NSFC: Spirituality, Sex, and Longing in the Song of Songs
May 31, 2026 - July 5, 2026
The liturgical season of “Ordinary Time” or “Sundays After Pentecost” is long – summertime and most of the fall (up to Advent). So we’ll have several short series this season.
First up: let’s read the entirety of the Song of Songs. This epic poem is categorized as “wisdom literature” in the Hebrew Bible, which gives us pause because it is one of two biblical books that never mentions God. (The other is Esther.) And the Song of Songs is very, very, very sensual- unto-sexual. Why is this erotic poem included in the canon? And why, especially through the Middle Ages, has it inspired the church’s most prominent theologians to return to it for theological wisdom again and again?
We’ll use a traditional outline to divide the book into 5 readings. Each of the first 4 readings ends with a short address to the “daughters of Jerusalem,” perhaps written by an editor to form the “stitching” that weaves separate love songs together in this compilation into one piece.
Each of these weeks is titled “[Blank] is Sexy.” Sexy is not a useful category for everyone if it refers to actual sex – but it is a useful adjective in this context for what is good, true, beautiful, right, and necessary.
Your Body is Sexy. We can’t get around it in the SoS – bodies are beautiful, especially in the eyes of someone who knows and loves your body. And sex, too, as something (most of) our bodies want, is sexy and good and blessed and biblical.
The Earth is Sexy. The SoS overflows with imagery from the natural world – flora and fauna, sights and smells, an extravaganza (orgy?) of appreciation for a well-watered spring. The lovers meet and make out (make love?) outside; they compare each other’s beauty to things they’ve seen in nature; nature stirs their desire for each other. Can this sexy appreciation of the earth lead us to a love that drives care, justice, and reclamation of our planetary home?
Come as You Are. The Corinthian Christians worried about what they needed to change, repair, or complete before they could be accepted into the fellowship of Christ. Paul responds that God’s call comes before our lives are well in order, and perfection (or even having your shit together) is not a prerequisite. God invites messy people in messy circumstances into relationship first, and to let the Holy Spirit transform them when the time comes for it. Especially during Pride Month, this text reminds us that God’s welcome is not only for people who conform to a certain standard, but for all anyone willing to answer when God calls. Jillian Moran is preaching.
Mutuality is Sexy. Notably, the SoS is a duet between lovers – a woman and man, in this case. Moreover, the woman’s voice is first and last, and it is she who sets the terms of their relationship in both love and sex. The lovers seek each other, wait for each other, ask for each other, pine for each other, in a way that demonstrates a startling parity between the genders for that time (and ours). Enthusiastic consent, indeed.
Monogamy is Sexy. These lovers anticipate their marriage, but even before the covenant vows they are pledged solely to each other. This is not a constraint on their freedom but the very nature of the height of love: that each lover is so consumed by passion for the other that there is simply no room for anyone else in their hearts or minds. (See especially 5:9ff; 6:3; 6:9; 7:10.) This is both a marital and theological claim: that monogamous marriage (the consummation of one love over one lifetime) trains our hearts for the loyalty of monotheism.
Longing for Intimacy with God is Sexy. The sex described in the Song of Songs is neither transactional (the joining of families and property) nor procreative. It’s just the pure pleasure of wanting, enjoying, and wanting again the complete union of one person with another. The church has long interpreted this erotic state of being as a spiritual state of being. Human beings are made to long for connection with their Creator, and so the SoS is read as a love song in praise of the human and Divine as lovers, estranged but ready for passionate reunion.