Secret Love - July 18, 2021
Mark 8:27-30 & Mark 15:33-39
Deborah Laforet
Secret Love
Let us pray. May the words from my lips and the meditations of my heart be guided by the Spirit and be words of wisdom for this today. Amen.
My mom has always been a bit of a movie buff, especially classic movies, and she really likes musicals. Growing up with her, I also enjoyed many of those movies. One movie that I saw a few times was Calamity Jane with Doris Day and Howard Keel, about a woman cowboy, who was just as good as any other cowboy, maybe even better. In this movie is a song called, Secret Love, composed by Sammy Fain and lyrics by Paul Francis Webster. I used to love this song about a person finally able to proclaim her love to the world.
This summer I am preaching on songs requested by the congregation. It is my job to connect the song to scripture and explore how the song fits with scripture and our lives today. Today’s song is “Secret Love,” sung by Doris Day. Evelyn Little requested this song. She wrote, “"When I met Jim,” her husband, “he was a boarder in our house but I was too shy to let him know I liked him, but each time he was around, my brother would put on this record. Now after 65 years, we can laugh about it when we hear it.” When I asked her this week if she had anything else she wanted to share about the song, she said, no, except that she’s happy he took the hint!
Once I had a secret love
That lived within the heart of me
All too soon my secret love
Became impatient to be free
Many people have had secret loves. Some of us, like Evelyn, are shy and find it difficult to share what we’re feeling. Others, like in the movie, Calamity Jane, are hiding it, even from themselves. Still others keep it secret because it’s a forbidden love. We have lot of stories about these kinds of love: love between same genders, between different races, love that is forbidden because family forbids it, love between people of different ages, or love between a student and teacher, doctor and patient, or minister and congregant. Some loves used to be illegal, like between different races and same genders, and still are in some places in the world.
But my task today is to discover where we find secret love in the bible? This was actually a little harder to find than I thought. The bible is more about a people’s relationship with their God, and less about relationships between two people, although they do exist, the love Jacob had for Rachel, the love between Jonathan and David, and the passionate love expressed in the Song of Solomon, but it’s a little more difficult to find secret loves.
Luckily, I read a reflection on the gospel of Mark that helped. This reflection pointed out that in the eighth chapter of Mark’s gospel, when Peter and the Twelve recognize that Jesus is the Messiah, Jesus tells them not to tell anyone (Mark 8:27–30). In Mark’s Gospel, it is not until the crucifixion that Jesus is recognized, by a Roman soldier no less, as the Son of God (Mark 15:39).
Jesus wanted his identity kept secret. We are not told why. Today, instead of wondering why Jesus, we're going to focus on what it may have been like to keep that secret, and then to finally be released from that secret.
I’m not a fan of secrets. I’m a truth teller and sometimes secrets can be toxic, to a community or to an individual, even to a nation. There are many good reasons to keep secrets and I think Jesus probably had some great reasons for keeping his identity secret, but that doesn’t mean it would have been easy on the disciples, his inner circle. They know that Jesus is special. They know he is much more than just a prophet, more than a healer and preacher, but they can’t say anything! They are told to keep this information secret. Even when a few of them see his transfiguration, a moment when he shines with the divine light within, they’re not allowed to say a word.
So I told a friendly star
The way that dreamers often do
Just how wonderful you are
And why I'm so in love with you
Then Jesus is arrested. Then, he is tried and sentenced to die. Then he is crucified. At about that time, as the disciples were grieving over the loss of their friend and teacher, whom they had loved, they may have been happy they hadn’t said anything. How do you explain to people that you were wrong, that this person who they thought to be the Messiah, the one to save the Israelites from their oppression, was killed by that oppressor?
Now Mark’s gospel does not end with the resurrection. It ends with the women finding an empty tomb, running away, and not telling anyone what they had seen. It’s like the author of this gospel wants us to figure it out for ourselves, like the Roman centurion, at the foot of the cross, who witnessed Jesus die, and said, “Truly this man was God’s Son.” He didn't need the miracle of the resurrection to profess what he saw in Jesus.
We know though that the empty tomb was not kept secret. We know from reading Paul’s letters, we know because of the spread of Christianity. Once they were able, the disciples:
…shout it from the highest hills,
Even told the golden daffodils
At last my heart's an open door
And my secret love's no secret anymore
A lot of our praise songs carry this echo of the joy of sharing. Many people who are ‘born again,’ who find Jesus, want to share it with the world, like we talked about with Bob Dylan, last week. Earlier we sang, “Come in, Come in and sit down,” inviting people to share our joy in this community and in our faith. We will sing next, “Joyful, joyful, we adore you,” celebrating the wonder and awesomeness of the divine. Later, we'll sing a song, “Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory,” which we rarely sing because of its militaristic language, but is a song celebrating a Christ who will bring God’s kingdom to this earth.
How many of you have professed your love in Jesus, shouting it from the highest hill, or do you mostly keep it to yourself? Maybe you’re shy. Maybe you wonder what others will think. It’s easy enough to come to church and sing these songs with everyone else, but in what ways do we express our love to the world, a love for this cosmic Christ, a love of our Creator God, a love for our faith community? Some of us may do this in small, subtle ways but there is something about professing your feelings out loud. There is a release, there is a joy, and there is an opening of the heart.
I invite you to give it a go. You don’t have to do it with anyone else present. You don’t have to do it in church. Like Calamity Jane, you can go to a deserted place, a forest, and shout it to the hills or even the golden daffodils.
May you feel free enough to express your love, your love for neighbour, for loved ones, for the wonders all around you, for the holy and sacred. May you feel that love fill you, may it open your heart to more love, and may that love spread, and be secret no more. May it be so. Amen.