A Time For...

A Time For…

Ecclesiastes 3: 1-13

January 1, 2012

J.W. McNeill

Ecclesiastes 3:1-13
3:1 For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:

3:2 a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted;

3:3 a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;

3:4 a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;

3:5 a time to throw away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;

3:6 a time to seek, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to throw away;

3:7 a time to tear, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;

3:8 a time to love, and a time to hate; a time for war, and a time for peace.

3:9 What gain have the workers from their toil?

3:10 I have seen the business that God has given to everyone to be busy with.

3:11 He has made everything suitable for its time; moreover he has put a sense of past and future into their minds, yet they cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end.

3:12 I know that there is nothing better for them than to be happy and enjoy themselves as long as they live;

3:13 moreover, it is God's gift that all should eat and drink and take pleasure in all their toil.

Some of you may recall the version of this text put to music by folksinger Pete Seeger in a song, Turn, Turn, Turn. It had its widest circulation in a recording by the group the Byrds in the late sixties with a memorable 12 string guitar accompaniment.

I was impressed at the time that a song with lyrics from the Bible managed to be so popular, but I also was uncomfortable with the song because of a couple of lines in particular that I could simply not accept. I could not accept that there was a time for war and I could not accept that there could be a time for hate.

Surely that could not be right. Hate is wrong and war is wrong. Case closed. Or at least in my teenage way of looking at things at the time.

The Book of Ecclesiastes is one of several so-called Wisdom books in the Bible. It is traditionally attributed to King Solomon, although Biblical scholars think it unlikely that Solomon wrote it.

To read this book in the context of the rest of the Bible is to notice a piece of writing that is unusual. The tone is often described as cynical or somewhat jaded. In the first chapter, the author says that everything is vanity and a striving after wind. That is: all is meaningless and hopeless.

There have been those who have wanted to remove the book of Ecclesiastes from the Bible because of its apparent pessimistic tone. But I think those who would do this have missed the point.

I think Ecclesiastes is written for a time in our lives when our experience of failure or frustration or even despair is about to overwhelm us. It is a word from a preacher who reaches out to us when  our ideals or our hopes or our dreams have been shattered and we are left confused about our place in the cosmos and God’s connection to it.

The Biblical theologian Walter Brueggeman outlines three stages that we might experience along with the Biblical writers of ancient times:

Orientation: God gives instructions, guidance, judgments, about what is right and good. We learn about justice and peace. We learn about God’s love and power. We hear an encouragement to be God’s people and what that means about how we should act and how we should be a part of virtue and blessing. We learn about God’s goodness and how God is at work in the world and how God has delivered the oppressed and the suffering into security and peace.  These teachings and these stories ORIENT us in the world. They give us a behavioral compass by which to assess or evaluate our own actions or the actions of others.  This stage of orientation is a fundamental part of getting us to understand and act in the world. It sets the stage for our striving and our activity in the world so that we may be energetic partners with God’s creative energy. We are on the path to be God’s people.

Disorientation: But for many of us, we eventually move into a stage of disorientation. We find that our experience of the world sometimes fails to live up to what we imagined were God’s promises. We find that even apparently good and righteous people are not always successful. We find that disappointments are common and frustrations are easy to come by. We discover that the world does not live up to our expectations and we can come to imagine that God has failed us. We can even find that our own actions and attitudes do not live up to the ideals that we have set for ourselves.

There are three basic alternatives when we find ourselves in the stage of disorientation:

1.     Some give up on God.

2.     Some give up on truth and live in denial.

3.     Some begin an argument with God and a kind of struggle that won’t give up until there is a resolution.

This resolution is what Brueggeman calls reorientation. If orientation is coming to understand the ideals that God’s love would embody in creation; and if disorientation is becoming aware of the gap between the ideals we came to expect and the realities we actually experience, then reorientation is coming to a more mature awareness of how God is mysteriously present even when we cannot yet make out God’s hand.

The writer of Ecclesiastes counsels that in this world, from our limited perspective, we are not able to see in all things how God is at work, or what God will be able to make out of the circumstances of our lives or the lives of those dear to us. From our limited perspective we are not even able always to know what is best for ourselves or our loved ones.

And so we are invited by the author of Ecclesiastes to turn our attention to what we do experience in this world: love and hate, war and peace, seeking and losing, gathering and scattering, weeping and laughing. These contrasts are surely a part of our lives and the lives of our love ones.

I don’t think that the author is saying that we are to think that everything is ok and war is as good as peace or hatred is as good as love. Instead, we are offered the perspective to lay aside for a moment our need to judge or evaluate or criticize or even strive to correct what is wrong – because much of the time we can’t fix what we think is wrong. We are sometimes called to simply trust that God is at work in all things and often the best thing we can do is simply appreciate it.

Brian McLaren, a favorite author of mine, has written a book, Naked Spirituality 12 Simple Words. I’ve been reading it slowly. Putting it down and coming back to it. I’m getting toward the end of it. The prayer word I’m reading about now is “Behold.” The stance toward the world that simply takes it in and appreciates God’s glory in the world. Here is one of the exercises McLaren recommends that might come out of an understanding of today’s passage from Ecclesiastes (From page 204):

…you could go to a public place and practice beholding people with God. You'll no doubt hear your chattering, analyzing, critical mind assessing each one in accordance with its own agendas, desires, drives. and neuroses: fat, thin, rich, poor, stylish, frumpish, sexually  attractive, sexually unattractive, my kind of person. not my kind of ­person, Christian. non-Christian, and so on. Instead of living within this cramped space of judgment, observe it-behold it from a distance. "There it goes again." you might say with amusement. My limited human mind is acting as I were God and I were qualified to judge these people." Consciously separate yourself from that small mental courtroom; step outside it and above it into God's larger, more gracious space. Allow the Spirit to help you see these people in God’s light- each one precious, each one in need, each one at once beautiful and broken and dangerous and dignified. Whenever you find yourself shrinking back into the dualist, courtroom mind, simply observe it, name it, and step outside it as you return to a more generous, gracious beholding with God.

This brings me back to my judgment of this passage in the song Turn Turn Turn. In those days my narrow judging vision held me back from appreciating that like it or not there was going to be war and hate. I do not have to lead with my judgment into the world.

I can lead with my wonder. I can lead with my compassion. I can lead with the love God has been trying to offer me. I can lead with the freedom that trusting God’s goodness and not my critique can provide.

Lord’s Supper is free time. Time to behold in ourselves, in those around us, in the meal itself the awesome presence of God.

Behold. Be open to love. God is here.

Thanks be to God.