Sermons at St. John’s Presbyterian Church

Various Gifts for Various Seasons

Transcribed from the sermon preached August 22, 2010

The Reverend Max Lynn, Pastor

Scripture Readings: Ecclesiastes 3:1-15, Romans 12:1-21

Among the billions of stars and rocks in the universe, why has life evolved to produce you and me her on earth? Why are some good at math, some at athletics, some at art? Why is it that some are classical musicians and others rappers? Why is one woman not able to conceive, while another pops out babies like it is nothing? Why does one person have a heart attack and another cancer? Why both at the same time? Why are some born as slaves, some in the wilderness and some into a free land flowing with milk and honey?  Perhaps the biggest question for us in the bay area: Why does one  #1 draft pick pay off while another struggles? Or why does one get drafted to a team who seems able to nurture and utilize his or her talents, while another, like Alex Smith with the 49s, just gets pummeled endlessly by three hundred pound defensive linemen until he is scared to death and injured?

          Why is it today that Wal-Mart and Wal-Mart style churches are prospering, while smaller, neighborhood business and churches find it tough to compete? Is it that in America the big is blessed and loved by God and the small not? Are the young loved by God and the old not? While we can come up with possible answers to some of these questions, those answers mostly fall short. There is a random quality to life as we are able to see it; to the time and place we are born, to the opportunity and challenges we face throughout life.

          The author of Ecclesiastes, who we shall call the preacher, is not likely a preacher for a Wal-Mart style congregation, though he is eventually deemed wise enough to have his 3^rd or 2^nd BCE work recorded and included in scripture. For those who criticize Christians for a belief that avoids reality, it would be nice for them to realize Ecclesiastes is a part of our scripture. It is our faith which enables us to take an honest look, to face the facts of life, and gives the power to change the things that can and should be changed, accept with grace the things that cannot be changed, and the wisdom to know the difference. Ecclesiastes is preaching about the difference, what cannot be changed and what can.

          The preacher contemplates time and comes up with two basic conclusions. First, all is vanity! But still, and this is point 2: there is work and purpose we can enjoy. Our life and accomplishments are not as great as we might want to think they are. The agricultural and industrial revolutions, for instance, fed and moved the world. Now we have overpopulation, resource depletion, obesity, global warming and nuclear weapons. The revolution overthrows the unjust and ineffective, and the new leaders are also unjust and ineffective. Religion arises to stem abuse; then pastors and priests are abusive. All is vanity.

          Early on in my first job as a minister, there was a conflict in the church that had me upset and worried. I was sharing my worry with one of the old timers, a woman who had been a Christian, a devoted member through thick and thin for many years. After listening to my worries and my plans to fix them, she gave me a piece of advice: “It will all some out in the wash.” No use putting in too much time or stress over stains on kid’s clothes; it is not the first time nor is it the last time it will happen, and it will come out in the wash. Our anxiety and fret doesn’t change what happened; it doesn’t change the current reality, and it won’t keep it from happening again. All is vanity

          We are a very small piece of a very big puzzle, and there is nothing we can do to alter where we find ourselves now, and there is not a satisfactory explanation. Nor is life static. While there is nothing new under heaven, part of the nothing new is that things change. There is a cycle that life takes us through, so whether we are a princess or a peasant, we will experience that there is a time for everything under heaven. A time to be born, and a time to die, a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance, a time to keep and a time to throw away. Moreover the time we have to experience life is not long. We are all but animals: from dust we come and to dust we shall return. All is vanity.

          Life deals us the hand it will, but that is not the only lesson discerned and taught by the preacher of Ecclesiastes. The second lesson is this: with faith and grace, we can enjoy our work and life along the way. I said that this is not likely a Wal-Mart style congregation’s preacher because Ecclesiastes is too convoluted and inconsistent. If you want east answers to difficult questions you will have to turn to someone else. Easy answers are vanity. This preacher expresses a real sense that much of life is random and pointless. Yet, he still holds faith that God is sovereign that life moves with purpose, that we can, if in a small way, discern the purposes of God and live a satisfying life as part of God’s plans.

          Some scholars think that the contradiction signifies there was a later editor who seeks to soften and apparent lack of faith. This could be; still a troubled yet tenacious faith rings true to life. If you are like me, then you will resonate with this preacher who sees all as vanity yet still finds signs of hope and purpose from an eternal divine presence. If easy answers don’t satisfy, and existentialist resignation fails to douse the fire of your soul, then you find yourself here with me, giving thanks to this god who will not let us off and will not let us go.

          The battle is cosmic righteousness and love against wickedness and evil, and we are members of a team, God’s team. The battlefield is time, and for everything there is a season; there is a time for every matter under heaven. The individual soldier or member of the team may be asked to perform a role in which he or she may not fare well in order that the entire team might claim victory. Some are asked to do more difficult tasks than others. Some have the opportunity for glory; others find their role less glorious. But regardless the role we are asked to play, regardless of how pointless our role looks from our point of view, our task is to do the best we can with the gifts we have been given in the circumstances we find ourselves. If it is our time to gather, then we gather to the best of our ability. If it is our time to cast away, then we do so with graciousness and hope, and perhaps with the help of the Salvation Army. If our talents and circumstances call upon us to teach, then we teach, to organize and lead, then we do so with diligence. And who knows when and where glory comes? Where is the glory in the crucifixion of another Jew by another Roman? The Gospel shows us, a backwater country peasant life played perfectly evokes divine glory and cosmic victory.

          For Paul in Romans, this battle team analogy rings strong in his image of the body of Christ, the church. He says,” Present your bodies as spiritual sacrifices.” Each moment, whether we understand God’s full purpose or not, is a moment of spiritual worship. Our task in the battle, regardless of our part in the body, teacher, preacher, leader, giver, caregiver is to embody love: “Let love a genuine; hate what is evil; hold fast to what is good; love one another with mutual affection; outdo one another in showing honor… Rejoice in hope; be patient in suffering, persevere in prayer… Extend hospitality to strangers; bless those who persecute you. Rejoice with those who rejoice; weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another; do not be haughty but associate with the lowly… Do not repay evil with evil, but take thought for what is noble in the sight of all. So far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.” Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.”

          Still, the battlefield analogy only works so far. Our preacher reminds us that we are here to first recognize that we are here, in this body of ours, in this space and time. And while there is some randomness to it, while we could just as easily have been someone in Pakistan or Park Place, we are not. No use fighting or denying who and where we are, but rather accept, breathe in our reality, breathe out our being, go with the divine flow of the Spirit. We are us, her, now. Be happy, enjoy what we may; praise God.

          Often with work and discipline we can learn and improve to master something we or others thought was not for us. We can fight cancer, learn music, become President. We can study, exercise and eat will, but most of us will never be as handsome as Brad Pitt or Angelina; we won’t think like Einstein; we won’t run like Reggie bush. It is excellent to work hard. It is pointless to be envious of what we are not, but we can use and enjoy who we are and what we can do. We can be thankful we can run, and if we cannot run, then we can be thankful we can walk or roll or think or sing or love. We can use our bodies and minds, however they work and look, to serve the most handsome glorious God, to work beautifully as one body for peace, justice and grace. We can only deal positively with who and where we are now. When we accept who and where we are, there is no fight. As we stop the firth, we find there is so much more to enjoy, even in more difficult seasons. Faith in any church, large or small, can move mountains. Even as the time of death comes to a family, working and sharing a meal together can bring great joy – and isn’t it interesting that even as there are endings, there are bright new beginnings.

          Joan Chittister in “Time: The Great Spiritual Director,” says, “Life is not even. Life is not smooth. All these things, birth and death, loving and laughing, gaining and losing will happen in every life. These things are life. We will not be able to avoid them however much we would like to do just that. The purpose of life lies in learning to enjoy each giddy part, to endure each costly part, to cope with every exhausting part, to stretch and groan and grow, to milk every single period of life dry.”  In the world all is vanity. Yet Christ came that we may have new life and have it abundantly.

          Dear God, help us to live fully human in each moment and season of our lives. Guide us to refrain from embracing that which smother our heart, and that which within our prosperity we do not really need. Give us the compassion to weep the tears that dignify the going of those things and people in life who have brought us to where we are today. We thank you for enabling us to embrace the good of life with great thumping hugs that give energy for the rest of the journey… for the time of reaping, for hard work which brings the fruits of life. We celebrate with and praise you for the gains of life, for those times when we may run through life head up and lusty, gathering the harvest, chasing and embracing our lover through the fields of spring and laughing as we go. We thank you for the satisfaction of a job well done, for the deep joy of gathering long established trust, and the race that makes such relationships possible. Gracious God, we ask for courage in the time to lose, that we may let go of whatever has become our captor in life, and have faith that we can never lose you. Give us a time of birth, healthy children full of curiosity and joy, and rebirth us, fresh and full again out of old ideas, old forms, old shapes.

Grant us the time of laughter, to let go of the propriety and old pomposities and join the bungling, lunging, silly human race. Empower us with hope for the time to die, to put an end to things, to stop the carousel, to surrender to the forces of time and trust your eternal love. May we recognize the time for war, and have courage to struggle against the forces within us that make for our destruction. We pray for the time of healing from illness and the hurts that weigh us down and keep us from taking charge of our own emotional lives. Alpha and Omega, with hope we move forward to the time to build up, to construct the new world, on earth as it is in heaven, as humble co-creators working so that the times to come may be more prosperous and joyful even than today. We pray for peace, for coming to grips with the demons within us, for staring them down and smoothing them out by your grace, so that we my know your peace like a soft meadow stream and drink from water of life. (Prayer uses words paraphrased from Chittister)

Through Christ, with Christ, in Christ we pray. Amen.