There Is A Season
By Rev.
Spirit of Peace UCC,
Ecc.
3:1-8, John 3:8
There is
always the chance that if you hear a scripture text over and over, you will
eventually have heard it so often that you stop hearing it at all. That could happen with our text today, part
of which goes like this: 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 embrace and a time to refrain from embracing, a time to seek and a time
to lose.
The author of
these words is called “the teacher” in Ecclesiastes. “The teacher” actually was quite cynical, but
he made some very insightful observations about life. One of his central observations is that no
life goes smoothly; you should not expect life to be an even keel. Things like birth and death, loving and
hating, laughing and weeping, gaining and losing, will happen in every single
life. They are life. The “teacher” in
Ecclesiastes says that you should expect life to rock and lurch and be a
constant adjustment to change.
He suspects
that everything has its proper time—its season—and he suspects these seasons
are determined or caused by God. But he
has also observed that it all appears to happen quite arbitrarily. God is, in the end, an unfathomable
mystery! Therefore, the teacher in
Ecclesiastes concludes, we should enjoy the good times of our own lives,
weather the stormy times, learn along the way, but not expect to understand it.
I want to
recommend to you a book on this text by Joan Chittister, one of my favorite
authors. She looks at the experiences of
various seasons of a lifetime, and challenges the reader to learn from every
one of them—the exhilarating high points, the exhausting low spots, the deeply
satisfying times and the colorless times that stretch between. Chittister says that you should: “suck the
juice of life from every period of your growing,” even the most difficult times
(p. 114).[i] “Who is the happy person?” she asks. “Those who have survived each of these
elements and found themselves to be more human, more wise, more kindly, more
just, more flexible, more integrated because of having lived through that
period of time, that moment of definition, that phase of survival, that streak
of chastening awareness.” Chittister
suggests that life is meant to be a constant learning and adjusting to the
forces on your life, and concludes,
“Life will never be controllable, only doable.”
What season of
life are you in? A time of
planting? Or harvesting? A time of loss? Or a time of gain, perhaps gaining new
discoveries? Are you ending one season
and entering another? I think it is safe
to assume that every one of you is in the midst of some kind of change right
now. If you have children—are they
recently born, or entering a new phase, or leaving for college or
marrying? Do you have aging parents who
are giving up the season of vitality? Or
are you? Are you in the midst of a
season of illness or death in your family?
Changes in career or friendships?
Perhaps you are experiencing the loss of a dream or relationship; or the
emergence of a new one. A lot of these
seasons seem to just happen to us.
But here is
the piece I want to focus on for a moment:
Some new seasons will come only
if you invite them. Some of you can experience a new season of
life only if you give yourself to new goals, and leave behind the season you
are in. Could it be that all the old
seasons of your life have prepared you for a change? You know how you can focus on your work, and
suddenly look at your watch, and say, “Oh my, I’ve lost track of time!” Is it time for a change in your life? One that may come to you only if you take
time to notice what you have learned or how you have changed, only if you take
time to integrate those experiences into your awareness, and then to let the
more mature and experienced “you” move forward into a new season of your
life. It may require recognizing that it
is time to lose something so you can seek something new. A wise person said to me recently, “Life is a
matter of knowing what time it is.”
____________
This morning
I want to share with you my news of a new season in my life. For nearly 10 years, I have been your pastor,
first at Crestwood and now at Spirit of Peace.
Perhaps it was my destiny to be here, to build a new church, and to grow
a small congregation into a larger one that has become a prominent voice for
progressive Christianity in our city. It
has been a lively season of planting for all of us.
Our
commitment to theological exploration meant that we weren’t committed to only
growth; we were committed to depth, to learning together, to asking the
difficult questions, to demonstrating the courage to let go of inherited
theological ideas and instead to struggle with the questions of the human
soul. We were, and are, committed to
nurturing each one who has come through our doors, and to working for justice
for all God’s children. Our legacy, the
harvest of this season, is a church that will help make the world a better
place, in response to the God whom we seek.
But it is the
end of a season for me, and time for a new one.
And that’s why today I am announcing to you that I will be leaving my
position as a pastor of this church, in the fall of this year. My interests, my skills and my passion are
leading me into a new season.
It has taken
me a long time to make this decision. I
love this congregation; I love what we have built together. There is no place I would rather serve. But I am not leaving you to serve another
congregation. I am leaving this kind of
ministry, at least for a few years. Why? First, because I need a rest. The building, fundraising and moving process of the past 7 of my 10 years with you
has been exhausting. Now the building is
done, and it is a good time for you to bring in a new pastor with fresh
energy. You are wise and capable and you
can do this without me.
But there is
a second reason for my leaving: I am
filled with what might be called a “holy discontentment.” I need to explore new ideas. I want to study Buddhism, Islam, Judaism and
other world religions, because I crave new insights, and I am drawn to interfaith
work. The world needs us to figure out
ways to build respect between religions.
So I plan to begin some kind of doctoral degree with an emphasis in interfaith
dialogue after I take an extended rest.
My tentative plans are to leave my ministry here in late September of
this year, take about 10 months off for rest and travel, and then start a
doctoral program in September of 2009, probably in
You have
always generously supported my studies at Chautauqua and elsewhere through the
years, but I need extended time to sit among professors and people who practice
these other religions. I can’t ignore
the longing I have to study. And I can’t
accomplish the learning I crave while I work at this job, so the job has become
my captor. I finally realized I have to
give up my job. In the words of
Ecclesiastes, it is time to lose what I have here, because it is time to gain
the knowledge my spirit needs. It is
time to refrain from embracing patterns of being in this job, and embrace a new
career path.
Last week I
told a friend about my plans. He said,
“It was your destiny to build this church; now it is your destiny to be a scholar.” I think we, to a great extent, create our own
destiny when we discover what it is we ought to be doing with our abilities and
our passions. William Jennings Bryan said
it well: “Destiny is no matter of
chance. It is a matter of choice: it is not
a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved.” In a sense, we are co-creators with God. Most of you know I am not at all sure how
much God intervenes in life, or to what degree God “leads” or “plans” our
lives. But even if God does not control
us or push us, there is a destiny that is ours to discover—the roles for which
we are uniquely suited, the ones that will connect us most intimately with the
Spirit of Goodness and Truth which I identify with God. Does the spirit fill us and lead us, or do we
connect with the spirit by discovering our destiny? I don’t know; it could be either. John says, “The wind blows where it chooses,
and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where
it goes. So it is with everyone who is
born of the Spirit.” Recognizing it is
good for me to go, is as close as I come to feeling “led” by the Spirit.
The truth is,
I have felt drawn for years to a more scholarly life, but I loved you and this
job too much to leave. I want to assure
you that the church is doing very well—it’s stable and secure. I am terribly proud to be your pastor. There is nothing wrong with my job, only that
it no longer fits me. One’s life is a
series of seasons, and I know in my heart that it is a new season for me. It is with deep gratitude that I say that,
because I am only able to enter the next season because of what has been
planted in earlier seasons of my life. I
would not be who I am without this congregation, without all of you, who have
molded me as surely as I have helped mold you.
And so I say, “Thank you” today.
I will miss you terribly when I leave in the fall.
My family
will continue to attend Spirit of Peace.
But I will need to separate myself from you for an extended period of
time after I leave, until a new pastor is well-established. Someday I hope to be able to return to Spirit
of Peace as a member, like
In your
mailboxes tomorrow, each member household will receive a letter, explaining my
plans. I am confident that the next 8-9
months can be a good time of transitioning for us all, since this means a new
season for our congregation as well as for me.
I will hold you in my heart and in my prayers, and ask that you do the
same for me.
And now, I
have invited our moderator, Mary De Jong, to say a few words.