September 4, 2016
Ecclesiastes 3:1-15
- Ecclesiastes 3:1-15
- Jon Graybeal
Ecclesiastes 1
And the question on all of our minds, what kind of book is this? And was there some kind of committee meeting where people were voting on books of the bible and somebody stood up and said “Oh, yeah, put that one in. That’s a real pick me up.”
I’m admittedly as cynical as they come, but even for me, the book of Ecclesiastes comes off initially as pretty bleak and dark. Sooooooo, today we’re kicking off a 36 week series on the book of Ecclesiastes, kidding, kidding, very much kidding.
In all honesty I’ve never taught out of Ecclesiastes and when Jerry asked if I could teach this week, I chose Ecclesiastes thinking it would be a good text to start a conversation on seasons and transitions in life since that’s where many of us find ourselves this time of year and by Wednesday of this week, I was wondering what in the world I had done and began to think that I had made a horrible mistake.
Ecclesiastes is a tough book, a really tough book. One commentary described Ecclesiastes as a goose chase with no goose. The book rambles, repeats, wanders, it’s difficult to understand…..but the more I thought about that, the more I thought about this rambling and repeating and wandering, the more I began to think, wait, life is just like that. Life rambles and it repeats, it has a rhythm that isn’t always consistent, we wander and we find that some things are just too difficult to understand.
Ecclesiastes is in many ways a monologue. In most every book of the Bible we hear from God in some way, he shows up and he speaks, he speaks through a prophet, he speaks through his Son, but God doesn’t seemingly break through in Ecclesiastes, it’s a monologue of sorts, a monologue on a life lived to its ‘full’.
I probably don’t need to do this cause I’m sure you’re all better Christians than me and know all there is to know about Ecclesiastes but real quick, a little background.
Ecclesiastes was written about 1000 years before Jesus and most scholars tend to agree that the author was Solomon, the son of David, son of Bathsheba and he was the king of Israel. Just a quick refresher on Solomon: he was the king, as I mentioned, fabulously wealthy, he was wise beyond his years, and everyone else’s for that matter (remember in Kings when he offered a sacrifice to God he asked for wisdom over anything else. God was pleased with that because he didn’t ask for wealth or power so God gave him wisdom and everything else as well) and he was more powerful than any king that had come before him. Solomon had 700 wives and 300 concubines, which is basically another wife, not to the letter of the law, but in every other way. He had everything you could possibly imagine and then when you can’t imagine anymore, he had more. History’s wisest fool who had everything under the sun, and what does he have to say in Ecclesiastes?
“Meaningless, meaningless, utterly meaningless.
Everything is meaningless.”
It’s an interesting way to start a book, especially a book of the Bible, isn’t it? In fact he uses that word, “meaningless”, 37 times throughout the book. Let’s face it; it’s a troubling statement. We all have those days for sure, those days when we say, this is pointless, this is ridiculous, a waste of time, but meaningless, everything is meaningless….with an exclamation point? I think Solomon is trying to get our attention here and does a nice job of doing so.
Now you might be thinking, Jon, if it’s all meaningless lets just wrap this up, head to lunch and go home. But, there is another phrase that comes up again and again in Ecclesiastes, about 30 times, and that is “under the sun” or some translations say “under heaven”. This is important because if we just hear “meaningless, meaningless, meaningless,” without hearing “under the sun” then, yeah, we could just call it quits. Solomon is hinting at something here, hinting that the things of earth, the things “under the sun,” the things “under heaven” lack all meaning when they are separated from the things, maybe we could say above or over the sun, the things of God. The things “under heaven” lack all meaning when they are separated from the things of heaven.
So Solomon starts there, he starts with complete lack of meaning, utterly meaningless and like life, he rambles and meanders and repeats and we come to chapter 3, which is our text for this morning. We’re going to look at chapter 3 verses 1-15, so if you have your Bible you can follow along there or on your phone or it’ll be on the screens as well. Or if you’re a fan of 60’s music you may already know this text thanks to The Byrds and their song Turn Turn Turn, which was a number one hit in 1965. Good harmonies not the greatest theology, but if you know this text because of The Byrds, feel free to burst into song as I read. Here we go, Ecclesiastes 3.1-15:
For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:
a time to be born, and a time to die;
a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted;
a time to kill, and a time to heal;
a time to break down, and a time to build up;
a time to weep, and a time to laugh;
a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
a time to throw away stones, and a time to gather stones together;
a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
a time to seek, and a time to lose;
a time to keep, and a time to throw away;
a time to tear, and a time to sew;
a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
a time to love, and a time to hate;
a time for war, and a time for peace.
What gain have the workers from their toil? I have seen the business that God has given to everyone to be busy with. 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. I know that there is nothing better for them than to be happy and enjoy themselves as long as they live; moreover, it is God’s gift that all should eat and drink and take pleasure in all their toil. 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. That which is, already has been; that which is to be, already is; and God seeks out what has gone by.
For everything there is a season. Just want to stop here for a second and take a quick poll. By way of applause or as we call it in Kentucky, hoot and hollering, I want to find out what your favorite season is. Since we’re still in summer, we’ll start there.
Where are my summer fans?
Winter?
Spring?
Fall?
Have you started to notice that it’s not light outside at 10pm? Have you started to notice that recently we’ve had some evenings and mornings that are cool and crisp? I have and that only means one thing……Fall is coming and I couldn’t be happier. Fall is the absolute best. The colors of the leaves, cider, apple picking, the cool, crisp air, football, pumpkins, pumpkin flavored everything, its all so good. But my all time favorite part of fall has to be this.
----------- CUBS VIDEO ------------------------
Sorry, I’m not sure how that got in there….kidding, I put it there. Fall means post season baseball!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Oh, Fall.
So we have these seasons in creation, these physical, visible, changing seasons but we also have seasons in our lives, in the created. The creation has ever changing seasons and the created, us, we have ever changing seasons. And I think Solomon is trying to tell us that there will be seasons of joy and there will be seasons of sorrow and there will even be seasons that we wrestle with both.
Many of you, if you have children, have just been through a transition and have entered into a new season of life, the kids are back in school, which is a great and glorious thing amen. But maybe for you it was dropping your child off for their first day of school and you’re wrestling with the fact that this is a new norm, a new reality, a new season or maybe for some of you it was dropping your child off at college for the first time and you’ve come home to a now empty bedroom in your house or maybe it didn’t have anything to do with school at all, maybe for you it was the loss of a loved one or maybe the absence of someone who once loved you.
Seasons are a part of life. We get used to the rhythm that seasons bring. We know what time we have to leave the house to be at soccer practice on time and still make it home for dinner. We have our schedules and we have things timed out to the hour or minute. But inevitably our current season will end, our kids will move into a new grade in school, they’ll give up on soccer or they’ll take up playing tuba and join the band or maybe you were laid off or there’s an illness, whatever it is, something will come along, a new season will begin and we have to adjust to the new rhythms of this new season. It often feels like just when we think we have things figured out, seasons shift. And let’s be honest, we don’t like the shifts, we push against them don’t we?
I’ve talked about this before but one of my favorite stories in the gospels is one that John tells about the resurrection of Jesus. Mary comes to visit the tomb of Jesus after his crucifixion and burial only to find a gardener at the tomb. As Mary and this gardener begin to talk, she realizes that this is Jesus and she grabs hold of him and Jesus tells her, “Don’t hold on to me.” I can’t help but think that after Jesus was with them, gone and now he’s back that Mary thinks that things will be the way they used to be again; we’re getting the band back together and Jesus says, “Don’t hold on to me.” As humans we seem to have this inclination to resist change, to get back to the good ol’ days, to keep things the way they used to be. At first glance, Jesus’ words to Mary might seem cold but I think Jesus is saying to Mary that things can’t be the way they were, things have changed, things are changing and things won’t be the same anymore, so you can’t hold on to last season, you have to be able to hold loosely enough that you allow the new season to begin. You have to be able let go of how it was because only when you let go of how it was are you open to what’s coming, open to the next season.
Some of you may be in a season that is so sweet you don’t ever want it to end and for some of you, you’re in a season that can’t end soon enough. There are good seasons that will come, good, beautiful seasons that we find ourselves in but there will also be seasons that are dark, seasons that are difficult, seasons of loss and pain. Jerry mentioned this at the all church retreat but when we find ourselves in these seasons of pain and loss and dark and difficult, be reminded that it is most often in those seasons that we are being shaped and stretched and grown. Because when you asked someone about a time in their life that they were shaped, a time in their life that they grew and learned, most often it is a story of pain or loss or difficulty that they tell.
I don’t know where you are these days, what’s broken down and what’s beautiful in your life this season. I don’t know if this is a season of sweetness or one of sadness. But I’m learning that neither will last forever. That’s how life is. It won’t be sweet forever. But it won’t be bitter forever either. If everywhere you look these days, it’s lonely, dark, wintery, desolate, then practice believing in springtime. It always, always comes even when it’s near impossible to believe. New life eventually springs from the same frozen, cold, bare ground of winter. This season will end and something entirely new will follow it.
So, wherever you find yourself this morning, whatever season you are in right now, know…know that this season will pass. If things seem dark and bleak and rambling and hard to understand, know that there are better seasons coming and if all the world is exactly how you want it to be, know that seasons aren’t static and there are other seasons coming.
Next week, our little community begins a new season, we start a new series, we launch into fall and our home groups start back up. My hope and my prayer is that we realize as a community that life under the sun, life lived apart from God, is meaningless so we need to look elsewhere and so we look to God, we look to our sisters and brothers in Christ and we attempt to live out these seasons together, we attempt to live out these seasons that with God and each other can be full of meaning and purpose, full of life and tears and sorrows, full of joys and loss, full of life.
Seasons aren’t easily weathered alone, that’s why we’re here this morning. Jesus never guaranteed an easy life for believing in him, in fact the reality is much the opposite. What he did teach us is that we’re to do this thing together. We’re to share in the bleak seasons as much as we share in the joyful seasons, to lean on each other, care for each other, give hope to those in our midst whose season makes hope hard to find and give meaning to those in our midst whose season makes meaning and purpose hard to discover.
I can’t think of a better picture of what that community looks like than what we’re about to do. Taking communion together is a picture of brokenness being redeemed, it’s a picture of us taking care of each other, of our own seasons becoming intertwined, it’s a hope that there is a new season coming, that things won’t always be the way they are.
I can’t help but think that Solomon in the midst of writing these words kept thinking about something above the sun, about hope, about God. I can’t help but think that as he wrote, he hoped for a time when God might come “under the sun” and live these seasons with us so that we could get a glimpse of something greater, a glimpse of heaven, a glimpse of the things “above the sun,” and in doing so, we would gain a wisdom that even Solomon didn’t possess, the wisdom and knowledge of Christ and that God brings meaning to the meaningless and hope to the hopeless.
So may we live out our seasons with God, may we live out our seasons with each other and in doing so give purpose to the purposeless, hope to the hopeless and meaning to the meaningless.