Hidden Brides and Little Foxes

Thursday, April 16, 2020

The Young Woman

My lover said to me, “Rise up, my darling!  Come away with me, my fair one!  Look, the winter is past, and the rains are over and gone.  The flowers are springing up, the season of singing birds has come, and the cooing of turtledoves fills the air.  The fig trees are forming young fruit, and the fragrant grapevines are blossoming.  

The Young Man

Rise up, my darling!  Come away with me, my fair one!”  My dove is hiding behind the rocks, behind an outcrop on the cliff.  Let me see your face; let me hear your voice.  For your voice is pleasant, and your face is lovely. 

Young Women of Jerusalem

Catch all the foxes, those little foxes, before they ruin the vineyard of love, for the grapevines are blossoming!  Song of Solomon 2:10-15

There are a lot of interpretations for The Song.  There is relatively modern thought that it is just straightforward poetry about love.  Solomon was not only wise he was a brilliant composer of artistic bent.  Some see the Shulamite version where Solomon is so captured by the princess of Ethiopia, he attempts to win her heart by whisking her away to Jerusalem, and dazzling her with his accomplishments, but she is in love with another.  And there is also the metaphor for God as the Bridegroom, with Israel as His bride.  Of course many New Testament era scholars also accept this for the church as the Bride of Christ.  I’m not taking issue with any of this thinking. 

This morning I’m seeing in Solomon’s verse the hidden bride, the church behind the rocks, with her lovelier side of beauty nearly altogether unseen by the rest of the world.  In recent years the gnawing feeling in the pit of my stomach is growing because the bride, Christ’s church, looks bedraggled and haggard with all her knock-down, drag-out brawling over doctrines, and who is fit to do whatever.  The little foxes of selfishness and hedonism are taking bites out of the bride and knocking a good bit of luster off the wedding pictures.

I’ve never been a wedding planner, or coordinator, but I’ve been close enough to weddings for a long time to know there’s a lot of holding-it-together that happens on the big day.  There are wardrobe failures, missing people and forgotten essentials to be found.  And if you throw-in melt downs from flower girls, or a ring-bearing 4-year-old boy who would rather be doing anything than wearing shiny shoes that hurt and a tuxedo (whatever that might be)…it’s a wonder you ever get to the I do’s.

Drama is a very real part of life; I think we all know that.  But the church is not a place for the kind of drama with which we’ve all become familiar – that kind of drama, caused by selfish control issues, rigid religiosity, and tradition-bound gate-keepers who couldn’t recognize a new wineskin if it jumped out from their musty closet and screamed, use me before it’s too late, or that new wine will spill all over your carpeted faith.

The Bride has been fighting again is how Chuck Swindoll so picturesquely characterized the lack of love we see in a bride, the church, which fails in her lover’s request to Rise up, my darling, come away with me….  Instead, the bride now hears (and fears) the same voice heard so long ago in that beautiful garden, when forbidden fruit was sweeter than obedience:  Where are you, my darling?  What have you done? 

For You Today

The response of one who is loved is, rightly, to love.  And so, it is not up for debate what the church needs to do as the object of God’s love.  What the church needs to do is rise up like the “darling” she was created to be and bring that beautiful face of loving service out from behind the rocks.

We know what she must do; the real question is, will she do it?

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!

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Title Image:  Pixabay.com      Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation©

For other posts on The Song of Solomon 2 see Arise and Foxes and Grapes

Three Strands are Better

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Tuesday, September 25, 2018

Two people are better off than one, for they can help each other succeed.  If one person falls, the other can reach out and help.  But someone who falls alone is in real trouble.  Likewise, two people lying close together can keep each other warm. But how can one be warm alone?  A person standing alone can be attacked and defeated, but two can stand back-to-back and conquer.  Three are even better, for a triple-braided cord is not easily broken.  It is better to be a poor but wise youth than an old and foolish king who refuses all advice.  Such a youth could rise from poverty and succeed.  He might even become king, though he has been in prison.  But then everyone rushes to the side of yet another youth who replaces him.  Endless crowds stand around him, but then another generation grows up and rejects him, too.  So it is all meaningless—like chasing the wind.  Ecclesiastes 4:9-16(NLT)

If you’re prone to looking at the glass half-empty, perhaps reading Ecclesiastes will push you farther down the dark, spiraling staircase!  The wisest man alive said all of life is meaningless and empty, like chasing the wind; you’ll never catch it, so why try?  That’s hardly a Ted Talk, full of inspiration and eager optimism!

But it is full of the reality of life, and a mature look at the uselessness of endless grasping at material things, or experiences that top one another, yet add nothing to the real meaning of your existence. 

Sandwiched in-between all this vapid emptiness of being alone and self-reliant is a one-liner that unhinges Solomon’s meaninglessness and blows it away in that uncatchable wind.  Solomon says a 3-stranded braid is better.  Anyone who knows about braiding understands that if you attempt to braid two strands of hair it will just unravel, and the result will be frustration; a successful braid requires weaving together at least three strands.  This gem is shared with many brides and grooms standing before the preacher.  And the point is subtle but vital:  husbands and wives whose lives are tied together, without a third strand to give pattern and strength to the bond, are bound to come unglued!  That third strand is a home built with God at the center.

Whenever I do have the privilege of leading a wedding service I take my cue from Solomon at this point.  Solomon said a lot of chapters of vanity or emptiness before he got to the real point.  I imagine he believed you weren’t ready to hear the good news until you had really (painfully) understood the bad. 

So, my version of three strands being better starts with an image I learned from Al Williams.  Al was a part-time preacher I met many years ago, and he was assigned the task of praying the invocation at a business dinner we were attending.  The business was run by a rather divisive man who pitted the sales people against each other to spark competition, and drive sales up, no matter who got clobbered.  The place was a minefield of awaiting explosions in the relationship department. 

Al’s invocation went something like this:  O, dear Lord, You are so good to us, even when we act like two cats with their tails tied together…  

It’s an amazing thing what God can do if we let Him be that third strand that braids our lives together in a pattern that is lovely and strong.  It’s better than just being tied together like a two-stranded braid just waiting to unravel!

For You Today

What is it about your life that needs a third strand to make it better?

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day.

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[1] Title Image: Photo Courtesy of Pixabay.com

Faith Maturing

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Thursday, August 16, 2018

Praise the Lord!  I will thank the Lord with all my heart as I meet with his godly people.  How amazing are the deeds of the Lord!  All who delight in him should ponder them.  Everything he does reveals his glory and majesty.  His righteousness never fails.  He causes us to remember his wonderful works.  How gracious and merciful is our Lord!  He gives food to those who fear him; he always remembers his covenant.  He has shown his great power to his people by giving them the lands of other nations.  All he does is just and good, and all his commandments are trustworthy.  They are forever true, to be obeyed faithfully and with integrity.  He has paid a full ransom for his people.  He has guaranteed his covenant with them forever.  What a holy, awe-inspiring name he has!  Fear of the Lord is the foundation of true wisdom.  All who obey his commandments will grow in wisdom.  Psalm 111:1-10^(NLT)

This Psalmist understands how valuable it is to the spirit of a human be present in the church house for worship.  He gives genuine thanks from his heart there, marveling over all the good things God does for His people.  He maintains that all of God’s acts reveal something of God’s character, which is glorious and majestic!  He declares that God’s covenant love, God’s righteous lovingkindness, never skips a beat, and God’s power is on display as God’s people are blessed, and the influence of obedience to God grows into a worldwide mission of blessing and awe-inspiring good deeds.

The final two sentences of this Psalm should be the bedrock life’s theme for any believer who wants to see their faith grow:  fear the LORD, obey His Word and grow wise!

To watch faith mature in another human being is truly awesome.  To see faith develop and begin to flower into Kingdom fruit is beyond joy…it becomes what the Apostle Peter blurted-out as a doxology about a life-lived that walks in faith, not sight:

You love him even though you have never seen him. Though you do not see him now, you trust him; and you rejoice with a glorious, inexpressible joy.  1 Peter 1:8^(NLT)

As a pastor, I’m in a unique position to have a front-row seat to seeing faith mature.  It is startling sometimes.  A young lady and her fiancé wanted to marry.  They were not part of the church I served, (or any church for that matter) but loved (in her words) the lovely setting of your little church.  At the time I thought, oh, brother…!  And I was right…they had no clue, other than some basic understanding that a wedding ought to be connected to God in some way.  We counselled for six weeks, all the while me feeling like she despised my constant emphasis on becoming a Christian family, and wishing we’d just get it over and get on with the wedding.  Well, the wedding happened…and I was glad it was over, hoping for the best.  To this day I have never laid eyes on them again. 

It took ten years, but one Sunday morning, just before leaving for the church, “Bridezilla” called to thank me for being a faithful pastor; she and her husband were being baptized that morning.  Faith maturing!

For You Today

As you set out for whatever you’re going to do today, take a moment to reflect on where faith has grown (yours, or perhaps someone else you’ve known for a long time).  Give thanks for what God has done…it’s the foundation of wisdom to fear God, love Him, and obey his Word.  And when faith matures, good stuff happens!

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day.

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[1] Title Image:  Courtesy of Pixabay.com

When Two Become One

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Friday, June 22, 2018

Then the Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone.  I will make a helper who is just right for him.”  So the Lord God formed from the ground all the wild animals and all the birds of the sky.  He brought them to the man to see what he would call them, and the man chose a name for each one.  He gave names to all the livestock, all the birds of the sky, and all the wild animals.  But still there was no helper just right for him.  So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep.  While the man slept, the Lord God took out one of the man’s ribs and closed up the opening.  Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib, and he brought her to the man.  “At last!” the man exclaimed.  “This one is bone from my bone, and flesh from my flesh!  She will be called ‘woman,’ because she was taken from ‘man.’”  This explains why a man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one.  Genesis 2:18-24^(NLT)

This is a picture of our dear friends John and Anne, who recently celebrated their 54^th wedding anniversary.  Anne writes a blog and shared this photo from when they took their wedding vows.  Let’s hear how it went from Anne:

54 years ago photographers did not take pictures during a wedding ceremony. We posed as if we were exchanging rings.  All of a sudden, Pastor Gross (yes, that was his name!) exclaimed, “I hope the book won't show in that shot.  I had it open to Burial of the Dead.”

Had I been drinking coffee at the moment I read that, there would be coffee spray all over my computer screen!  THAT is a classic!  It’s no wonder the only one smiling is the preacher!

As one who has stood on that side of the ceremony I can truly attest to the fact that weddings are something of a hint of foreboding, considering all that follows the ceremony for years (sometimes months in current culture).  All things considered, what with not picking up your socks, squeezing the toothpaste from the wrong end of the tube, and some more substantive issues…the fact that some couples do make it past 50 years is undeniably a gift of the grace of God alone!

I would suggest that one of the reasons many couples who do manage to have a lifelong (till death us do part) marriage is due to strong faith, lived-out, coupled with a learned humility that fosters forgiveness.  You cannot live successfully together with another human being without both!

My theological take on John & Anne’s pastor tweaking a tedious photo session after the ceremony (while all the guests wait interminably at the reception hall) is that he really was conducting a burial of the dead service.  Let’s face it; if you’re going to have a successful marriage you’ve got to bury some things…the most important being selfishness, which is the biggest roadblock to two actually becoming one!

Coupled with burying some things is establishing other living things – a living commitment to Christ and His church, as well as serving others in His name.  John has served in many ways, teaching young ones, and helping the choir director/organist (Anne).  Most pastors would consider themselves blessed to have a couple or two like the Mehrlings!

Congratulations, my friends, on taking burying the dead seriously all these years.  Your commitment to each other, our Lord, your family, and community are an inspiration to us all.

For You Today

Marriage going well?  If it could use a boost, try burying some self, and lifting up your spouse.  Two becoming one takes a lot of lifting!

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day. 

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[1] Title Image & story:  Courtesy of Anne Mehrling  (also current picture of John & Anne near their mountain home in the Blue Ridge of NC)

Coronation Among the Donkeys

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Monday, January 15, 2018

When they reached the edge of town, Samuel told Saul to send his servant on ahead.  After the servant was gone, Samuel said, “Stay here, for I have received a special message for you from God.”  Then Samuel took a flask of olive oil and poured it over Saul’s head.  He kissed Saul and said, “I am doing this because the Lord has appointed you to be the ruler over Israel, his special possession.  When you leave me today, you will see two men beside Rachel’s tomb at Zelzah, on the border of Benjamin.  They will tell you that the donkeys have been found and that your father has stopped worrying about them and is now worried about you.  He is asking, ‘Have you seen my son?’  “When you get to the oak of Tabor, you will see three men coming toward you who are on their way to worship God at Bethel.  One will be bringing three young goats, another will have three loaves of bread, and the third will be carrying a wineskin full of wine.  They will greet you and offer you two of the loaves, which you are to accept.  “When you arrive at Gibeah of God, where the garrison of the Philistines is located, you will meet a band of prophets coming down from the place of worship.  They will be playing a harp, a tambourine, a flute, and a lyre, and they will be prophesying.  At that time the Spirit of the Lord will come powerfully upon you, and you will prophesy with them.  You will be changed into a different person.  After these signs take place, do what must be done, for God is with you.  

1 Samuel 9:27-10:7^(NLT)

If you rewind a little in this story Saul is wandering the countryside looking for lost donkeys.  His father had sent him and his brothers to scour the land for the wandering beasts.  In the midst of the most mundane of everyday tasks, God’s prophet, Samuel shows up to crown a donkey-hunting nobody king in Israel; go figure!  To confirm what’s happening the prophet tells young Saul he will meet two men at a specific tomb who will tell him to come home because the donkeys are found and his father is now worried about his son.  In addition, he’ll meet three other men herding goats, carrying wine and bread, which they would offer to him.  And in addition to that, he would meet a band of preaching prophets, striking up the band music while they’re preaching…and Saul would join in prophesying loudly!  And just for good measure Samuel even names the instruments of this symphonic orchestra of preachers!  If you fast forward in this chapter you find it all came true.

What does it all mean?  There are several valuable lessons here; lessons beyond learning there are actually preachers who can do music (but in my case that would be a miracle)!  Just the sheer mathematics of Samuel’s prophesy are staggering.  He named a dozen or so participants, including what they would do and say.  He named animals, food, musical instruments, and places where all this would happen.  That it would all follow that script allows for only two possibilities – Samuel had set it up as an intricate ruse to convince Saul, or it was truly a miraculous vision giving insight into what would happen that day.  And, by the way, if you’re tempted towards that ruse thing – what do you do with the documented reality that later Saul actually became king in a land that had never had one before?  The astounding odds stack up to the moon on that one!  Faith with solid proof to back it up is the first lesson.  The second lesson I take away is that the mundane or even distasteful things we all do, like hunting for donkeys when we’d rather be fishing or playing third base for the Yankees, are not too far off God’s beaten path. 

I have learned to look for God in the most everyday kind of places.  One of the places God wanted to use me was about thirty years ago at a wedding for Bridezilla.  They were strangers to me, not church members.  She and her fiancé were only marginally acquainted with matters of faith.  They had seen our chapel and it was the perfect setting.  I require six sessions of pre-marital counselling, and she couldn’t understand why, but dutifully showed up and grunted through the times.  The wedding went off well, but the road to get there was rocky and less than gracious.  I got the distinct feeling when they drove away that day after the reception that she was so glad to see me in the rearview mirror, I’d never see them again.

Fast forward 10 years – I had moved 60 miles away and was not expecting any calls that Sunday before church.  When I picked up the phone it was Bridezilla:  hello, pastor Brownworth?  She sounded so different, but my suspicions were accurate – she had never wanted to see my face again.  She told me that those times in counselling when I said you can’t have a Christian home without two Christians humbly submitted to God, and serving Him, had annoyed her back before the wedding, and stuck in her craw…but eventually found its way into her heart.  She and her husband were being baptized that day, and she wanted to say thank you for being a faithful pastor. 

For You Today

Are you hunting donkeys…or waiting on God?

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road…have a blessed day!

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[1] Title Image: Pixabay.com