The Time of Singing Has Come

I understand that most of us aren’t bringing the right questions to Wisdom Literature. If we are looking for self-help programs, we will be sorely disappointed. Even if we flip that familiar tactic on its head and look for surprises and countercultural imperatives, I still think we will miss the point. I think it’s the difference between a map of local hotels, the turn-by-turn directions to the one you’ve chosen, and a list of local Yelp reviews. You don’t look at turn-by-turn instructions to decide where you and your family should stay on your vacation. Instead, you see what your options are, find out what others are saying about them, and then break out a map for planning purposes. With rare exceptions, you probably don’t exclusively use the map to get where you need to go. Especially if traffic is a concern on your route, you need turn-by-turn directions to help you make the best use of your time. If you’re going to plan an enjoyable- and, of course, efficient- trip, you need all these things to play their proper roles in your decision making. The same is true for our biblical literature. If you expect the prose to be poetry and the laws to be liturgies, you probably won’t find the scriptures very helpful. But if you let the Wisdom Literature come alongside other pieces of scripture, you will probably think twice. And then, the literature will have done its best work on your hearers and you.

Our first Wisdom book is a testament to love, its power, and its intrinsic goodness. Song of Solomon is a five-star Yelp review for true love. This is one of the books that does not mention God’s name, but Christians and Jews have often interpreted its overall tone as an image of the love between God and humanity. The two lovers in dialogue throughout the book constantly strive for each other with passion despite the circumstances of life that keep them apart. The particular passage for this week describes the first time the two lovers meet. They know and admire each other somehow, but our author has not yet reported that they have spent time together. I have noted that we should not expect Wisdom literature to be explicitly prescriptive. Still, there is one fascinating instruction given just before the passage we have highlighted for today: “I charge you, daughters of Jerusalem, by the gazelles or wild does, do not stir up or awaken love until it is ready” (2:7). Perhaps it is the speaker’s reflection on the slow growth of this romance that leads her to make this proclamation about the need for patient love.

One of this book's most salient characteristics, especially this passage, is the heavy use of imagery and sensory language. In these five verses, all but the sense of taste are activated. The woman sees her beloved approaching her, and he announces the sounds and smells of the new season they are entering. The love encapsulated here is not some sort of spiritual, ethereal love that is nice in concept; it’s love you can perceive. The strongest and purest love we could ever describe in this way is, of course, God, and your hearers do not need any help jumping to this allegorical interpretation. However, don’t let the teenagers who are in love for the first time, newlyweds fresh off their honeymoons, and retirees celebrating their sixtieth anniversary miss the chance to hear that their true, wholesome love makes God smile.

At the same time, romance isn’t comforting for everyone; this is where verse 7 becomes important again. Love and life don’t move at a pace we set for ourselves; we can’t stir them up before they are ready. Patience is a delicious fruit of this wisdom book. It’s worth noting that the Western concept of a timeline isn’t shared by much of the world. Time is described as a spiral, sphere, or circle in other corners of creation. These images offer uncommon wisdom about God’s providence. When I survey my television and social media channels, I don’t find many people saying, “The time of singing has come.” The fact that we would pause, especially in the middle of a religious gathering, to celebrate love for all that it is, sounds pretty offbeat. Can we really afford to take time out of our busy schedules to love one another? The Yelp review that is Song of Solomon 2 says it’s totally worth it! By the end of this passage, if we stop to ponder it, we can hear and see and smell all that love longs to share with us.

Rev. Tripp Gulledge is a provisional elder in the Alabama—West Florida conference and a pastoral resident at Highland Park UMC in Dallas, TX. He graduated from Perkins School of Theology with highest honor in May 2023.