Sunday Sermon: In The Midst of… God is There

 

 

Scripture Passage – Ecclesiastes 3:1-8

 

Description – A sermon for April 21, 2013

 

 

 

I felt led late this week to change my sermon text and theme from my current series to what I share with you this morning. I begin with a new text, familiar to many of us, Ecclesiastes 3:1-8:

 

 There is a time for everything,
and a season for every activity under the heavens:

 

    a time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot,
     a time to kill and a time to heal,
a time to tear down and a time to build,
     a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance,
     a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,
     a time to search and a time to give up,
a time to keep and a time to throw away,     a time to tear and a time to mend,
a time to be silent and a time to speak,
     a time to love and a time to hate,
a time for war and a time for peace.

 

 “There is a time for everything and a season for every activity under the heavens…”

 

 What time is it?

 

Clock in Kings Cross railway station (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

 

It is a question that is asked, very, very often, on a daily basis by each one of us here.

 

 

 

Sometimes we ask this question when we want to know what the clock indicates – nine thirty am or pm? Six twenty am or pm? Two fifteen am or pm.

 

Sometimes we ask this question when we want to know what we have to do next or what someone else has to do next…

 

It’s bath time!

 

It’s time for bed!

 

It’s time for the TV show.

 

It’s time to take out the trash.

 

It’s time to go to school!

 

It’s time for your medicine.

 

Sometimes we ask this question in the form of a statement when major changes in life take place or about to take place.

 

He died at…

 

She was born at…

 

The verdict was handed down at…

 

This past week I have been aware of the passing of time – both in hours and minutes and in years and decades.

 

There are two words in the language of New Testament Greek which refer to time.

 

One is chronos and the other is kairos. Chronos is the word with which we are both familiar- chronology, chronometer – it refers to time that we measure in minutes, seconds, hours, days, months, years.

 

The second word kairos is one that we don’t consider as we think about time. But it has to do with the issue of, as one source indicated, the right moment.

 

The marriage proposal…

 

Applying for college…

 

Graduation…

 

Starting a business…

 

The descriptions in our main text for this morning has to do with, I believe, both kinds of time.

 

Birth and death is both a season and a place in time event. There are seasons of life when we give birth to new ideas and opportunities and then there are seasons when we let certain dreams or a phase of life die – for example from “pedal to the metal” pace to an empty nest of loud silence and a snail’s pace.

 

There is a season of looking for the right opportunity or person to accomplish something. And then there is a season when the team has to be dismantled, the leadership needs to be changed.

 

Each of these moments have both a ‘season-the right moment’ and a ‘time- a minutes and hours’ component. They define our lives long term and short term.

 

That took place ‘before’ dad’s death

 

That occurred after Linda’s birth

 

But what the writer of our main text ultimately says to each of us is this:

 

God is present, in the midst of, all of them

 

 

The opportunity for us is to then look for God and then ask Him what He asks of us or what His mission or purpose is.

 

In my time as your pastor we have had seasons of growth and decline. We have had moments of study and discussion and then moments of action. These moments have been marked by times we can recall – that year’s congregational meeting, that Christmas’ play.

 

But this holds true for us individually as well.

 

Some of us are in the season of raising children while others of us are not. Some of us have raised our kids and they have, for the most part, left our home and lived on their own.

 

Some of us have been married and are now single. Others of us have never been married.

 

Some of us have been students but now we learn outside the classroom.

 

This past week I have pondered the passing of time as I sat in my mother’s hospital room and in waiting areas as tests were run. The locality of the hospital however also brought back memories as the neighborhood was the location of one of my mother’s mom and dad homes almost 70 years ago. It also reminded me of the long history my father’s family has had with Dayton for probably 100 years. Streets I drove had houses and neighborhoods we once lived in.

 

 

At times I was lost between past, present, future, and eternity.

 

 

I have also been reminded this week that others have been dealing seasons and times of death and grief; a new life and chapter with children; illness and other kinds of change.

 

 

God has been, and continues to be, present in the midst of it all.

 

 

So I ask you this morning two questions:

 

 

1 What time is in your life right now?

2   What season is it in your life right now?

 

 

One of things that I remember from time to time is that when I look out at all of you I know that we are at various times and seasons of life . And I will also tell you that it is a bit hard to keep track of so many different happenings and situations.

 

 

But while some of us are dealing with young children who get sick or who break legs and arms or who are struggling in school others of us are dealing with end of life issues and the children who were once two and three are now 62 and 63 or 42 and 43 and they are having fun keeping up with younger ones.

 

But what time is it and what season is it and are you experiencing God’s grace and love in the midst of it all?

 

 

Maybe it is a season of many opportunities

 

Or one of fewer and fewer options…

 

What is it that God desires of you right now?

 

 

 

Maybe it is a season when there are not enough hours in the day

 

Or there is too much time on one’s hands

 

What is it that God desire of you right now?

 

 

 

I believe after this week that God continues to dwell with us no matter what time or season it is.

 

 

It is my prayer that we walk with God in the midst of whatever season and whatever time we find ourselves in because God desires for us His good and perfect will all the time.

 

 

Amen.

 

Thursday Thoughts: Contrarian Thoughts for the Class of 2011

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It has been 35 years since I graduated from High School, 31 since college, 26 since seminary, and 20 since graduate school. I enjoyed each of my educational experiences and they have provided me with some essential tools for work but not necessarily for life.

Let me explain.

I know that many educational institutions talk about them being a place where students get “things” for life: those “things” being skills, friendships, and knowledge, etc. I still keep in touch with some of my friends from college – primarily two – one of whom was the best man at my wedding. I have no idea where most of my seminary classmates are and figure at least one half of them left ministry within five years of graduation, (I could be wrong, too). As for grad school? I have intermittent contact with just one person from my program.

Now granted we have Facebook to thank for allowing us the ability to reconnect and before I left Facebook a month ago after a nearly four year involvement, it was great to be reconnecting with people that I had grown up with. But for the most part, my circle of friends, though small, are made up now of people I have gotten to know in the last decade of my life. But I am still grateful for the re-connections that I have made with those from my childhood and adolescent years.

As for academic “take aways?” I have all of my undergrad, seminary, and grad school academic “moments” in three folders. Yet again the nurturing, both intellectual as well as personal, that I received from professors has stayed with me throughout the years.

I hope that I am not coming across as being bitter and resentful because I am not. I am grateful for all who have been a part of my life throughout its 53 years here on earth. But I am learning at this point in life some things that you, Class of 2011, need to know.

1. Forget about trying to live a “balanced” life. Balance is not possible. The word is rhythm. When you get married the rhythm of life changes. When you become a parent the rhythm of life changes. When you graduate, the rhythm of life changes. For me, this is illustrated with two things – the game of golf and playing the piano.

Before my wife and I had children, we played golf together. It was fun. I was in a league. I played often. My handicap was beginning to leave the stratosphere and come down to earth. Then parenthood… I have not played a round of golf since 1998. Why? Financial resources for one. Children require money – lots of money for things like camp, ER rooms visits, and now, for us Driver’s Ed and sports. Another? The resource called time. Children required time to nurture and grow. So you are a parent involved in the classroom during their elementary days; occasionally chaperones during the middle school years; and “stand in the rain in the woods” with a stopwatch during High School cross country meets. Meanwhile, the clubs collect dust and bugs in the garage because the rhythm of life changed at one point. Golf is now for later.

I started taking piano lessons at age 9 and took them for 7 years. I have played in recitals, I have accompanied people in High School instrumental solo competitions, a university’s music class, and for public worship. But I had periods of time when I have not touched the keyboard in adulthood. Now I play weekly because there is only one other keyboardist at the church I serve. Life gets this way too. You train for a skill and use it for a while then it it shelved for what ever reason. Then you pick it up again one day because the circumstances of life require it of you. I see this a lot with retired persons returning to a profession they retired from or using said skill set in another situation when retired.

So forget balance. Yes there is a place for balance in life but rhythm is more important to grasp and master.

2. Life is not just a sprint, nor a walk, nor a marathon… it is all three, sometimes simultaneously.

I am in a season of life called by some ‘the sandwich generation.’ I parenting two teenage boys and it is a sprint at times with the schedule – you sprint from one thing to another. But I am also at a walk with my aging mother. It is at times a painfully slow walk. Then there is my own life segment that has slowed down to a marathon style pace. Just being steady in my commitments and pace.

Life is not lived at full throttle. Some of you will find this out sooner than you think and some of you will find this out in your thirties when you finally realize that most of your classmates and friends have slowed down and live in a different rhythm than you have been keeping. So expect life to be a drive on the Autobahn, followed by a country road traffic jam behind a row of Amish buggies (common sight around here), follow by a measured walk in the woods with your spouse (have not had one of those in a while.)

3. There is a first have of life and there is a second half and the first, while valuable and fun, is prep for the second half which is just as important as the first.

I am just beginning to understand this one. I am looking for guides on this and so this is still unclear to me. Perhaps there are guides who have wrote about it but I have yet to find them. I just know that there is an arc and I am starting down the back side of it. I cannot live on the front side of it forever. In other words, one has to grow up at some point and become a maturer adult. Maybe one day when I am dead you will read some words that I wrote about the second half of life.

I congratulate you on your accomplishments and wish you the best.

These are my Thursday Thoughts.

A Time for Creating and A Time For Re-Creating

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Scripture Passage – Ecclesiastes 3:7

Description – The second sermon of a spring/summer series “A Faith For and a God of All Seasons”

(Slide one)

Last week I began this series with some brief descriptions by Pastor Mark Buchanan about the seasonal tasks, which he calls ‘activities,’ of our inner life.

(Slide two) There is spring…

…which he says is a season of plowing, planting, and cleaning.

(Slide three) There is summer…

… a season of no worries, no hurries, and the enjoyment of fruitfulness in one’s life and faith.

(Slide four) Then the season of fall…

… is a season of harvest and a time for feasting and thanking God.

(Slide five) And then, there is winter…

Pastor Buchanan sees winter as a time when “God seems either too far or too near-aloof in his heavens, or afoot with a stick. Either way, it’s as though there is no refuge. Winter hides God.”

The tasks of a soul in winter, he suggests is to pray, prune, and wait. Easier said than done, we all know. But he also suggests that it is a time in which birth to new dreams can take place and we begin a journey in a new direction. In other words, winter can be a time for an important makeover.

Now the title of the message this morning is not one of the phrases of our series text and left me scratching my head and thinking, “Jim what were you thinking?” But as I thought (which I am known to do sometimes) I realized that I was thinking about the passage with a bigger view in mind as I studied each of the verses from the passage.

(Slide six) Here is the body of the main text. Notice that they are like bookends, chapters and conclusions, starts and finishes. Born/die, plant/uproot, weep/laugh, silent/speak; but not all of them are that way – kill/heal, embrace/refrain from embracing, tear/mend. And it is this last pairing that has caught my attention and is the basis for this message.

(Slide seven) There is a time to tear and a time to mend.

What is meant by this verse? What kind of a season of the soul does this statement illustrate?

These are words we are familiar with because they refer to a familiar household chore – repairing ripped items – like shirts, pants, skirts. But other things like our feelings and our hearts and our souls get torn as well.

They are torn by sin. But while we are torn we can also, praise God, be mended! Because of what Christ did for us on the cross, our hearts and souls can be mended through the grace and mercy of God. (Amen? Amen!)

But in the ancient Hebrew world, and I think that it still takes place today, tearing one’s clothes was an act of either grief and mourning or a response to a calamitous event.

There are seasons of grief in our lives when we mourn the loss of someone we love and when we mourn the loss of something that is forever rent and cannot be mended. But there are also seasons of renewal and reconciliation when things can be mended are mended.

I think of Joseph and how his life was both rent and mended. It began with the very serious rending of his relationship with his very angry brothers. It continued with his trouble with Potiphar’s wife. In fact, as we read in Genesis 39:12, “Joseph tore himself away, but he left his cloak in her hand as he ran from the house.”

But again, his life was rent as he was sent to jail where he would languish for several years because of a false accusation. And again his life is rent in two even as he pleads to the two who would be freed from prison, “Mention me to Pharaoh, so he might let me out of this place.”

But he is eventually brought to Pharaoh to interpret a dream that none of his advisors could interpret. Again it appears that his life is on the mend as his wise interpretation of the dream saves ancient Egypt from starvation.

And all appears well for Joseph. He is the number two person in Egypt. He is a leader. He is respected. He is powerful.

And then his brothers, seeking food, show up.

And Joseph is faced with a decision that every one of us who’s lives has been torn by conflict face. Do we choose to mend the relationship, primarily through forgiveness or not?

And what the Biblical writer shows us as Joseph’s story progresses, is a man who wrestles with deep and strong emotions of, I think, anger toward them mixed with gladness that his family is still alive.

He has a decision to make. Provide them with grain or let them starve.

The rending between Joseph and his brothers was deep as some of us are aware of in our lives when a picture or an event or a date on the calendar reminds of a relationship that has been deeply broken in two. And the threads of that conflict are like downed power lines that we know, unless carefully handled, can shock us and cause us to step back from mending the torn relationship.

Joseph, after what seems to me to be an agonizing period of time, chooses mending over further rending. In a very emotional scene Joseph can no longer keep his true identity a secret as we read in the opening verses of Genesis 45:

Joseph could stand it no longer. There were many people in the room, and he said to his attendants, “Out, all of you!” So he was alone with his brothers when he told them who he was. Then he broke down and wept. He wept so loudly the Egyptians could hear him, and word of it quickly carried to Pharaoh’s palace.

“I am Joseph!” he said to his brothers. “Is my father still alive?” But his brothers were speechless! They were stunned to realize that Joseph was standing there in front of them. “Please, come closer,” he said to them. So they came closer. And he said again, “I am Joseph, your brother, whom you sold into slavery in Egypt. But don’t be upset, and don’t be angry with yourselves for selling me to this place. It was God who sent me here ahead of you to preserve your lives. This famine that has ravaged the land for two years will last five more years, and there will be neither plowing nor harvesting. God has sent me ahead of you to keep you and your families alive and to preserve many survivors.  So it was God who sent me here, not you! And he is the one who made me an adviserto Pharaoh—the manager of his entire palace and the governor of all Egypt.” (NLT)

There are moments, seasons, of rending and mending in our relationships. Some come because of their choices and some come because of our choices.

Joseph’s story reminds us that while there are seasons of conflict, the choice to be ‘mended’ can usually be made though it might be a while. I say usually because another Old Testament story reminds us that sometimes a relationship between two people as well between a person and God cannot be mended.

I am thinking of King Saul and David.

It is one of the tragic stories in the Bible and as I read the story again this week and the Wednesday night adult group viewed it as part of our gathering, I was struck by the desperation of Saul to keep God’s favor as he grabbed Samuel as we read in 1 Samuel 15:

As Samuel turned to leave, Saul caught hold of the hem of his robe, and it tore. Samuel said to him, “The LORD has torn the kingdom of Israel from you today and has given it to one of your neighbors—to one better than you. (NLT)

Saul’s season of rending grows darker over his 40 years as the first king of ancient Israel because of his disobedience to the point he becomes obsessed with killing his popular and younger successor David as he, Saul, sadly descends into a madness brought on by raging anger and jealousy.

Disobedience can do that to us.

There is an aspect to Saul’s story that also reminds us of the seasons of tearing and mending. It is in the slow and painful death of one’s dreams. In his research of over 40 years ago, the late Daniel Levinson, wrote in his landmark book, Seasons of A Man’s Life, about the death of a man’s dream at a certain age being one of the most painful experiences he would face in life.

And there comes a point when it happens. There are less years to accomplish that ‘dream’ which is an often deeply hidden and personal goal that motivates much of what one does. (I think that this can hold true for women as well.) It’s tearing up can drive a person to the depths of despair and even depression.

And there is another type of tearing and mending I was reminded of this week in a recent blog post by Ed Cyzewski entitled interestingly enough “Cutting Loose Excess Baggage for a Course Change.”

In it he writes of finding old pictures of his college girlfriends in a box. He says, “When Julie and I got engaged, I began sorting through my stuff in order to downsize prior to moving into our apartment. I found a stack of pictures with these old girlfriends from my early college days.

It’s not like I hoped to one day rekindle any of those old flames. I was in love with Julie, and therefore the old pictures had to go. It wasn’t like I needed to purge them from my memory, but I wanted to make a clean break with the past. I couldn’t think of any reason to hold on to that part of my past as I moved forward into something new.” (Italics mine)

(Source: http://inamirrordimly.com/2011/05/19/cutting-loose-excessive-baggage-for-a-course-change/)

There comes a season of life and a season in the soul when there is a tearing away of the past and a mending of the heart that must come to move forward. This is true of people, of families, of churches.

There is a season when you have to shred something because you cannot hang on to it – a relationship, a job, a dream, the past, even a conflict,  – and move forward into the future. A tearing away has to take place.

At times it is very, very difficult to do. But it is very essential to do.

In addition to the very real reality of disobedience  the ancient Israelites had to let go of the baggage that came with 430 years of life in Egypt. It was a long season of tearing and mending in their desert wanderings as they progressed toward the Promised Land.

So how do we navigate a season of tearing and mending? What are the tasks of such a season?

Is this a season like winter when life seems to flee from us and leave us alone in bland environment of white and colorless colors?

Or is it a season of the soul like summer when we navigate the dry heat and parched ground of the wilderness that summer can become?

Or is it a season like spring when life is emerging chaotically out of winter’s depths and nothing is certain?

Or is it a season of fall when tearing is the result of sowing seeds of disunity and lack of harmony?

I think that it depends, in part on the nature of the tearing. A deep and unexpected loss can send us into the depths of a winter season that leaves us frozen with grief and sadness. I also think that if the ‘tearing’ comes from sowing seeds of discord then it could be fall season when what one gets is a rip in a relationship, a marriage, and even in one’s personal faith.

But, we need to remember…

(Slide eight) We have a faith for and a God of all seasons of life. He is present in all the seasons of our soul.

There is a time for everything… including being torn and being mended.

“Now how can that be true of us Pastor Jim? Does God want us to suffer? Didn’t Jesus save us from pain and sorrow?”

Romans 8:28 “we know that God causes everything to work togetherfor the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them.” What are those first words?

We.know.

NOT… we think we know or it could be true that or it is possible that

NO! It is we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose!

So what does all of this mean?

Let me simply suggest that when you are in a season of tearing either through profound grief or because, quite frankly, you are reaping what you have sown, God is there and awaits your return to Him! Just like the prodigal son who came to senses, I think, in a season of fall when he squarely faced the harvest of what he had sown.

Finally, persevere  in the midst of the tearing because God is in the mending business. Obey Him in spite of and because of His plans and purposes, however unclear, during the season of reaping you are going through right now. Also, pray and read the Bible for clarity of direction and purpose.

Let us in these concluding moments, respond to the Lord as we need to and let us find Him! Amen

What Time Is It?

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Scripture Passage – Ecclesiastes 3:1-9

Description – The first sermon of a spring/summer series “A Faith For and a God of All Seasons”

audio link to this sermon:

051501sermon

(Slide one) I think that all of us have heard of the Serenity Prayer, “God grant me the serenity to accept the things that I cannot change, the courage to change the things that I can and the wisdom to know the difference.”

But have you heard of the Senility Prayer?

(Slide one a) God, grant me the Senility to forget the people I never liked anyway, the good fortune to run into the ones that I do, and the eyesight to tell the difference.

Some of us here can relate to the following perspectives and some of us one day will be able to relate to the following perspectives:

1. I started out with nothing, and I still have most of it.
2. My wild oats have turned into prunes and all bran.
3. I finally got my head together; now my body is falling apart.
4. Funny, I don’t remember being absent minded….
5. All reports are in; Life is now officially unfair.
6. If all is not lost, where is it.
7. It is easier to get older than it is to get wiser.
8. Some days you’re the dog; some days you’re the hydrant.
9. I wish the buck stopped here; I sure could use a few.
10. It’s hard to make a comeback when you haven’t been anywhere.
11. The only time the world beats a path to your door is when you’re in the bathroom.
12. If God wanted me to touch my toes, he would have put then on my knees.
13. It’s not hard to meet expenses…they’re everywhere.
14. The only difference between a rut and a grave is the depth.
15. These days, I spend a lot of time thinking about the hereafter…I go somewhere to get something, and then wonder what I’m hereafter.

(source: http://www.corsinet.com/braincandy/hage3.html)

(Slide two) This morning’s sermon is the first in a series and so it is like presenting a menu to you because there are several things to cover this morning that I am going to call the appetizer, salad, main course, and dessert so that you have a sense of what is coming in the next several weeks.

What you were just served was the appetizer.

Now for the salad.

This series grows out of personal study and reflection regarding the fascinating and, at times, depressing but very realistic Old Testament book of Ecclesiastes and especially chapter 3 verses 1 though 8.

Let us hear the word of God this morning:

For everything there is a season,
a time for every activity under heaven.
A time to be born and a time to die.
A time to plant and a time to harvest.
A time to kill and a time to heal.
A time to tear down and a time to build up.
A time to cry and a time to laugh.
A time to grieve and a time to dance.
A time to scatter stones and a time to gather stones.
A time to embrace and a time to turn away.
A time to search and a time to quit searching.
A time to keep and a time to throw away.
A time to tear and a time to mend.
A time to be quiet and a time to speak.
A time to love and a time to hate.
A time for war and a time for peace.

(Slide three) This passage makes me ask the question, “What time is it?”

What time is it in your life right now? What time is it “becoming?”

Is it a time to stop, to take a break?

To go sideways or forwards?

To wait upon God?

To act now on God’s new direction?

One of the ways we often look at life is by using the analogy of seasons: winter, spring, summer, and fall. Each season we have come to know has its own tasks and issues.

But there are seasons of the soul as well and they sometimes come as the total opposite of the climate season we are in. In other words, we can be in the middle of summer and yet internally be in the depths of winter. These are the seasons that I will be addressing in this series.

A question comes to mind as I think about the seasons of the soul and they relate to the direction we have come from in our life and the direction we are going. (Slide four) Where are have you been and where you are going?

This is a question that I re-encountered in the story of Hagar who bore Abraham’s first child, Ishmael, as she was sent away, pregnant, to fend for herself. It is the question an angel of God asked her as she sat at a desert spring destitute and despondent.

She knew where she had come from, running away from Sarah, whose servant she was and who had turned on her and turned her out. But she had no where idea she was going but the angel told her to go back and that God had heard her cries and that she would be the mother of a great nation. She was pregnant and because God heard the cries of her heart, she would name this son, Ishmael, which means ‘God hears.’

We know where we have come from because we all have a history, a past. But the second part of this question is vitally important. Where are we going?

We have a general idea of that direction. Death ultimately, unless Christ returns first, is the direction. But also, as we recall via John’s heavenly vision in the book of Revelation, a new heaven and a new earth for those whose names are written in the Lamb’s book of life. But while those are our ultimate destinations, we are still on this journey called life. And this journey in life has its seasons that we repeat, and sometimes experience, in strange ways.

(Slide five) I use think that life was like this: Childhood and adolescence had their ups and downs but when you hit adulthood it was “smooth sailing!”

(Slide six) WRONG!!! As we adults are very much aware, adulthood has its rhythms of up, down, sideways, and even, at times it feels, backwards!

We are headed somewhere. We are headed in a certain direction.

And though we face detours in life, success, failure, support, betrayal, we are headed ultimately to stand before our God and give an account for our own lives.

But until then, we go through life and we experience seasons of the soul some of which call for celebration; others of which are periods of mourning. Some are seasons of learning to wait… patiently. Other are times of frantic activity in which we want to, and do yell, “STOP! I WANNA GET OFF!”

And the Lord is with us in all of these seasons. But, I think that sometimes we do not realize it or we forget that He is with us.

For at least the next eight weeks, we are going to visit some of the statements in this legendary passage of the scripture for this reason:

(Slide seven) To understand the inner seasons of life, identify which season we are currently in, and finally embrace key Biblical perspectives and practice key Biblical disciplines for each season of life we go through.

Why?

(Slide seven a) Because we have a faith for and a God of all Seasons. Our God is not a God just for the peace and joy of summer but also the weariness of winter and the harvest busyness of fall. He is not a God only for the younger but for the older as well.

Life and faith is not just a summer time experience. There are moments when we harvest not victory and success but defeat and failure. There are periods of life when things are cut back, pruned, and there are moments when there are blossoms all around us.

Think about this for a moment. Should we expect the fields that surround our town to give us a crop 365 days of the year?

No! They can’t! To try to make them would drain the soil of its ability to be productive in season.

(Slide eight) But I also ask this question, “Does a tree cease being a tree in winter because there are no leaves on it?” No! Now trees can die, and do die after a winter season. But they can die in summer when a tornado rips one into slivers of wood.

I have believed for a long time that there is an ebb and flow to life and to ignore it is to drive one to frustration and despair. A constant emphasis on go, go, go can lead us to burnout and burn up.

It is not always summer in the soul. It can’t be. We need to understand that our faith matures and grows when all the seasons of the soul are experienced.

And I think that there has been a lack of place for this important chapter of the Old Testament in the church’s (capital C) practices. Too many people, I think, have gotten very frustrated with their faith because it does not seem to have the pop and passion it once did.

Sometimes that passion and pop goes away because of disobedience and part of being revived is a revival of our passion for God. Obedience is a key perspective and practice that will be brought into this series as we need to be obedient to God in all the seasons of life. But sometimes I think that we have failed to be taught and to understand that there are seasons to faith and seasons to life in which waiting and pruning are the norms.

Now for the dessert!

So what does all of this mean for us today and how do we begin to discern not what time is it but what season is it in our lives and what are the tasks of those seasons so that we walk with God during all the seasons of our life?

Pastor Mark Buchanan has given us some very helpful information in his book Spiritual Seasons: Being With Jesus Every Season of Your Soul. For today, here are the tasks that Buchanan believes are part of each season. He calls them activities.

(Slide nine)

Spring Activities:

The first activity Buchanan notes about spring is plowing. He says, “To plow means to listen… Are You Listening to Obey (Christ)?”

The second activity is planting: What holy habits and choices are we sowing to reap the benefits of down the road?

The third spring activity is cleaning. Buchanan is a native Canadian and tells the story of how an entire community, the small northern town where he grew up, cleaned house. “Once a year, in a single week in May you could put anything at curbside-couches, refrigerators, mattresses, piles of nail-studded lumber, mounds of old magazines, your mother-in-law-and city workers, going house to house in dump trucks, would cart it away for nothing (after, that is, your neighbors rummaged through it first and gleaned the treasures you deemed trash.)”

In other words, what is it in our souls which need to be removed so that the Lord brings order and newness to our lives?

(Slide ten)

Summer Activities says Buchanan has a rhythm to it that is not hurried, not worried, and (Slide eleven)

abounds in fruit. He calls his readers’ attention to consider not the franticness of Martha but the receptivity of Mary at the feet of Jesus as example of what to be doing in the summer period of our souls and lives. He gives us an important perspective on this season when he says, “the kingdom rhythm of summertime is when we stop living in the mode of craving and complaining and instead live in the mode of giving and thanksgiving.”

(Slide twelve) And then there is fall.

A time, our guide says, of three kinds of harvest: “a harvest of souls, a harvest of prosperity, and a harvest of righteousness” and also a time for feasting and thanking. More about this season as we move along in the series.

And winter? We’ll talk about winter next week…

(Slide thirteen) Our base text has much to consider but I have felt led to lift out the following segments for the following Sundays:

Next Sunday “A Time for Creating and A Time for Re-creating”

On Memorial Day “A Time For War and A Time For Peace”

On Father’s Day “A Time to Embrace and A Time To Refrain From Embracing”

On July 3^rd “A Time to Scatter Stones and A Time To Gather Them”

What time is it for you right now? You may think that is time to give up; retire; switch gears. Maybe it is.

But I remind us that scripture teaches us just a few verses after our main text “He has made everything beautiful in its time.”

No matter what time it is, no matter what season it is, God is in ALL of them. Let us take comfort and gain strength in this reality and let us grow in the grace and mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen and amen.

Thursday Thoughts: A Faith “In” and “For” All Seasons

Image by joiseyshowaa via Flickr

I have been pondering for the past year Ecclesiastes 3: 1-8

¹ There is a time for everything,
   and a season for every activity under the heavens:

 ² a time to be born and a time to die,
   a time to plant and a time to uproot,
 ³ a time to kill and a time to heal,
   a time to tear down and a time to build,
 ⁴ a time to weep and a time to laugh,
   a time to mourn and a time to dance,
 ⁵ a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
   a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,
 ⁶ a time to search and a time to give up,
   a time to keep and a time to throw away,
 ⁷ a time to tear and a time to mend,
   a time to be silent and a time to speak,
 ⁸ a time to love and a time to hate,
   a time for war and a time for peace. (NLT, 2011 Version)

I have tried to visualize it, have started taking it apart, and am planning an early summer sermon series on it because I have been thinking for several years that there is an ebb and flow to life and that we cannot always live in a mode of an ‘endless summer.’

Enter Mark Buchanan’s book Spiritual Rhythms.

Wow.

His insights into the seasons of our soul have opened up an entirely new level of insight into this passage.

I am currently reviewing book for the Amazon Vine program and will post a full review on this blog when I am done.

But for now let me just say that Mark insightfully shows us that there are particular tasks to each season of the soul that need to take place for us to navigate that season and the Christ is with us in all the seasons.

So now I am asking myself and others, ‘What season of the soul are you in right now?’

These are my Maunday Thursday Thoughts