To Everything There is a Season

January 17, 2011

Dear St. Paul’s Family,

Read this next sentence slowly, and see if it makes sense to you: Every straight line is actually part of a circle.

I know. It goes against everything you and I learned in grade school geometry, right? But it’s true. In theoretical mathematics, every straight line is in fact an arc. As a circle increases its radius towards infinity, and grows to near limitless size, any segment of that circle eventually “flattens out,” and seems to approach perfect straightness. In that event, what is linear is actually circular, as what is circular appears to be linear.

Mind-blowing stuff, huh?

But that’s what happens when our minds drift towards matters of the eternal. Our narrow view of reality changes as our perspective zooms out in infinite wide angle. The Teacher of Ecclesiastes grasped this idea and then took it one step further, applying this notion to the concept of time. To our limited sensibilities, time seems to be linear and sequential, progressing with a past, a present, and a future. We perceive it to have a beginning and an end, as we march forward in a straight line.

But Ecclesiastes challenges us with a glimpse of the eternal, elevating our view of time into the realm of the infinite. “God 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.”

This is a passage that is as true mathematically as it is theologically: the less we define our lives linearly, with a past, a present, and a future, the more we discover that we are part of God’s vast, boundless activity across time, with seasons of highs and lows, ebbs and flows. And no Scripture better describes this concept more powerfully – or poetically - than Ecclesiastes 3, our text for this Sunday. The word time appears twenty-eight times in just eight verses, and describes time not as a straight line, but as a circuitous, repetitive pattern of events.

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.

So here’s the good news: while your time on earth is limited, your life in God is not. You are an important part of God’s grand, sweeping movement throughout the ages. Like the author of Ecclesiastes, you may be searching for a temporal respite from your pain and suffering. So you move forward, in a present situation that seems to be nothing more than an inescapable history fused with an unknowable future. But in God’s view, your linear life is actually circular, and you are part of something bigger than yourself.

Pete Seeger, one of the greatest folk composers in American history, turned the words of Ecclesiastes 3 into a number one hit by the Byrds in 1965. When asked by biographer Alec Wilkinson about the song “Turn, Turn, Turn,” Seeger described Ecclesiastes 3 in this way: “What a poem that is. It’s something worth considering. That the world is full of opposites, intertangled. The good and bad tangling up over time. Nobody knows. God only knows.” [1]

Indeed, God only knows.

The same year that the Byrds scored a number one hit with Seeger’s song, Dr. Martin Luther King was making history of his own. On March 7, 1965, five hundred people marched along U.S. Highway 80 from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama. As part of that march, Dr. King uttered one of his favorite phrases, one that he included in several sermons throughout his career: “The arc of the moral universe is long,” he said. “But it bends towards justice.” King challenged the Selma marchers to see their finite efforts as contributing to God’s grander, more infinite vision, which is peace and justice for all people.

Though King made this phrase famous, it was not original to him. It was first spoken by Rev. Theodore Parker, a Unitarian preacher and an abolitionist. In 1853, he preached a sermon called “Justice and the Conscience,” declaring, "I do not pretend to understand the moral universe; the arc is a long one, my eye reaches but little ways; I cannot calculate the curve and complete the figure by the experience of sight; I can divine it by conscience. And from what I see I am sure it bends towards justice."

The words of Ecclesiastes, Dr. King, and Rev. Parker are all timely for us today. Though we live in a world addicted to violence, ravaged by hatred, and bent toward sin, we can continue our work in the present day, believing in a God whose ultimate purpose arcs toward justice for the world. We may not see it. Our eyes may “reach but little ways.” But we can “divine it by conscience.” Today may be a time for war, but there will be a time for peace. Our world may be filled with hatred, but there will be a season of love.

And the same is true for your life. You may be in the midst of a difficulty that seems unbearable, and from your private perspective, it seems interminable. But for everything there is a season. Your mourning can turn to dancing, your weeping into laughter, your loss into new opportunities. You may feel like your life is crumbling. But Ecclesiastes offers you a promise. Though your stones are scattered, you will have a chance to gather those stones again. This may feel like a time of tearing down, but there will be a time to build up again. Some things may have to die, before they can be born again.

There is great hope in these words, which is why they have offered great power to people in times of need. Join us this Sunday as we explore the richness of these words and allow their impact to shape a dream that is greater than our present condition. And you’ll also want to hear our very own Charlie Leissler, who will perform The Byrd’s hit “Turn, Turn, Turn” and lead us as part of worship.

Let us move forward with confidence, courage, and conviction, in the presence of the infinite.

Grace and Peace,

Magrey

The Rev. Magrey R. deVega
St. Paul's United Methodist Church
531 W. Main St.
Cherokee, IA 51012
Ph: 712-225-3955
Email: mdevega@sp-umc.org

[1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2OYfmiysWo