James McTyre
Lake Hills Presbyterian Church (USA)
Ecclesiastes 3
For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:
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 a time to kill, and a time to heal;
a time to break down, and a time to build up;
4 a time to weep, and a time to laugh;
a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
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;
6 a time to seek, and a time to lose;
a time to keep, and a time to throw away;
7 a time to tear, and a time to sew;
a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
8 a time to love, and a time to hate;
a time for war, and a time for peace.
The God-Given Task
9 What gain have the workers from their toil? 10 I have seen the business that God has given to everyone to be busy with. 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. 12 I know that there is nothing better for them than to be happy and enjoy themselves as long as they live; 13 moreover, it is God’s gift that all should eat and drink and take pleasure in all their toil. 14 I know that whatever God does endures forever; nothing can be added to it, nor anything taken from it; God has done this, so that all should stand in awe before him. 15 That which is, already has been; that which is to be, already is; and God seeks out what has gone by.[a]16 Moreover I saw under the sun that in the place of justice, wickedness was there, and in the place of righteousness, wickedness was there as well. 17 I said in my heart, God will judge the righteous and the wicked, for he has appointed a time for every matter, and for every work. 18 I said in my heart with regard to human beings that God is testing them to show that they are but animals. 19 For the fate of humans and the fate of animals is the same; as one dies, so dies the other. They all have the same breath, and humans have no advantage over the animals; for all is vanity. 20 All go to one place; all are from the dust, and all turn to dust again. 21 Who knows whether the human spirit goes upward and the spirit of animals goes downward to the earth? 22 So I saw that there is nothing better than that all should enjoy their work, for that is their lot; who can bring them to see what will be after them?
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Imagine if you had a magical time travel machine. And with this time machine you could travel to any place on earth, at any point in history. You could go way back into the past. Or you could travel far into the future. And you could land anywhere, any city, any country, any place.
Where would you go? What would be your first stop?
It would be so cool to, say, visit yourself 30 years ago, 1983. Well, that is if there was a you in 1983. If not, you could visit your parents when they were young and in shape. (“That’s my mom? With that hair? That’s my dad? With hair?”)
You could tell yourself to buy a bunch of stock in Apple Computer. You could bet big on the Redskins in the Super Bowl. You could see the world premier of the Thriller video when Michael Jackson still looks like, uh, Michael Jackson.
If you could go anywhere on earth, at any time, where would you want to go? Maybe Downton Abbey Land in 1912. Or, maybe you’d prefer the Wild West of Dodge City in 1870. You could ride with the cowboys.
Of course, I’m asking this in church, where the right answer is always, “Jesus.” So maybe after you think of that other stuff, you say, “Israel, yeah. That’s what I meant.” In the year 25, so you could meet Jesus, and go fishing with him. Because he always knew the good spots. (“No, I said the OTHER side of the boat.”)
Or, maybe you think history is boring. So you’d want to go to The Future. See how the kids turned out. See if you won American Idol. Or if you’re a judge on American Idol. I think everyone’s going to get a shot at that. See the flying cars. See if the great-great-great grandkids remember who you are. We just assume they’ll have pictures of us, statues, probably, at our museum, with our name over the entrance. It could happen. You could go, you could see, for yourself.
It’s fun to play pretend. It’s fun to dream of stuff like magical time machines that let us flit back and forth across the ages. We no longer just dream of infinity. We’d surf the waves of of infinite, eternal life.
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Our continuing series of messages today and for the next weeks is called, “Holey, Wholly, Holy,” and it’s about how we can move - yes, we can move - from being a hol-ey mess to being more whole in our lives, and even to approach the holiness of God.
It’s very loosely based on John Ortberg’s book, The Me I Want to Be, which the Connections Sunday School class is reading.
We’ve talked about Spirit, and about Mind. Today, we’re talking about time. Our time. Our current time. But I don’t mean earth-time, 2013, or political-time, or what historians are going to look back and say about our global time. (As in, “That was the age of Human Beings, before we Cats rose up and took dominion.”) That time’s too big.
Think smaller.
I want you to think about your time. Your time. Your personal time. Your days. Your nights. Your minutes, ticking away the moments that make up your whole day.# This whole day.
Are your days whole? Or are they filled with holes? Are your days complete and satisfying, or do they feel like one big, empty hole?
Do the works of your time reflect the holiness of God?
That's what we're talking about today. That's all.
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OK. Now. Flip the situation. Pretend someone else has a magic time machine. And he or she has programmed in January 27, 2013. And this time-traveler has materialized in your living room and wants you to give a tour.
What important artifacts would you show the time-traveler?
“Look! Here’s our TV. It’s a flat-screen. We have cable.”
“And this. This is what we call The Internet. Here’s Google. Google knows everything about everyone. It can even see our house from heaven.”
“What’s that? Oh, no. Google’s not God. Well, yes, we do stare for hours at our machines. Some of us talk to our machines. Sometimes yell at our machines. And then our machines tell us what to do and where to go and how best to get there. And our machines have stuff delivered to our door less than 24 hours after we pray - I mean ask for it. Our machines tell us what’s hot and what’s not, what’s important. And little smart versions of them are with us everywhere we go. But no, silly, they’re not... God.
“We go to church for that. On Sunday.”
What artifacts of your time would you show the time-traveler? What do you have that tells the story of your time? Family photos? A journal? A medicine cabinet and a pharmacy bill? Sports trophies? A report card? How would you show the time-traveler what’s really, really important in your time? In your time?
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The Book of Ecclesiastes travels all over the subject of time. So, in a way, its author was very much a time-traveler. The mysterious writer of Ecclesiastes - known only as The Preacher - traveled through all our time.
In his words, The Preacher travels from birth to death. And then, in extraordinary vision, goes even further, goes beyond the boundaries of time. The Preacher ponders the time of time, the meaning of time, the point of time. OUR time. And he - or maybe she, we don’t know - the time-traveler speaks for all of us as we try to figure out what’s really, really important.
It says,
10 I have seen the business that God has given to everyone to be busy with. 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.
And if that’s not mind-twisting enough, there’s verse 15:
15 That which is, already has been; that which is to be, already is; and God seeks out what has gone by.
Um, thank you, Master Yoda.
About the only time any of us ever hear anything from Ecclesiastes is at funerals, when we’re literally standing on the edge of eternity, and looking into its depths. And that’s a shame, because Ecclesiastes isn’t about death; it’s about life. The Preacher is trying to open up this secret knowledge of time which we all, already have. We already have it. The Preacher’s trying to get us to wake up to our own miraculous moment of time while we still have time to marvel at it.
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One of our members who’s really smart posted a Calvin and Hobbes cartoon on her Facebook page. Camille said to give Calvin and Hobbes all the credit, so I will.
Calvin, the little boy, and Hobbes, the tiger, are looking up at the stars, and Calvin says, “If people sat outside and looked at the stars each night, I bet they’d live a lot differently.” And Hobbes says, “How so?” And Calvin says, “Well, when you look into infinity, you realize there are more important things than what people do all day.”
Whoa. That’s thinking big.
The Preacher, Ecclesiastes, thinks big, too. But also thinks small. And would say to Calvin, “Yes, that’s true. But what we do all day IS the most important thing any of us will ever have time to do.”
Verse 9 says,
9 What gain have the workers from their toil? 10 I have seen the business that God has given to everyone to be busy with.
12 I know that there is nothing better for them than to be happy and enjoy themselves as long as they live; 13 moreover, it is God’s gift that all should eat and drink and take pleasure in all their toil.
Tell that one to your boss tomorrow. Or maybe not.
When Ecclesiastes talks about work and toil it doesn’t mean your job. Although your job is a huge part of what you do all day. It doesn’t mean your work as much as your works. You can hate your job, but it can still provide you the means to accomplish the works of your life.
The Preacher is saying that, yes, God sees all the bigness of eternity. But God also focuses down on the smallness of your works, your days, your day, your time, your moment. Verse 22 says that God has made your days, your day, your time so that there’s nothing better - nothing - better than for you to enjoy the time of this day, because, it’s all you’re ever, ever, ever sure you have.
None of us can travel back to the past. None of us can travel into the future. That’s not saying we don’t spend inordinate amounts of time trying to. Beating our heads against the walls of imaginary time machines, thinking, “Oh, if only I’d done this 30 years ago,” “Oh, when I win the lottery, I’m going to do that.” It’s fun to play pretend. And sometimes it’s a living hell.
The Bible is saying in these ancient words of wisdom... for the love of God, for the love of yourself, you don’t have time for pretend. No one knows what the future holds. You don’t even know what this afternoon holds.
Except - except - that it will hold moments that God intends you to enjoy as soon as they get here.
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It’s hard to focus on what’s going on at the current moment. People have some interesting ways to do it.
During an NFL playoff game, and honestly I can’t remember which one - there’ve been so many - the announcers were talking about an offensive lineman who’s made huge improvements in his game since last year. Along with listening to his coaches, he started going to a therapist. And the therapist taught him to focus on the moment, by talking to himself. (It beats talking to a fake girlfriend.) To say out loud what was happening as it happened. To say out loud what he was doing as he was doing it. And, maybe not too surprisingly, he really improved his play.
But some of the linemen on opposing teams started worrying about him because he was always muttering to himself. They’d go up to him and ask, “Are you feeling OK?” And he’d laugh and say, “I’m just busy kicking your,” um, you get the point.
Way back in Bible times, ancient Hebrew thinkers like The Preacher, and a lot of ancient, early Christians, spent a lot of time trying to do focus on God in each moment. And you know what they found out? It’s really hard. That’s why so few people do it.
It’s really hard just to sit still and pay attention to one thing. It’s exhausting. That’s why I’m up here.
I always liked being an usher. At least you can count the people. If the preacher’s having a bad day, you can count them again.
Back in the second century, some innovative Christian Fathers created a technology called the Breath Prayer. It’s really simple. As you breathe in, you say a line of prayer. As you breathe out, you say it again. Something like, “Show me your way, O Lord.” Or, “Holy One, heal me.”
The best-known Breath Prayer has always been The Jesus Prayer, from the sixth century. “Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me, a sinner.”
The thing is, you’re not really supposed to have deep thoughts when you’re in a Breath Prayer. Just breathe and use the prayer to bring your wandering thoughts - and they will wander, which is perfectly OK - just breathe and use the prayer to bring your wandering thoughts back to the moment. Give it a try this week.
We all need tools like the Breath Prayer. Because it’s hard to focus your heart and mind on anything. Someone or some machine always pokes holes in our concentration. In our minds, we travel away into the past. We wander off into the future. We wonder what’s going on at the beach, or the ballgame. That’s OK. That’s normal. So don’t get mad at yourself if you try it and nothing happens. Nothing’s supposed to happen. Which, in 2013, is kind of a novel concept.
The first step - and the only step - you can ever take - toward the me you want to be starts this moment, with the me you be right now. We will never, ever change, we will never, ever improve, we will never, ever grow until we stop running away from the time we have.
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The time-traveling, the time-seeing Preacher of Ecclesiastes told us a long, long - time - ago. There’s a
6 a time to seek, and a time to lose;
a time to keep, and a time to throw away;
7 a time to tear, and a time to sew;
a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
8 a time to love, and a time to hate;
a time for war, and a time for peace.
And you know when that time is?
Right now. And you get to choose what you’re going to do with it.
Let’s pray. And let’s pray an old Irish prayer called, the Prayer of St. Patrick, about the presence of Christ all around us, right now.
Christ with me,
Christ before me,
Christ behind me,
Christ in me,
Christ beneath me,
Christ above me,
Christ on my right,
Christ on my left,
Christ when I lie down,
Christ when I sit down,
Christ when I arise,
Christ in the heart of everyone who thinks of me,
Christ in the mouth of everyone who speaks of me,
Christ in every eye that sees me,
Christ in every ear that hears me.
Have mercy on me, on us.
And let us live.
