For the next of couple of days, I am offering links to my most recent sermon series called "Divine Romance: Lessons from the Song of Songs." Many people have never heard a sermon on this passage because pastors aren't sure what to do with it. Believe me, even with cleaning it up for a bunch of Presbyterians, it's still PG-13.
Delighting in a Walled Garden
One day, some years ago when Beth and I were in Prague, we were told of a wonderful garden that we had to visit. So, we headed off in the direction that we were pointed until, confused, we figured we were lost. You see, the address was correct, but we were nowhere near a place where one would expect a garden. There wasn’t a tree or bush or plant in sight. We were in an urban neighborhood of streets and buses and old buildings and the address we were given took us to a large door in the middle of a huge imposing compound wall that lined the street. But we weren’t lost. The garden was right in front of us. It was just on the other side of the huge wall that lined the street. When we sheepishly opened the gate and walked through, we found it: An old beautiful garden protected from the urban blight by the large wall.
The garden needed the wall as protection from the city around it, and the garden, once through the door in the wall, became a wonderful little edenic spot in the city. And all throughout it on benches and under shade trees were lovers enjoying a moment together, children running and playing, and old friends just sitting and being.
In the movie, Notting Hill, Hugh Grant and Julia Roberts play a young couple out on a date. Roberts, herself a famous movie star, plays a famous movie star in the movie, Grant plays a simple book shop owner who meets her and through a strange serious of events ends up having dinner with her.
As this budding romance begins to take off they realize that her fame, and the constant paparazzi that follow her will make it almost impossible to find any privacy at all. In what seems like a chance encounter, but becomes a metaphor for what they most need, Grant and Roberts come to a locked gate of a garden wall. And that wall becomes their refuge.
(And a walled garden becomes the best description of the kind of sex life God intended us to have.)
For the rest of the sermon, click here. Or you can download it here: Download song_of_songs_2_protection.doc .
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