Sexual Attraction and Divinity

Two of the lectionary passages today, at least if you go with the United Methodist selections, involve romance and sexual attraction.  One, of course, is Song of Songs 2:8-13 and the other is Psalm 45, which has a foreign princess marrying the king of Israel.  The second involves romance at least as far as an arranged political marriage, probably into a harem, can do so.

I think there are two major pitfalls in interpreting these passages, and these apply especially to Song of Songs.  The first is that we will miss the spiritual lessons because we are enjoying the story and the poetry.  Literature that involves sex is both popular and controversial. I’m guessing that after some time on the internet, when I check the stats for this article, there will be a correlation between the number of times I mention “sex” in it, and its popularity.  So one can read these passages as simple, physical attraction.

The other pitfall, however, is that we will quickly spiritualize the passage and miss out on the physical connection.  In my view sexual attraction and romantic love provides us with the best metaphor we’re going to get for God’s love and passion for us, and how diligently God seeks to provide his grace.  At the same time, it provides us with a pattern for our own behavior with respect to God.

One common view of Song of Songs is allegorical.  Now I won’t deny that some good things have come out of reading this book allegorically.  But I do believe that reading it as allegory and denying its value as a simple and passionate love story diminishes the book.  It is not written as allegory.  It is written as love poetry.  It is not necessarily to be understood, but to be lived.

And there is where we can also tie James 1:17-27.  Perhaps we don’t really understand something unless we have lived it.  Notice God’s own example in Jesus Christ.  God came and lived among us in human form in Jesus Christ.  God obviously knew, but in Jesus he shared the experience of human beings living in an imperfect world and day by day facing the challenges of being very, very finite.

Despite our unfortunate tendency to regard anything sexual as dirty, and requiring that it be separated from spirituality, human attraction relates very closely to God’s longing for us, and our search for God.  In romantic love, no amount of factual knowledge of a partner would suffice, if learned apart from personal experience of that partner.

So it is with God.  I cannot study theology for years and expect that this alone will let me truly know God.  I need to experience God, to be sought passionately by God, and in my turn to seek God passionately.