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Wednesday, July 02, 2008
Eros: More Than Sex And The City
Song of Solomon 2:8-17; Revelation 4:1-11
My title got their attention, but even so this week's sermon drew a less than Standing Room Only crowd. Oh Lord, what's a preacher got to do these days?!
Anyway, our little series on the many faces of love finally got to Eros last Sunday.
This kind of love is a stark contrast to Phileia. That family/friendship love puts the lovers side by side to enjoy some shared enthusiasm or deep commitment. But this romantic urge brings lovers face to face, absorbing them in strong emotion and utter awe -- at the beloved or at the overpowering love itself.
And yet, what makes erotic love much more than "Sex and the City" is its surprisingly broad scope. Forget about sex. Ha, as if you could! Um, let me try again...
Besides sexuality, romantic love adores beauty in all its manifestations. In nature... the arts... magical moments....
And -- it magically knows how to up the ante by weaving those disparate stimuli together. As in the Song of Solomon. Where the brand new queen sings her royal husband's praise in word pictures of gazelles and stags, flowers and figs, visceral perfumes and enchanting bird songs.
Eros lavishes extravagant gifts on those whose hearts its arrows pierce. They discover a beauty that has always been there just beneath the surface. Their praise persuades their partners that it's really truly true. Then together they lift it up for all to behold and raise a hallelujah chorus in response.
Eros also makes enormous demands of its beneficiaries. You must serve your beloved as almost a kind of deity -- thus, I suppose, the frequent nickname "angel." From there idolatry is just a wavering step away. Trickiest of all its traps is the one that lures you into slavery to erotic love itself.
I know good people who swear up and down that they worship most deeply, truly, on a breath-taking mountain trail or the back nine of a suburban golf course. And we don't need to belabor the point of Van Morrison's old song about "she gives me religion."
The very nature of Eros is hunger and thirst, for this love needs above all else to need. If Eros is even to survive, let alone flourish, it must partner up with Phileia. Romantic love runs hot and cold, totally beyond our ability to exert control. In the cooled-off times, lovers need the consolations of friendship if their love is going to last.
For all the sensationalism of its title and story line, "Sex and the City" has always been primarily about four women's abiding friendship. Through all the surges and retreats of their romantic lives, all their joys and concerns about sexual satisfaction, Carrie and her buds know one sure thing above all else -- they will always have each other.
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posted by Jack Buckley at
2:55 PM
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