Good afternoon – it’s a joy to be with you all today – I would like to thank Dean Catherine and Canon Andy for the very kind invitation that I received to share with you in this service as part of a city wide pulpit exchange marking the week of prayer for Christian Unity.
I am sure that the Teacher from Ecclesiastes would have pointed out that there was a time under the sun when such a thing as this (a Baptist Minister preaching in a Cathedral and an Anglican priest preaching in a Baptist Church would not have happened) – but thank God that we are living in a time when this can happen. Well see if you still thank God at the end of my time with you this afternoon….!
It seems hard for us to understand why such a thing wouldn’t have happened many years ago but such is the life we are engaged in – views change, polarised positions align and we realise that we are all children of the same God and followers of the same Christ.
This afternoon we are considering the words of the Teacher from Ecclesiastes – a well-known passage with its poetic structure and contrasting issues about human life.
The OT teacher is extoling the wisdom of knowing the proper time for all things – know when to hold your tongue and when to let it loose. Know when to plant and invest – know when to uproot and move on. We can even try and make sense of the difficult pairings such as a time to kill and a time to heal. After all the teacher was not constrained by our modern theological framework of loving our enemies – and even today there is still in some minds a legitimate time for killing, capital punishment, just war theory and so on. But I have not come to resolve such issues – neither does this passage seek to do so – in fact for all of its’ “wisdom” this passage when taken in its’ wider context simply states that everything is frustratingly outside of human control.
V11 is key to the context of this well-known passage – depending which translation you follow we either hear that God has placed eternity in the hearts of humankind – which would help us understand the yearning we may have to discover and to explore – a deep seated desire within us, a compulsive drive to know the character, composition and meaning of the world, of life, to discern its purpose and destiny.
With such a cosmic yearning in our hearts we cannot help but want to fathom such mysteries. Such drive can be a springboard for development and discovery, it can be a rich and fertile soil for human endeavour – but it can also lead to despair as the more we discover the more we might also realise how little we truly know about the ultimate meaning and purpose for life.
However that same word translated as eternity could also be translated as ignorance – which would fit with us not knowing what God is doing from start to finish – our knowledge is limited. We are in the dark when it comes to knowing exactly what God is doing. The best we can hope to do is discern the time we live in, recognising that we cannot control every situation.
Whichever way we translate it – we must understand that the teacher of Ecclesiastes isn’t advocating a flippant “therefore leave it all to God” kind of attitude – but is rather expressing a real and honest desire to know what on earth is going on and where is all of this heading. A feeling that might be familiar for some of you, even now as I preach!!
Whilst the Teacher from Ecclesiastes may leave us wondering what God’s grand plan is all about, Peter in our NT reading is clear that Jesus is God’s grand plan for salvation – what the Teacher longed to look into Peter has experienced.
In the reading from the Epistle of Peter we have the antidote to this eternal yearning, the answer to the ignorance of not knowing what is going on and where it is all heading – the answer to the yearning of human hearts – is Jesus – Jesus is always the answer – we know that the life secure in Christ has purpose, the life secure in Christ has meaning, and has an eternal destiny.
Whilst Jesus is the answer to either the ignorance or eternity set in our hearts – Peter recognises something of the wisdom of Ecclesiastes – because even those lives that have found ultimate meaning and purpose in and through Jesus – still have to face life in all its fullness – the contrasting seasons and dilemmas – life when it is less than beautiful, less than wonderous – life that brings trials and grief – a time to weep and a time to laugh and sometimes they are in the same moment – and we struggle to make sense of it.
And that’s ok, sometimes we cannot make sense of what we are going through – we are instead to hold the tension – it’s not easy, it’s not always, it’s not exciting or fashionable in a world full of answers – but this now and not yet tension is the life of faith that we have been called to in Jesus, who holds the power of heaven at His disposal alongside the humility to submit to human oppression –
– Jesus who is the author of life and yet submits Himself to death. Our faith in Him will equip us for such times…when faced with dying and healing, grief and joy, laughter and sorrow. Whatever we face there is always hope, because there is always the Love of Christ to uphold us and inspire us.
In this week of prayer for Christian unity let us remember that our unity comes not through denominational allegiance but through two things;
- We share a common Saviour who calls us to an uncommon way of life, a way of living that will embrace the difficult seasons in life as keenly as the good ones.
- We are all caught up in this momentous thing called life – life with all of it’s many seasons as the teacher from Ecc puts it – life with all of it’s joys and trials as Peter puts it.
And whilst we may be frustratingly out of control when it comes to what life brings our way – we are called in Jesus to persevere – knowing that He is at work within us, trusting in the difficult times as much as in the good times – learning to give thanks in all circumstances as we acknowledge that each season serves a purpose – it can either be a moment for giving glory to God for the beauty and wonder of life or it can be a moment of drawing closer to God for comfort and strength as we face the trials that come our way.
There is a time and a season for everything under the sun and whatever time you find yourself in today – in your own season of life – this is the time, this is the season where Jesus wants to meet you and work in you and through you to the praise, to the glory, and to the honour of God.
Amen.
