broke the world (ala sin). did God create humanity sinful or did we rebel and do it ourselves?
Supposing God did NOT create humanity sinful, we rebelled, then how did we manage to rebel?
God created us with the ability to rebel and be sinful.
So why did God create us to be breakable and sinful?

Q. 2. Can God sin?
Supposing that no, God can not sin because sin is outside the mind of God; sin is the opposite of God's will, then did God sin anyway in the creation of something that God knew would rebel and sin in of itself? Did God create sin by creating the creation that would create it itself?

Q. 3. Are we rightly to be judged for being sinful, if we cannot help it?

Oooo, that last one's a doozy.

Thank goodness we're still friends.