“To everything, there is a season”: a sermon for 2/6/22

To Everything (“Turn! Turn! Turn!”)

There is a season (“Turn! Turn! Turn!”)

And a time to every purpose under heaven.

As I am waiting for my visa complexities to work themselves out, I hear this refrain echoing. 

Written by Pete Seeger in the late 1950s and first recorded in 1959, the lyrics to this folk song consist of the first eight verses of the third chapter of the biblical Book of Ecclesiastes. The song was originally released by the folk group the Limeliters in 1962, but was made famous in 1965 by the Byrds. It is rare to hear biblical texts that are important to our faith set to music and presented in such a form, but this was a method used by the ancient writers. Remember the authors of the Psalms, who set their praises and laments to song in a way that speaks to readers and hearers throughout the generations. 

To Everything (“Turn! Turn! Turn!”)

There is a season (“Turn! Turn! Turn!”)

And a time to every purpose under heaven.

During this 6-week period, I am preparing for this new mission as the pastor of La Siesta Evangelical Church. Much of that preparation has been to cast off the heaviness of my former life. Author Tom Berlin’s 2016 book “Defying Gravity: Break Free from the Culture of More” speaks about the ways to move forward into a new life, while leaving behind that which burdens us. Berlin states, “Our possessions can create unbearable weight and affect our ability to serve and thrive. How do we defy gravity and find freedom?” (1)

In Ecclesiastes 3, verses 1-8, the author of Ecclesiastes wrote some of the most memorable “lessons” of our time. This wisdom - written between 450–200 BC - guides us through the cycles of life. 

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.

Of these 28 “times”  - a time and its opposite in each line - 8 of them deal with our topic today: A time to let go and a time to embrace. This study of stewardship - how we care for the things, abilities and relationships with which we been entrusted - just by its title, leads me to think that we are all trying to rid ourselves of the things that bind us…. But Ecclesiastes says, no… there is a time to scatter stones, and a time to gather them…. A time to keep and a time to throw away. So the trick, I think, is in deciphering what  - in our lives - is to be embraced (and held onto tightly) and what is for us to let go.

As a missionary pastor with an itinerant lifestyle, my life has a cyclical pattern: I move to a place with just the essentials and whether it is a studio apartment in Germany or a 4 bedroom house in Walnut, I fill every room with furniture and decor, supplies for every eventuality, extra towels for guests, and toys for children who happen to visit. Then at the end of an assignment, I ask myself “Why do I have so much stuff?” And begin the process of selling furniture and other assorted items online and preparing for the big garage sale, during which I hope to get rid of everything… So I can pack up my essentials and move again. (I’ve just spent the last four months doing this, so it’s all fresh….) 

But as I write this, the shipment of my essential things, is docked in the port of Long Beach waiting to sail to Spain, to be set up in a new arrangement for a new life. 

As I travel through this process of moving, I can’t help but see the symbolism in the essential decision-making:
 Deciding what to let go and what to embrace; what is essential (tangible like my art collection or intangible like my sense of humor) and what I can throw out (whether clothes that don’t fit anymore or stress from a previous job, past mistakes or a former relationship.) 

Because to embrace the joy in life, the blessings, the abundance God offers, we need to free ourselves - make some space in our hearts and in our hands -  for what God is doing in us and with us. 

Our scripture from the first letter to the Corinthians speaks to us in from this perspective: from the questions of the Corinthian community to Paul, asking, “What is most important? What is essential? What abilities and talents are best and which ones can we discard?”

To put this text in some context: 

The First Letter of Paul to the Corinthians was written around 53–54 CE while he was in Ephesus and deals with problems that arose in the early years after Paul's initial missionary visit to Corinth and the establishment there of a Christian community. They were having problems in the community deciphering how to be together, how to govern their community, which rules to follow and which to ignore… and Paul sent lengthy instructions in this letter, about how to be the “body of Christ.”

In chapter 13, he addresses the challenge of the spiritual gifts given in the community - they were arguing about which is better: is it better to be a prophet or a great orator? Do I need to speak in tongues to have a leadership role? 

I Corinthians 13: 1-3

If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

Love. All the questions are answered with this one word. 

But… in Greek, LOVE is translated by 4 distinctly different words. (Do you know any of these Greek words for love?)

• Eros - the love of desire, of lust, of sexual attraction. (Erotic)

• Storge - familial love, the love between parents and children.

• Phileo - brotherly love, the love your have for your best friend

• Agape - sacrificial love.

And this “Love” in 1 Corinthians 13, is AGAPE Love, sacrificial love - the love that is concerned with the greatest good of another. Agape isn’t born just out of emotions, feelings, familiarity, or attraction, but from the will and as a choice. Agape love is compassion, understanding, mercy, forgiveness, generosity and love all mixed up together:  Agape requires faithfulness, commitment, and sacrifice without expecting anything in return.

That’s the love Paul writes about when he instructs the Corinthians:

4Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant 5or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 6it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. 7It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Love is not just a feeling that comes and goes. AGAPE is LOVE IN ACTION. Love doing something to help. Love reaching out to those who are hurting. 

A few weeks ago, we lost a true voice for LOVE IN ACTION as the revered Zen Buddhist monk and author Thich Nhat Hanh passed away at the age of 95. Born in Vietnam in 1926 and ordained a monk at age 16, he spent a lifetime teaching, reflecting, and writing; as he distilled the teachings of Zen Buddhism into a language that made it accessible to the wider world. (2)

In his 2010 book, Peace in Every Step, the Zen master reflected on the interrelationship between love and compassion: “We will not just say, ‘I love him very much,’” he wrote, “but instead, ‘I will do something so that he will suffer less.’ The mind of compassion is truly present when it is effective in removing another person's suffering.”

This thought  - that love and compassion are interwoven, linked together - is at the heart of AGAPE love from our scripture from the First letter to the Corinthians.

To echo the Zen master, when we are following the lead of Agape love, “We will not just say, ‘I love you very much,’ but instead, ‘I will do something so that you will suffer less.’ The mind of compassion (and I would add the heart of agape love) is truly present when it is effective in removing another person's suffering.” 

Agape love is why I am a missionary. It’s the example of the Jesus I follow, agape love that is expressed through compassion. It is the kind of love I want to share with children in rural India who need books to read, clean water to drink and cook with, bathroom facilities at their schools or a school bus to drive them to a nurturing classroom. 

Agape love is the kind of love that provokes me to sell all my possessions in a yard sale and travel across the world to serve the international community of La Siesta Evangelical Church. 

Agape love is the love that Jesus showed us during his earthly life, the kind of love that wants us to suffer less and love more, the kind of love God shows us each and every day.

May we who have received such love - empty our arms of what holds us back - so that we can move forward to offer love to others. In his name. Amen.

1. Excerpted from Defying Gravity by Tom Berlin. Copyright © 2016 Abingdon Press. Excerpted by permission of Abingdon Press.
2. Thich Nhat Hanh, Peace Is Every Step: The Path of Mindfulness in Everyday Life https://www.npr.org/2022/01/21/1074977884/thich-nhat-hanh-dead