Celebrate the Seasons

Celebrate the Seasons
Sermon – February 5, 2023

I guess many of us are familiar with this portion of Scripture from the Book of Ecclesiastes. It’s been an inspiration for pop music and for many a sermon. “A time for every season under heaven.” As the writer then lists fourteen polarities of life…. “ a time to be born and a time to die. A time to plant and a time to uproot. A time to mend and a time to tear. A time to keep and a time to throw away.” And so on.

And so, the Scripture offers you and I a chance to pause and remember (indeed celebrate) the particular season in which this church finds itself. And which for a short while, I look forward to traveling with you. This season of transition.

This new season didn’t begin with my first Sunday with you, but rather began when Pastor Steve announced to you that he was leaving. You prepared; you planned; you shared; you celebrated; you grieved; you blessed; you let go. Those are all the dynamics of changing seasons.

And at this point in this new season of transition, you have called me to walk with you.

And my work consists of basically two tasks”

The first is the task that most congregational pastors do i.e. be a pastoral presence. This means making myself available to listen, guide, share, pray, talk, teach…hopefully inspire. It means to plan and participate in Sunday worship. It means to communicate and administer. It means to visit one on one and to learn about the sacred story each of you are living out.

The second task is to work with you in calling your next settled pastor and to support you in the vision you all are living out collectively. (As an interim it’s not my place to initiate new programs or plans, but rather to encourage you and be with you as you move forward with what you are already doing).

That said, during this next year or so, as long as I’m invited, I hope to be a part of a process where the church looks at where it’s been, where it is, and where it hopes to be. (That’s a lot of work you’ve been doing, but in light of pastoral transition, it takes on some new focus’) It means hearing one another’s concerns, as well as hopes. It means reconciling anything from the past that needs to be healed or released. It means appreciating and celebrating what you are doing well. It means preparing to image new possibilities and maybe consider models of church not considered before.

It means not settling for the ten dying words of the church….. “Because that is the way we have always done it.”

Healthy churches (as I believe this church to be) are living collectives. They are gathered collections of Jesus followers who, by whatever Mysterious Force is at work, are brought together to deliver the Gospel into this time, and into this place, under these circumstances. What an exciting thing to be a part of! (“Amen”) To bear life into the world…that is the Gospel.

The writer of Ecclesiastes understands this mysterious force at work in the world. Deeply existential, some might consider the book dour and pessimistic. But let me tell you why I love this book, because while it looks clearly and unflinchingly at life’s fleeting and seemingly random nature, the writer affirms that we are all a part of a Great Mystery we cannot understand.

(And I say we celebrate this not understanding! Imagine how boring it would be if we had it all figured out!)

The writer of Ecclesiastes affirms our task to live fully in the Now and to be humble. As such, the book bids us to not postpone life’s pleasures, but rather to embrace them as a gift from God…with gratitude and humility!

The repeated refrain from beginning to end of the book is “Vanity, Vanity. All is Vanity.” That, I have learned, is a poor King James Version translation. The more literal translation from the Hebrew word is best rendered into English as “vapor” or “smoke.” “Ephemeral mist,” if you will. Something that is fleeting and unattainable….and most importantly, something one cannot possess, control, contain, figure out, or hang on to.

To certain fundamentalist mindsets such mystery, unknowing, and fleeting ephemeralness is intolerable.

“We must have certitude! We must set up hard and unflinching boundaries of dogmas and rules. There can only be one path to God” they would say, “And we, and we alone, possess that way”. This mindset quickly gives rise to grandiose claims of… “We alone are the chosen. We alone are the saved.”

But such a God is too limited! Too inadequate. Too anthropocentric. Too much ego. Too much hubris.

A pastoral colleague of mine once told me a quote he’d read, and which he believed true. He said, “Anyone who talks about God doesn’t know what they are talking about.” This proposition, were I to take it fully to heart would make my job as a preacher pretty difficult. But I do get the point. Words are limited, and God is not. Words sometimes deceive, but God does not. Words try to contain, but God is uncontainable.

Indeed, God is infinite. And ….. And …. By some great mystery, God is a part of us and we are a part of God.

I listened to Pastor Steve’s final sermon to this congregation two weeks ago. Though maybe not the center of his message, he affirmed something very fundamental which our traditional Christian faith has tragically missed….he said, “We are all interconnected.”

All mystical strains within the great faiths affirm this. We are interconnected to all the created order. And we are one with the One Source of All. The One who holds us, abides with us, and walks with …. but never walks away.

There is a time for every season…and a season for every time. Cliché though it may be….change is the only thing we can be certain of. And where we are going (collectively or individually) is usually very unspecified. Most of us are “muddling along.” And in the case of the church we will faithfully “muddle along” together. Joyfully. With humor. With passion. We will muddle along with all of our best intentions to be alert and faithful to the Gospel in this time and this place and under these circumstances!

I always appreciate how all four of the gospels tell the story of how Jesus called a few seemingly random Galilean fishermen to just drop their nets and come, follow, and learn.

In John’s gospel Andrew is trailing behind Jesus presumably out of curiosity. Noticing this man walking behind him on the shore of Galilee Jesus turns around and asks, “What do you want?” And Andrew (apparently caught off guard replies, “Where are you staying?” And Jesus gives the great answer of adventure pertinent to us all, “Come and see.” (I imagine Jesus could just have easily said, “Come and muddle along, and I will walk with you…and in the walking, I will show you the way. Can you trust that?”).

(In fancy theological language we call that “the epistemology of obedience”….we learn by following.

Where is Jesus leading this church? This body of Christ, this particular body of Christ….Community Congregational United Church of Christ….where is the Spirit leading?

I know you are sincerely asking those questions. And I want to be a part of your work in continuing to ask them….even though I am here for a short while.

You’ve been here so long. You’ve gone so far. You’ve done so much. But the journey isn’t over. The seasons, they change. The directions shift. This isn’t the same church it was last year, or ten years ago, or half a century ago.

Organizations are like people that way. I’m not the same person I was last year. Certainly not the same person I was 30, 40, 50 years ago. I’ve learned a few things. The seasons of my personal life and calling have changed. Likewise, it is with the church.

The way church is done. The way we connect. The focus of the ministry. The ways we adapt to the needs of the culture. These have their seasons. And the church, if it is to thrive, learns to be nimble and to respond….with no guaranteed outcomes.

Yes, seasons change. But let us not forget…. the seasons move and flow by a Presence that moves within and beyond. This Presence is called Love. This is what the Bible affirms. This is what we know in our spirits to be true. Every sentient creature knows (and responds to) this Love!

Despite what my pastor friend told me when he said, “Anyone who talks about God doesn’t know what they are talking about” …. I will say this….this Energy…this Source of All….this Presence of God we call Love…. abides regardless of the seasons in which we find ourselves. We can trust that!

May this church – and may you as individual members within this church – dedicate every living breath to that One Greatest of All Things.

Amen