I preached this sermon at St. Lydia's on Sunday, November 7. The text is Ecclesiastes 3:1-8. Read it here.
There’s something about this time of year...it seems like it’s all about change.
This Sunday, many churches are celebrating All Saints Sunday, remembering the saints of the church who have gone before us. Remembering those who have died. So somehow this passage from Ecclesiastes seems just right for this night, this season.
Creation has a rhythm. It often seems to me that creation is like a very complex piece of music. Within that music are rhythms, and within those rhythms, even more rhythms. If we were to step back, deep into space, and close our eyes, I imagine that we would hear a slow cacophony of sound, a chaos at first. But gradually an ebb and flow, the development of melody, a strand of harmony, the swelling and fading of ostinatos.
We are, as God’s creatures,
as members of a church,
a city,
a society,
a country,
a culture,
all in our own way dancing,
setting down the beat
of the music of the world.
The biggest part of my job as as a leader of this congregation, and as a preacher is discerning the rhythms of this congregation. Listening for the subtle shifts and changes in the music that we are making together.
There is a time for every matter under heaven,
and my job is to help us know what time it is.
St. Lydia’s is like a newly improvised melody. It started quiet and low, and building slowly as it takes its place among the lines of song the whole church is making. Our timbre is growing richer, our song bolder, our sense of rhythm more steady as we grow and change.
When I listen to the music we’re making, I can hear that something is changing, shifting, deepening. There’s a new maturity and stability in our sound. Our pulse is strong and steady.
There is a time for every matter under heaven.
I believe that this is a time when our community will begin to really dig in. To learn, bit by bit, what it means to really be church. To struggle with the tension of opening our doors to all, and taking good care of all those at the table. It’s a time when we’ll learn our own strength, be surprised by our own tenacity, our heartiness.
For us, it’s a time to build up,
a time to set boundaries,
a time to make choices,
a time to gather stones together,
a time to stitch together,
a time to love.
I spent Friday and Saturday talking to clergy and lay people in the Diocese of Vermont about St. Lydia’s, and learned a little about what time in is for their churches in that Diocese. It was wonderful to be with them.
On Saturday evening, we celebrated a sacred meal, in the Hilton Hotel, attended by over 200 people. 20 tables in a ballroom set with bread and wine and juice and a salad, and steak and chicken and pasta primavera in big buffet tables nearby.
We gathered in the hallway of the hotel and lit candles and sang and processed in to the ballroom, blessed our bread, and shared the meal. We heard the story of Jesus and the Disciples, and I stood up to preach.
As I spoke, I heard a sound to my right.
I looked and saw nothing, couldn’t tell what it was.
And then I heard it again.
There was a commotion.
One of the priests of the Diocese had fainted.
He was an older gentleman. I later learned that he had suffered from cancer.
I wasn’t sure what to do. Then some folks at the table next to me said, “We need to sing.” And our music director rose and taught us a song. A simple, beautiful melody, repeated over and over again. There was melody, harmony, woven in and out. We sang as the folks clustered around this man cared for him, we sang as the paramedics arrived and kneeled next to him. We sang as he gradually regained his strength, and stood, victorious to our applause.
Someone told me later, “We almost lost him.”
And I wasn’t surprised.
There was a moment as we sang when our voices seemed to darken,
and I thought,
“God, please bring us through this.”
I thought for a moment that this might be the a time for dying.
A time for dying in the midst of this assembly,
as this saint of God went home.
But we kept singing,
and our melody seemed to find a new strength,
a new voice.
We kept singing,
and something in the room began to rise.
It was not a time for dying.
but a time for living.
The melody of one life had grown very faint for a moment,
so faint that we wondered if it would melt away,
back into the greater song the world sang as it spun.
It was not time yet.
The melody went on.
The world turned and we stood and listened.
For everything there is a season.
And a time for every matter under heaven.
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