At Howard; 308; Renita Weems at Rankin Chapel

Hello I'm Papiss quite reasonable. How many of us have right white people as well. Or are these are the people we see every day. Yes. A. A long

a B. A B you will be a the

the. Some. Type of Howard University we take for granted the guests can make the sacrifice to be with us every year. I think it's important for us to take a moment just to see if maybe some of us may not know them back to me. But she is the author of several widely acclaimed books on women's spirituality and her a sister away. I can say man I ask for intimacy showing Mary how women can ship prayers with them and the blessings of God.

What matters most. 10 passionate lessons from the Song of Solomon where she's on television with Bill Boyer with Bryant Gumbel. Things to us a depth of understanding of the scripture and the compassion and commitment to God's people. She is truly an extraordinary scholar and human being. I'm so glad to call her my friend. I've shared this before but I was at Morehouse College and a roomful of dignitaries. It was Dr. genetical who was present at Spelman College at the time and she made an announcement. She said we're going to have to dream speed next week. One of the top women preachers in the country and I was the one who I lost and I said You mean one of the best preachers in any way.

And she and everyone started to clap and they agree with me. And back to cold said Yes let me change that. Not female. But one of the main questions that we have in our country today. We. Are so happy to have her with us again on this Sunday. I'm going to ask that you continue to pray for her and she comes to bring us the Word of God. For centuries commentators have been stumped. As to what to make of this little girl known as the song of Solomon and why in the world and how in the world it made its way into the Bible.

All you have to do is just say you don't preach from song of so many people to wake up. Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth. But your love is more delightful than wine pleasing is the fragrance of your fumes. Your name is like. You wore it out. My lover is mine and I have me here. He browses among the lilies until the day breaks and those shadows leave all night. Long on my bed I look for one. This isn't about what you got. Me about next week. The thing is that is boring and you get it. Straight. At me with raisins and refresh me with that happens. I love this I say well. Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah. I held him there wouldn't let him go to the head until I had brought him to my

mother's house. Daughter has a few rules of them. I. Charge you I. Beg you I'll show you by the gazelle's and the dose of the bill. Do. Not notice it until it. To. Lie. In your. Mouth. This is not his time grab you know you just came you one rabbit got a real bad. How is your love my sister. My bride I said how much more pleasing is your love than writing. And the fragrance of your perfume than any spice. Your. Lips dripped sweetness as the honeycomb milk and honey under your tongue. The fragrance of your mouth. Is like Lebannon. You. Are right we cannot balance a parallel to Lebannon for you. I know. My lover is radiant and ready standing among ten thousand. He is pure as gold. His hair is wavy and black as a Raven.

His eyes are like. It is too low for me. Commentators have wrestled with what in the world this symbol that is so sensual erotic in so many ways. How in the world did it ever make its way into the Bible in a book called in the Bible. Feel otherwise with stories of war and violence conspiracy and intrigue murder and mayhem stories recounting the toppling of governments and the dismantling of principalities. What a welcome surprise to find this little book that is known to us variously as Saul of Solomon or song Love Songs or sheer Sharim in the Hebrew meaning the most excellent of songs. It's a book of love poems love lyrics we no longer know how they sounded in their original renditions is lost to us but.

We do know that it is the best passed down to us. Largely in the end a large female voice is one of the books that stands out in the Bible because it's the only book in the Bible where a woman's voice is very dominating and that even in that is in the first person and so certain Schouler we don't it's a shame we don't even know who she is. She just referred to we believe from the town of Schu love like Mary Magdalene the Magdalene from Matt. We believe that she was a she might say I'm sure. So that's all we know about who he is. And she does say that I am black and beautiful not black but beautiful she said I am black and. Upon your own prejudice about black women that you may get a good job but I know I'm at the right place I'm at. How could you say black and beautiful. She said I'm black. And I am beautiful so she is. She is erotic and sensual she's headstrong.

She is madly in love with some elusive Shepperton lover and it is the story of their love affair that on again off again they're up and down. They are like most lovable bear. Now you see it now you don't. Today is gone tomorrow is a figment of your imagination. It's more fantasy than reality. Same as somebody. And so we have wonder why in a Bible that's otherwise we tend to characterize it as being anti flesh anti-Bible body type sex. How in the world does this how do we explain this rapture was love sick passion and sensual longing poetry that has found its way otherwise into a book that we do not associate with such language so that many of us are shocked. This morning to hear this kind of language and some of us even downright are in is forming and I can't quite figure out when the world is

she going to go with this particular passage of Scripture. But my point one of the points is that this is not unusual the Bible is very clear. The people of antiquity very clearly understood very strongly the power of love and the power of romance and the power of the erotic. And perhaps that is why there are so many laws about it but they understood the power of romance and love but not. As strong as death and jealousy as the grave of. A man. So he wouldn't take anything but love everybody wants to be in love. There are beautiful stories throughout the Bible and some not so beautiful about the good and the ugly ness of love and that's where we're going this morning talking about the search for love. And yet the Bible is very honest that that love sometimes gets distorted and sometimes get chaotic sometimes bleeds through boundaries and then you do from time to time.

Beautiful little yen's that as anti-body is anti-inflation anti-sex as we like to associate the Bible or Judeo Christian religion on. Their. Heads every now and then like we find in Genesis 29 in 18 with Jacob fell in love with Rachel and he says and that's good to say. Jacob love Rachel so much so that he told her father I will serve you seven years for your daughter Rachel. It. Is love a man falling in love with the woman died and Shechem in Genesis 34 when shuckin saw more than the Prince of the region. So Diana he seized her and played with her by force and his soul was drawn to Diana. He loved the girl and spoke tenderly to her Samson and Delilah as much as we may remember the story in terms of the Lylah ultimately stealing his strength the secret of history.

It starts by saying. This or That is after the death of his first wife actually Samson fell in love with a woman in the valley of sorbate whose name was Della. I'm trying to tell you that the Bible is my anti-love is anti chaos. But the writers understood that love has a chaotic element to it. The writers have no illusions about the possible cost for unbridled romance and passion for love is as strong as death and passion jealousy and yielding and a great many waters cannot quench love rivers cannot. Why can I wash it away.

In the ancient biblical world sex and love and romance and the erotic understood to be powerful forces predictable forces tend to be messy. I'm talking to folks who've been in love. Message for us is that passion is chaotic. Romance spells trouble. Boundaries can get blurred. Identity can get confused borders or compromise and romance potentially makes a fool of everybody Oh I know I'm at the right place up in here. Everybody in here at some point has been made up because of Lobato OK sixteen point seventy six or eight at six. At some point in your life you've been left. I don't care eight years old baby you were left. 19:12 somebody hurt your feelings and you realize that love is a powerful it for us

it is potentially missing it can distract you. Oh I don't get quite. But not for long but not the long. We're talking about then calls it can be chaotic. We all are. Joined to these stories and some very important kinds of ways because they tell us and they give us hints whether it's the story of Jacob and Rachel or dying. And check them our way there's the story of Anna. And take whatever story it might be or is here in the book of Song of Solomon. We all have been raised in a not so healthy diet of love and love songs and love poetry sometimes as we move into the sphere of religion and of God and of faith and of worship. We get confused about what love really is and so we have here the text of love the Lord thy God with all their heart and all your

soul and all your mind. But if you have a distorted or toward it or a Madison Avenue for attachment kind of construed notion of love you can be confused about what it means to love God. That's why the writers take their time to explain and I suspect that that is one of the reasons at least one of the reasons why this book is indeed in the Bible I believe it is in the Bible because so why is a script right really perceived that we need the book of Song of Solomon. Well let me back up and say most people have argued with the Christendom that the reason the book of Psalms Solomon is in the Bible is it's not really about sex and love and erotica and the body and all that nasty stuff but it is about the most loving deep things we were supposed to be an allegory about God's love for the poor for the

church or Jesus love for the church or God's love. So we do not read it as it is in the Bible we read it on a high spiritual way and say that it's really really well let's see that one of the songs we sang this morning the Church's One Foundation and Jesus is her lord. She is his new creation by water and the word from heaven he came and sought her to be his holy bride. And with his blood he brought her. But you know God will fix all the sermons and your songs all together of love God. Yes good that's the sermon right there because right now so I so what they are and today is the notion of Christ coming back for his bride the church. And so there were those who have used the book of song of Solomon as the basis. But I mean in a day like this the allegorical retreats but you know I'm just so grateful that this song is in the Bible. I love the fact that it's about writing my

longing and sensuality and. I'll get higher later on but right now it's like it's about love for Nestle desire because I will tell you most of us get tripped up Friday. But. We go to the high lofty love of the Lord and. We can't get to the Lord because a flash flash flash flash. Flash. Flash Flash. Flash flash flash. I will come to terms with. This. I. Will. Come to church about. So my wife and I just said are we back to go to bed right now. I'm just sitting here. Oh I know I'm at the right place. That tension between the spirit and the body of the flesh and our desire

to be with God and to live with God that day that that you know passion and. That sincere desire to pray that the raging hormones that old and young young and old boy mode raging hormones and our desire. To know God and of pardoning of our sins I. Believe that a wise scribe may argue we do not know one letter or any notes as to why certain books made it into the Bible and certain other books did not make it into the Bible. I believe in my heart that a wise scribe school scribe must do and had to really argue this makes a conclusion. It can. Because they recognize rightly so that there is a. Line.

Between sex and spirituality. The lines get blurred between romance. And religion. I believe that somebody recognized that this book would get to be in the Bible otherwise everybody else would be saying Our God is anti love it anti-roll man said and had the erotic and we don't put it in here. People would never recognize that there is something good and honorable about love and romance as long as it has these boundaries boundaries boundaries. And so. The writers some scribe somebody argued for this book inclusion because they know that there are some parallels between religion and romance or that they all depend upon the same kind of energy. When you talk about religion whether you're talking about love you're talking about you 4:8 you're talking about suffering you're

talking about confession you're talking about communion you're talking about forgiveness I will say that again and again there is some connection. You've ever been in love you know the worship is all about. And if you ever worship God you ought to know what it is to love somebody because we depend upon you for your heart when you're just getting out of your massively good white people when they fall in love they just pray they don't go to school and even get go away from the OR. You get. The sense of euphoria. Joy. Silly. It's. Getting stupid. There is a sense. Of love and if religion or spirituality are not think they are about surrendering. There is a sense in love whether you want to or not you find yourself surrendering. Otherwise did not mean to surrender.

Likewise in worship there is a place in worship but you cannot just sit there and just fold your hands and wait and see what time we gotta get out and what will be the next song. You really don't think there is a moment when you get. Your hands. In absolute total praise and surrender. Do I have a witness. There is a love and also the one with God a sense of communion. I come to the God that do you still on the road that swept me and God talks with me and tell. Me. That I am his old in the sense of being with God and trying to help me see. Some connection. There is a. Certain. Concession. To be a moment when they worship because they do so good because you like go with your heart you begin to confess to God. God I love you I praise you. Thank you. Magnify you you been better to me

than I've been to myself. You. Know. Got. Great. You know you grew up like the third or fourth grade. You passed a little note down to the boy around the turn around and see you wrote down on this made you. Do you love me. Yes. Boy. I never once words being in love with someone who said you know I love you now baby you got to talk. All that day when I. Got to hear you say she says I worship you I adore you. You cannot be so in the presence of God you can be stuck up in of God.

So. There is in the book a song a song called Does the writer include it in the Bible to recognize that there is a. Time and some of the same energy that is drawn in our life is also for human beings is also drop in our love for God. I saw that coming and being Transurban but I remembered something that Toni Morrison once said in the book I saw a novel soula she said life is rarely any better than a lover. Greedy people love greedy stingy people love stingy people love frightened or afraid that somehow somehow or another you can not get in the presence of God when you cannot really love somebody and continue to be greedy and stingy. Sometimes

in worship it is not about what you feel like doing or when you love somebody. I don't have the time to go through all kinds of different kinds of Lauber. There is the garotting we love there. There is an air force and there is a God we love which is sacrificial surrendering Love and Peace or there is fil-A all like Philadelphy of the brotherly kind of love. The Bible is trying to help us know that there is a diff between erotic love and I got paler the love that God is trying to call us to be. Sublime Rosberg is not just. Wrong. Do I have a witness in the house but there is a place to cross and then there was a place to be. But I'm afraid of one of the reasons certain to end is also one of the reasons why I thought maybe this morning the law would lead us to go to this pathway because I think that some time we have and this is a generation where we do not know

how to really love one another and we are so involved and have seen so much television about writing. That we do not understand the God they love that God is calling us to we are so myself included. So I am not one of those preachers who will come and talk to you about your generation I will have to say my generation is where I am I am to this day a sucker for love story and you. Love that. Love Lifetime channel just give me like Centeno of you crap. You just want to. Give me a love song I love a good love story. I grew up under the covers watching reading modern romance and true confessions go on way back. Some of you I would not know anything about these little magazines but I'm telling that somewhere

in my brain that scoria that's where I got my first notions. I think I like to think that I'm a lot smarter and more sophisticated now. Than I was when I was reading more a love more for fashion modern romance and true confessions but I'm not sure that I have completely escaped the ways in which romance and love have been marketed. Stories that reverse certain myths and stereotypes about my heterosexual love about able bodied love about middle to upper class love stories have provided my earlier lessons as some of your early lessons on what it means to court and be in love with one another. I am reminded of a jukebox of achy breaky love songs. That have accompanied me to my. My. Adult life. And even as I tell my daughter why you listen to that song what is Mabu is my. What is a Mabu

all about it. Mommy is just a song Baby Mabu is so large your frontal lobe. And a little Bouguereau come around and Lo right. Here is my job to help you know nothing but a. Is my job our job is to identify what is to love when you know that there's really really love to go. I never loved the man the way I love you. I know Martin. You're all I need to get back. Just. Ask Biloela. This. 0.00. My saving my Luxembourg's among some of your songs here. And. My baby loves me. I'm telling you that's what I now. Now just in case you don't think I know. I just thought I'd bring me a jig or you know you got to the Bible and

the. So you're taught to. Kill Jews. People get lifted around. Like do you still have them do a little bit to go to the. Urban legend and genius loves company. Oh la Rue are you. I said the Lord is my soul. I you I heard a sound do you hear. Somebody sing it. When a man loves the. KGB man no. He'll trade the world. For a good thing he's found to have a witness. My point is that somehow that still gets stuck in your

brain. I grew up believing that life is a little high. I let somebody me like a brick house. Is a lot less it hurts. Love isn't love less is violent. Love isn't love unless he looks a certain way as she looks or because that's the script that somebody has put into our hands. But the writer of The Song of Solomon comes to tell us that there is another level of that flesh has season but you cannot live your life based on your fleshly love God that love chaos and ego. Do I have a way. The writer of the book of Song of Solomon lets us know that there is different kinds of love

and many of us have been so distorted in our brain about what it means to love whether it is a human being or whether it is a God because whether it is God because we are a generation. We have defied the law by taking no for this generation and I include myself generally in the western notion of love. That love is love unless it takes love is about power. Love is about consoling somebody. Love is about making somebody love you before you show them that you love them. Love is about making somebody do something we love is about. I love you today but not tomorrow. I want something from you but I don't want you. We live in a generation that I now use my daughter as an example

because I say that her 12 years old she complains that I tell her because I tell it when you don't have no reason. You got your you way though you don't get babies a day. You guys said you might like to give me some illustrations on my server and see. What I have to remind her. That maybe we will buy you a little cell phone but let me explain to you about a cell phone bill. I do not want you to get a cell phone that has some low calling you every 20 minutes I want to know where you one day is not love his control of 20 minute 30 min you got clock in you gotta tell how good they got you. Somebody calling you every 30 minutes every hour. Where are you what are you doing. Who you love that is strangling you all day that is. Strange. To. Me. Is not that violence is abuse.

What is 19 is present at 13 and do I have a witness. Love is quite the evil thing that you suffer. This is not what we have been raised in this generation as so few lessons are just a few lessons from what many here in the book of song of Solomon is that you see one of the ways in which spirituality and romance are so much like Crain's so much I like it because all of these things rely upon passion. That's the connection between romance and worship. Both require passionate

people in order to worship and love God. You got to have passion in order to really love somebody. They can call you passion and that is one of the keys. But the writer says here in the book of song a song. Been there in the nature of that that we read. She says But you got to be careful about cash is as strong as the grave. The problem is that we live in a culture where to raise a question about passion we immediately go to sex and we do not recognize that passion is your life energy. It is not about sex. It's about your energy. It's about why you devote your energy and passion about writing I am sure and I really am a humble person and as a professor or rational as a preacher I am passionate. So even though my husband made me think you just saw

me baby I'm not mean I said. I. Say I do everything so I don't know how to do things mediocre. I am intensely involved in it. So you wake up one day when you realize you giving your lesson to romance. And romance does not pan out to be what you thought it was going to be. You ask yourself this like you were investing in romance. So you gave to finding a lover and a girlfriend and all the energy that you get to define who you love a husband a wife you could have you there for the baby you could have started you will be asked is it. Too late. I know that the grown folks here know what I'm talking about. I sit on the ground grown grown. Don't let me call you age out.

When you look. At you ask yourself this all day and. I spent my whole life. And I find myself now at 30 and 40 and 50 and 60 and when I should be on a certain level in my career I realize that now I've got people who are my supervisors who are 30 and younger than I am and I spent so much of my energy sleeping around here hanging out and smoking and stayed up all night and had some of that and that I gave to love and acting as though I have a constitutional right to an orgasm a constitutional right to an orgasm. What I should have to some of that energy. So that excites men took some of them are so good for something I just don't. Say. It takes.

Passion. To finish school on time. It takes that energy to stay up and write a paper. It takes energy it takes four years you can turn off the cell phone you get up to the door you say baby i love you but I'm going somewhere. I just feel bad about going somewhere. You got to. How. About your future and. About what God has called you to it. You got to live. Thirty seven. Richard Branson 36. Don't let six seconds of love. Do. Twenty two years of education go. Away. Every. Day.

Good good good good good. But 36. And you. And if you think of Longet and. Everything else is just a little sometimes so. I'm talking about. Your. How you spend your life energy when you look back over your life what you have to show for yourself. Beyond a string of lovers and not just about three or four babies by different people. What do you have to show for your life.

You're 50 and 60 70 years old now but most you have to show for your life it is just a string of relationships but never nothing when you do really devoted yourself to any body or really you don't know how but until you get into a relationship where somebody brings out something in you that you never thought was and is not sexual passion but they force you to grow they want you to think they force you to see God in a different way they taught you to love God and the right church. The right writer says Watch where you spend your passion. Secondly the right. In of I say Of course you believe it. Cause a man somebody. It costs you energy and your time.

And there are some times when you cannot afford it's price. There's a season in your life when you have to stay focused. You see there are seasons where you got to come into worship and you cannot allow anything else to distract you because you need something from God. You need a word from God so you can sit next to somebody and talk about what they did last night. You got to get in here and get focus on God because it's going to cause you to worship God. Amen somebody you got to get up from your bed and make your way over here you've got to get up here you've got to lift your head you're going to get up. You got to say me because of course you're like Oh God do I have a witness. I have a daughter I want say I part. I said OK baby let's see we can be great in science. She calls me on the cell phone cause you know this modern generation she said

Mommy I go to Office Depot to get my part I prove my. What did you get for last month. Inside. I made a 5:54 this year. Minus two plus. I want. To send him through them through six sigma 44. But that's not where you suppose got five something like what you have right now and it just I mean is not enough. Why don't we obviously. It's going to cost you something. You love somebody to be loved by God is going to cause you to make some sacrifice that you won't have to do some things you don't want to do. You believe something that otherwise you otherwise wouldn't have never you ever believe. Cos. You don't stir up. Until this time.

You may not really be able to pay the price. Is that why we get 80 90 40 year old babies and say oh baby you just don't know. How much this is going to cost. Oh I wish I had more time but I've got to go. The third lesson is that of course and not only must you be careful about when you spend your passion but there is a difference between love and lust. Right. Dr. Weil how long. I'm from the south. We say I don't know how. There's a difference. There's a moment in your life when you have to decide how long you're going to permit sex and the inclusion of a

relationship to be a substitute for genuine. I got to say that because I'm at a college audience comes a moment in your life when you got to decide what how long you want this sex and the inclusion of a relationship being a substitute for genuine love. My husband his way of saying to people when you come into his office the marriage counselor you don't I only know my home's at and so what is your point. Now. You're married well you don't love her no more now you're married. Well you've got to look over there and realize this thing is about more than whether you're going to jump start something or what. There's a tingle up your spine. Well now you see a man tickling erotically in love. Love is a verb. It is not a feeling it is about. Do what you got to do is about the commitment that you have made. How about in the right place just one more time. I'm talking about real

loud based on the way we think of people. I don't always feel like working but I gotta get up in work because I made a commitment to God that I don't always feel like preaching is not. About. What my feelings are because feelings change and you can live your life based on your feelings. Why do you feel like the next day you do not feel like it. Love is not about your feelings it is about couple say man. I come to church because my favorite preacher is here because I love God. I come in to worship. My God always working working all right. Where is my favorite choir because I was go when they said to me Let us go into the house of the Lord because it's 11 o'clock and

I just believe at 11 o'clock at night 8:00 because God is too good for me to lay in my bed I put my hand on the radio is a point of contact to be in the house of God. Hence my prayer and you're crazy about my brain. Do I have a witness come on and give us a break. No. Because the Lord heard my cry. And bit him every time we come in here. Not because of what we feel like it well the way you want to when it's convenient for because we don't have an exam this weekend will come it will come because I don't go out of my mind if I don't come I won't have any faith. I don't call my soul will be free because. It is not about how I. Feel about anything. It's about what God commands me to forsake not the assembling of your

sales up as is the custom of some of it is our task to come in here and fight each other be a blessing to each other. So when I see you live your hand up at 17 I say to myself Why am I not to live by my hand. Is not simple sometimes it is not just to take from people but it also gives the writer a song of Solomon says true love. It's about a vow a vulnerability. It's about what it means when you love somebody.

Number one we make over. I'm talking to check it out. You see we live in a generation now where as a minister de-register you may not know this but they will come you know as a pastor or you may do some marriage counseling premarital counseling they will come to your open for premarital counseling. And then again. And you have the minister trying to be open and broad you know Cosmopolitan if you don't want to of it together. Nobody agrees it this is the grace of God together but this is the grace of God they live together and. They say. You. Can't.

Let the house. Women right there looking at a football game and you will be blessed in that house. You want yeah we let it get you. God bless you miss. You have a problem. There is something about. We may break up but it's important to make it in a. Certain. Way for somebody. I stand before. The. Miss. Times. And in bad times I promise to be more honorable to you. And let you see me get not just physical nakedness that you see my wounds that have been heard and to see maybe a great presence but when I get home like this like a little girl I. Show you the reality while I'm saying this is what I am just destined to be dogmatic. When you love somebody you promise to

see them praise it and you say what do you see. You thought you were. Does that why we were sent. Scott said his sounds are not what it is. We got a trifling bit of good. I don't pay my time so let's get this on for you. You know you don't charge. Made a vow to take it back with me so much. That in spite of myself. Come on and sit down one more time with your hands together

and get some great. Power. To. Love you. Even when I can't remember why first you don't work. I promise to work on it. I promise to fight for it. Promise to fight you for. Myself for it because I am making a vow. Not dependent upon. What I feel like in relationships those relationships. Why do you say to the other person I love you even when you and you lose a race to cancer so why you still love me. Tomorrow. Yes you become because of diabetes. I still love you. Tomorrow.

You have to sit by my bedside and kiss my face even though I have time I don't even know you are in the place. I'll still love you tomorrow. With your mom I have to come and live with you. No your mama never liked me. Still you. Are. Like a brick house with two or three babies with no. Real life. When he. Hit somebody you got so. Real. That I can have babies really love me. When I'm miscarrying in the bathroom. You come see about. Let me when my headphones out. Will you love me when I gain weight. You love me when I'm that big time job with the bank that you

love me so much for me. When they laid me out for my job let me when they take the Lexus in the middle of the night you get to be able to say yes because God loves us. That much. Just so we know one another. The good times and in the bad times I'm talking about too long now. As soon as I need help I'm so glad to say that's the right answer. So you don't what passes. My head was so hard. Honey Honey. Honey honey honey honey he's in the right place saying the right thing to say. So now tell us. When he gave his only son. I want to know did you and I.

Were lovers. Come on go. We've got another girl who says. That God is not sick. Is not some time. He says. Look no way do I miss him now. I'm. Sorry. By. God. Winter is a constant. Which is consistent with what we do is we have to confess to me to surrender. Praise God. In. The