Service Sunday July 5, 2026
HIGHLAND HILLS UNITED CHURCH
Minden, Ontario
All are Welcome!
Worship Leader: Rev. Max Ward
Music Director: Melissa Stephens
Watch a video recording of the whole service using YouTube below
(For a Printer Friendly PDF version click this link)
MESSAGE: “A Love Song”
Listen to an audio recording of the message below or read it at the bottom of this page.
Due to illness, the remainder of the webpage will be left undone at this time.
Sermon 2026 07 05
“A Love Song”
Song of Solomon 2:8-14
Gracious God, be with us today in this place, in the Scriptures and in our words.
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts praise your Holy name. Amen.
TRUE LOVE
If you love something, set it free.
If it comes back, it was, and always will be yours.
If it never returns, it was never yours to begin with.
If it just sits in your living room,
messes up your stuff, eats your food, uses your car, takes your money, and never behaves as if you actually set it free in the first place, you either married it or gave birth to it.
Today, I can think of so many ways that this silly joke is true.
Lily recently visited with her boyfriend Evan.
He is a great guy and we are all looking forward to getting to know him better.
Sadly, last month, we said goodbye to Joyce Broesma and Edna Morgan due to death.
We all grieve their loss and are thankful that both were surrounded by family in their final days.
Also, we share the love that those families have in supporting each other.
Yesterday, I helped two couples and their families celebrate love at two fancy weddings!
One couple were both never married and the other couple were both previously divorced.
Even though both weddings were very different, they were both filled to over flowing with love.
Love between the couples and love between the family members and friends.
These are all examples of love.
And yet, I know we can think of many more.
We use the word love to describe so much, something that is in many cases so simple and yet also in many ways so very complicated.
Love has been described throughout the ages.
Trying to define love, what it looks like, the way it makes us feel, warn us about the pain of lost love.
What does the Bible have to say about love?
Quite a bit actually!
Depending on your version of the Bible, the word love is used between 500 and 800 times.
Jesus talks about love and before him, the prophets and so on.
Today we read a small portion of the Song of Songs or the Song of Solomon.
The Song of Solomon only makes two appearances in the Revised Common Lectionary; once as an alternate reading for the psalm in Year A, today, and once as an optional Hebrew scripture reading in Year B.
Both times, it is the verses assigned for this Sunday in July; only a small portion.
No other selection from the book is part of the regular cycle of readings, which means that it is likely unfamiliar to most of us in the pews or chairs or chesterfields at home.
The book-an extended love song-is full of erotic imagery, and the author is not ashamed to express it openly and freely.
Of course, the usual reaction of people who experience this reading in church on a Sunday morning is to blush and then ask, “What is this doing in the Bible?”
This could be a good week for each of us to read the whole book (or much more than what is included in the lectionary) and reflect upon the relationship between the body and spirituality.
If our understanding of Jesus is incarnational-God becoming flesh-our theology, then, should remain “incarnate”.
That is to say, it should remain embodied, fleshly, earthy.
Today, we’ll reflect on how understanding and relating to our human bodily needs and desires are part of our spiritual growth.
We don’t read very far in the Song of Songs before we realize two things: one, it contains exquisite love lyrics, and two, it is very explicit sexually.
The Song, in other words, makes a connection between conjugal love and sex—a very important and very biblical connection to make.
There are some who would eliminate sex when they speak of love, supposing that they are making it more holy.
Others, when they think of sex, never think of love.
The Song proclaims an integrated wholeness that is at the center of Christian teaching on committed, wedded love for a world that seems to specialize in loveless sex.
The Song is a convincing witness that men and women were created physically, emotionally, and spiritually to live in love.
At the outset of Scripture we read, “It is not good for man to live alone.”
The Song of Songs elaborates on the Genesis story by celebrating the union of two diverse personalities in love.
We read Genesis and learn that this is the created pattern of joy and mutuality.
We read the Song and see the goal and ideal toward which we all press for fulfillment.
Despite our sordid failures in love, we see here what we are created for, what God intends for us in the ecstasy and fulfillment that is celebrated in the lyricism of the song.
Christians read the Song on many levels: as the intimacy of marital love, God’s deep love for God’s people, Christ’s Bridegroom love for his church, the Christian’s love for his or her Lord.
It is a prism in which all the love of God in all the world, and all the responses of those who love and whom God loves, gathers and then separates into individual colors.
Little is known about the Song of Songs.
Solomon may have written it, although the man who, and I quote from (1st Kings 11:1) “was obsessed with women” and had a thousand of them in his harem isn’t easily associated with a book that celebrates committed love.
Possibly the book was dedicated to Solomon.
The Song of Songs may have been composed for a royal wedding.
Love poetry was common all over the Middle East, but in other countries it often included references to fertility gods and goddesses.
Infidelity and jealousy were common themes.
In contrast, the Song of Songs celebrates faithful love.
Love comes in so many forms.
Whether love for a friend, love for a child or love for a partner we are people made for love.
Share your love in all the ways you can.
Our God is not only the God of love but a creative God.
Be creative in the ways that you express your love.
Whether in words or actions or simply in silent presence, your love means so much to those around you.
Let us follow Jesus’ primary command – to love God and to love one another, in all love’s varied expressions.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
