Sunday, August 13, 2023
Spirit of Hope Lutheran Church, Lincoln, NE
Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost (narrative lectionary)
watch this service online (reading starts around 22:33; children’s sermon w/blessing of the backpacks starts around 23:53; sermon starts around 34:20)
Reading(s): Song of Solomon 2:10-13; 8:6-7, (Mark 8:35-37)
Before the tall people’s sermon (as I like to call it), in the children’s message, we talked about the mention of seals in our reading from Song of Solomon — about how seals not only are a way to stick things together; seals are also oftentimes marks of identity. We talked about the seal of the state of Nebraska on the state flag and about the seal of the ELCA, which I showed them on my ordination certificate. We talked about how, in baptism, each of us is “sealed by the Holy Spirit and marked with the cross of Christ forever.” God’s love, like a seal, is stamped on our hearts, and we are called to leave that mark of love on the rest of the world. Each student, teacher, and school staff person present received a tag to put on their school bags for our annual blessing of the backpacks, which we likened to a seal, and we then closed with the blessing.
Before I moved back to Nebraska to be ordained and start first call, I spent a year living in New Mexico, where I completed my seminary internship. The city I lived in – Las Cruces, NM – is way, way down in the southern part of the state, only about 40 miles north of the Mexican border. Down there, it seemed like a whole different world from Nebraska and the Midwest — instead of cornfields and prairie, there were mountains and desert, prickly pear and yucca and tall stands of ocotillo, houses that had rock landscapes in front of them instead of lawns. In many ways, it was far from the places I’d known. I moved to Las Cruces from Chicago, and the drive alone took us three whole days.
As we were getting the truck unloaded and carrying all my stuff in, one of my new neighbors came over to say hello. And you can imagine my surprise when out of nowhere, he asked me one of the most Nebraskan questions you can possibly ask, which was: “Oh hey, 13 county — what part of Nebraska is that in?” I mean, what?! In this city over a thousand miles away from where I grew up, how is it that literally the first person I talk to is familiar enough to know that the first two numbers on most Nebraska license plates tell you the county?? Well, turns out this guy and his wife were from Wahoo, NE! Go figure. And so I said, “Well, I guess now I know who owns that truck with the Husker sticker on the back!”
It’s amazing the many ways that we communicate pieces of our identity to other people – who we are, where we come from – sometimes without even consciously realizing that we’re doing it. You can learn a lot about who someone is just by looking at them: things like whether they’re wearing a wedding ring, noticing that they’re wearing designer brand clothes or that their clothes have cat hair all over them. Back in good ol’ 13 county (Cedar County, for those who are curious, north of Wayne 😜) up there, there are probably enough people who know my family that, even if they don’t know me specifically, they can just look at my face and recognize me as a Hefner. So many things can clue us in to who someone is — their tattoos, their jewelry, the way they speak, the way they do their hair — there are so many ways our identities are marked on us for other people to notice. There are so many ways that we signal to the world who we are.
Heh, now we’re probably all looking around wondering what pieces of our identities are most visible to the people around us! Some of these marks of identity are easier than others for other people to notice. And some of them are more central than others to understanding who we are.
In our reading for today, the author of Song of Solomon (or Song of Songs) writes about the single most important mark of identity that we bear. He writes: “Set me as a seal upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm, for love is strong as death.” As Christians, as beloved children of God, we know that love is the most important thing about who we are. Love is the most important thing, period. As the author of Song of Solomon writes, “If one offered for love all the wealth of one’s house, it would be utterly scorned” – it would be laughed out of the room. In other words, love is so priceless that we would be foolish to even try to trade something else for it, or to trade it for something else. Love is so priceless that we would be foolish to let ourselves be defined by anything less.
And out of all the loves in our lives – all of the loves that leave their mark on our hearts – it’s no surprise that the most important and most precious of all is God’s love. We have been claimed by God in love – sealed with God’s love – and given a new identity as God’s children. What good news! Out of all the things in life that define us, that identify us – the positive, the negative, and everything in between – the one thing that most defines us is the love of God: the God who molded us by hand, the God who loved us enough to die for us, even at our worst.
That seal of love is pressed into us much like a wax seal is pressed into paper. It’s a mark that never, ever goes away. I mean, have you ever spilled hot wax on something and then tried to get it out? Heh, if you’ve been around a church long enough, you’ve probably had to deal with spilled candle wax at some point – and had to try and get it out of paraments or carpets or upholstery. It is next to impossible to fully get that wax out. And like that wax, God’s love has a way of sinking down deep into all the little nooks and crannies in our hearts until it’s just part of us — until there’s no telling where God’s love ends and we begin.
I spent probably too much time this week researching and thinking about wax and seals and all that good stuff. But I think it’s an image that can add a lot of richness to our understanding. One thing that occurred to me is that we use the word “seal” both for the mark you make when you press something into hot wax, and for the thing that you press into the wax to make the mark. Applying that to our text, we go out bearing the seal of God’s love on our hearts, bearing the mark of the one who first loved us. And we also carry that seal of love “on our arms” – we carry it in a way that others can see it – so that we may leave its impression on others; so that we may leave a mark of love everywhere that we go. We have been sealed by love so that we may likewise seal others.
And that aspect of this really matters. Because unlike – say – a tattoo or a particular uniform, or a name tag, this seal of love isn’t always as obvious to the casual observer as some other marks of identity. Despite how important it is, you can’t always just look at someone and see the love of God sealed on their hearts. As Christians, we have to find ways to manifest God’s love to our neighbor – we are called to actively make God’s love known to those around us – or, as it’s phrased right here on the wall of our sanctuary, we are called to find ways to “bring Christ’s love to life.”
For this congregation, that isn’t just an empty slogan. You bring Christ’s love into ministries like your service with the Matt Talbot Kitchen, like the blood drive we hosted here just last week, like Kicks for Kids, like the donations we’re collecting for the Lutheran Center. This congregation wears its seal of love with pride, and I’m sure it has left that mark of love on many people in this community.
I wonder how God might be calling us to grow even deeper into that witness. I wonder where in the communities we serve there might be people hungry for the kind of love we have to share.
Wherever this love might take us, I pray that, today, each of us gathered here might feel anew that seal of love marked on our hearts. May we remember to the very core of our being that we have been claimed by love more precious than anything else in creation – love that many waters cannot wash away – love that is as fierce as the grave, and even stronger than death.
This is the Day 
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