The Seasonality of God ~ Soundtracks of Faith

 

For those of a certain vintage, you cannot hear Ecclesiastes 3 without hearing The Byrds’ song, Turn! Turn! Turn! I think this is good.  Because your life has a soundtrack.  Your life has a melody and music that has been playing, maybe in the background or being blasted from your stereo right now.  As you look over your life, what music connects to a place or people?  For example, I can think of the connection between “Let There Be Peace on Earth” and the place summer camp, even still seeing some of my friends’ faces around the campfire as we sung that hymn.  Or I think of 80s rock bands that connect with my move to Des Moines and listening to those songs with my friends.  Or I still hear the song that my wife and I danced to at our wedding.  Music teaches and tells us truths that ordinary words (like mine) just can’t do.  So today, to your chart, list songs ~ doesn’t have to be from the hymnal ~ that defined or described the seasons.  Or what song/songs today are helping to soothe your soul?  Do you hear other songs, besides The Byrds, in the words of Ecclesiastes?  Play with music today.  Listen to music today.  Let the notes reverberate and resonate in your soul.  Amen.

The Seasonality of God

 

Teacher: For everything that happens in life—there is a season, a right time for everything under heaven:

    A time to be born, a time to die;
        a time to plant, a time to collect the harvest;
    A time to kill, a time to heal;
        a time to tear down, a time to build up;
    A time to cry, a time to laugh;
        a time to mourn, a time to dance;
    A time to scatter stones, a time to pile them up;
        a time for a warm embrace, a time for keeping your distance;
    A time to search, a time to give up as lost;
        a time to keep, a time to throw out;
    A time to tear apart, a time to bind together;
        a time to be quiet, a time to speak up;
    A time to love, a time to hate;
        a time to go to war, a time to make peace. (The Voice Translation)

 

How are these words stirring and singing to you as we continue to lean in and listen to the wisdom of this passage?  Are there insights that you’ve discerned and discovered by returning to these words over the last few days?  Are there lingering frustrations because you are trying to figure out when there is ever a time for war or hate or killing?  I know those 3 or 28 on the list certainly cause my mind to whirl and soul to swirl, and eventually I conclude I can’t rationally and reasonably explain everything!  One of the lines I love is about mourning and dancing.  This makes me wonder if maybe this list isn’t about separate, segregated, segmented times, but about how the two times on each line above might influence the other.  Is there a connection between keeping and throwing out?  Are some of the times inextricably in tension with each other?  Because at funerals, I have seen tears that no box of Kleenex can stop and laughter that heals the soul.  I have witnessed people share honestly raw emotions and find healing from the ache.  How have love and hate always been counterweights to each other and at the same time coexisting?  How have war and peace always been not distant and disconnected, but so close that we barely know where one begins and the other ends?  I pray today, you might see these 28 ingredients as part of the recipe of each of our lives, that when they get mixed and mingled together, they each contribute to the stew we serve others in our stories.  Hold this.  Hear how these words have been part of your life and continue to be part of the song we are all singing, both individually and collectively these days.  Amen.

The Seasonality of God

 

There’s an opportune time to do things, a right time for everything on the earth:

A right time for birth and another for death,
A right time to plant and another to reap,
A right time to kill and another to heal,
A right time to destroy and another to construct,
A right time to cry and another to laugh,
A right time to lament and another to cheer,
A right time to make love and another to abstain,
A right time to embrace and another to part,
A right time to search and another to count your losses,
A right time to hold on and another to let go,
A right time to rip out and another to mend,
A right time to shut up and another to speak up,
A right time to love and another to hate,
A right time to wage war and another to make peace. (The Message Translation)

 

One of the truths hidden in plain sight in this poem is how close to creation these words are.  We live in a world of air conditioning, electricity, 24-hour shopping, with delivery right to our doorstep.  To the writer of Ecclesiastes, you might as well have been describing an alien planet!  In the days when these words were written, people were either farmers or herders.  Sure, there were a few merchants, soldiers, officials, priests, and rulers, too.  But most people had soil in their souls and under their fingernails.  Living intimately with the land and around creation means a different experience compared to our world where we are sheltered from the elements and have a supermarket on every street corner.  Look at the second line about planting and harvesting.  This isn’t just poetic prose; this was the profession of many who first heard these words.  Farmers know that there is one time to plant and another time to pluck up.  Juxtapose this with the truth that we live in a world where we expect to get fruit and veggies, even out of season.  In a world of convenience, we forget that an apple in the middle of July doesn’t taste the same as one plucked from the tree in October up north.  Same with the words about killing and healing.  Too often, my mind wants to go to extremes, partly because that is what we hear too much around us.  Partly because this poem keeps swinging us from one extreme to another like a giant swing.  The word “kill” can make me think of images of war, refugees, mass shootings, and arguments over sensible gun laws.  Yet, the context here, in an agrarian culture, is more about killing a chicken for dinner or offering a dove as a sacrifice at the temple.  We might also think of chomping on a carrot that is giving us energy.  This brightly orange and beautiful vegetable absorbed from the soil, sun, and soaking rain to grow.  I mentioned on Sunday that because we live in a world that loves to push and pull us to political/economic/religious edges, we might be tempted to classify, categorize, prioritize, and idolize some of the 28 times named above as either good or bad.  But it doesn’t have to be so.  Has there been a time when you needed to cast away a stone that was too heavy?  Has there been a time you ended a relationship for your own well-being?  Which of the 28 times in this list leap off the screen for you?  Which of the 28 times sit uncomfortably in your stomach, causing indigestion?  Which ones connect to the timeline you worked on in July?  Sit quietly, listening for God’s wisdom in these words intersecting, interrupting, and interpreting our lives right now.  Amen.

The Seasonality of God

For everything there is a season and a time for every matter under heaven:

a time to be born and a time to die;
a time to plant and a time to pluck up what is planted;
a time to kill and a time to heal;
a time to break down and a time to build up;
a time to weep and a time to laugh;
a time to mourn and a time to dance;
a time to throw away stones and a time to gather stones together;
a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing;
a time to seek and a time to lose;
a time to keep and a time to throw away;
a time to tear and a time to sew;
a time to keep silent and a time to speak;
a time to love and a time to hate;
a time for war and a time for peace. (The NRSV)

 

What are your responses as you reflect on the words above?  I know I have lots of feelings when I hear/read these words.  I feel both comforted and challenged.  This passage takes you on a rollercoaster of emotions, each line a pendulum swing from one extreme to another.  The wisdom writer in Ecclesiastes starts with the mystery of birth, life, and death.  I don’t remember my birth, and I don’t know when I will draw my last breath.  In some ways our lives are mysteries from beginning to end.  I think of the beautiful Psalm 90 that says, “Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.”  It is tempting to see that word, “number,” as a mathematical equation to solve or a calendar event to control.  We don’t know how many days we have.  The author, Oliver Burkeman, estimates that each of us has about 4000 weeks of life.  In a world obsessed, addicted, and stressed out by trying to get everything done and be the best version of yourself, we feel/carry the weight of time on our shoulders, pushing us down into the ground.  Perhaps it isn’t only gravity that keeps us connected to the earth?  Centuries before Burkeman encouraged us to be thoughtful, prayerful, curious, open, and loving in how we live, both the Psalmist and Ecclesiastes combined theology and philosophy into a recipe for us to taste.  This connects to charting the art of your life.  You started with people and places, mixed in experiences and encounters, thought about God’s presence, experimented with the words: faith/hope/and love, and yesterday we spoke about the seasonality of the Sacred. This is a foundation for you to lay beside the words above.

 

This week, I invite you to lay this passage alongside your timeline/art project of life.  The words above are not only about the individual.  As a pastor, I do many funerals.  I am confronted, confounded, and challenged by the fact that life is finite and how much of life is beyond my control.  As you look at your timeline, are there significant births and deaths you might note?  When did your parents, spouse, child, loved one, soul friend, pets who are like family, or others die?  How did you process that pain and grief?  I don’t think you get over grief like a common cold.  Rather, you find ways to pick up the pieces, some of which are sharper than a shard of glass and some of the broken pieces shine with new light through the jagged edges.  Each day we gather experiences as one way God is co-authoring your story.  You might consider how each move you’ve made to a new home involves new beginnings and endings.  Or each person you’ve met is like encountering a new story, or each rupture in a relationship that can’t be repaired no matter how much duct tape you try to apply causes ache that might still be persisting.  Let this opening line of Ecclesiastes create a spaciousness in you to explore the mysterious ways of life/death/resurrection that is a thread/theme in each of our stories.  Amen.

Shape of Faith, Collective of Hope, and the Way of Love

 

Creatively composing God, thank you for the endless ways You bring/blend faith, hope, and love together in our lives.  You take the spices of faith, hope, and love to create new recipes in each of our lives.  Give us appetites to taste and see Your goodness in others’ stories about faith, hope, and love.  Let us have ears to hear and eyes to see that the diverse ways You were at work in someone else’s story can be both unique and unifying.  That no matter how different someone else’s experience is, there might just be one word from You, O God, in the stories that other person shares.  Help me stay curious, especially when I encounter someone who has all the warmth of a porcupine or the personality of a wet blanket or acts like a bully.  Help me ask, “What happened” rather than fill in the story that I know all about why they do what they do.  Let Your faith in us awaken us in new ways.  Let Your hope open to new possibilities.  And let Your love constantly flow and be what fuels my life this day.  Amen. 

Shape of Faith, Collective of Hope, and the Way of Love

 

 But now faith, hope, and love remain; these three virtues must characterize our lives. The greatest of these is love. 1 Corinthians 13:13 (The Voice Translation)

 

So far this week, you have played with the words: faith and hope.  To be sure, these two words can be partners or sometimes in tension.  We might cling to these words with tight fists or watch them flutter away the second we let go of our grasp.  Let’s add one more word: love, which Paul says is the greatest.  He is borrowing from his Jewish upbringing in the Shema of Deuteronomy 6, where the prayer prayed each day is to love God with all your heart, soul, and life.  Side note: Paul spent all of chapter 12 in 1 Corinthians arguing against rating and ranking; only do that at the end of chapter 13!!  Sigh, but this does remind us that our human-size lives are always full of contradictions! 

 

How has love held you in the past?  When has love been like a safety net, and when has love failed you or you fallen through that net because of a hole that was too large?  When was the last time you felt fully loved?  Does love feel different now than as a teenager?  How has our cultural gospel of romantic love overshadowed the communal connection of God’s love that tethers us together impacted how you read/think/view this word? 

 

I know that is a lot of questions!  You may take just one of the above.  Or go back through the people you listed with each place you lived from week one and draw a heart around those who embodied love for you.  Who helped you hold onto love in times of stress and strain?  In what ways might love have a chemical reaction with hope and faith that Paul lays out in the formula of 1 Corinthians?  May your ponderings today bring smiles to your face and strangely warm your heart in beautiful ways.  Amen.

Shape of Faith, Collective of Hope, and the Way of Love

 

But for right now, until that completeness, we have three things to do to lead us toward that consummation: Trust steadily in God, hope unswervingly, love extravagantly. And the best of the three is love.  1 Corinthians 1313 (The Message Translation)

 

Yesterday, you traced the shape, shade, or size of faith in your life.  Maybe faith as a teenager was a circle to hold your life that suddenly shrank to a dot in your college/young adult years.  Maybe faith was a square as a child that became a beautiful cumulus-shaped cloud that keeps changing across the sky of life today.  Remember, this is never one-and-done; you keep working on your life with the One who is co-authoring alongside you.  Today, I invite you to hold the word, hope.  Was there a symbol of hope as a child?  For me, that word makes me think of my Christmas list as a child; I hoped I would get the gifts I listed.  As I grew up, I had hopes that were like dreams for what my life would be.  As Rev. Sarah Bessey says, hope is a team sport.  I see hope as active and activating and animating not only within me, but between me and others.  What role has hope played?  Or ask: how full your hope tank is and why?  I hear many today feel hopeless because the events of the world seem so large and troubling.  And from history, I hear that people have faced hate and hurt as a constant theme and thread.  Is my hope dependent only on external evidence to validate it?  Is my hope built on God’s presence, which can feel more nebulous?  Is my hope sinking sand?  You could go through a hymnal or Google hymns with the word “Hope”, how is that word set poetically in motion in those hymns?  Play with the word “Hope” and trace how that word showed up or disappeared throughout your life.  May this invitation awaken your awareness of the story you are telling yourself about this word and how it works in the world, in your heart, and with God.  Amen.