Ecclesiastes 3:1-14
1 Peter 2:1-5, 9-10
Grace and Peace to you from God our Loving Creator, Redeemer and Spirit. Amen
For everything, there is a season. Turn, Turn, Turn. (I started the last sermon with a song, I might as well keep up the pattern, right?) A time to be born, a time to die, A time to plant, a time to reap, A time to kill, a time to heal, A time to laugh, a time to weep… Turn, Turn, Turn...
The writer of Ecclesiastes had some thoughts to go through. These words from Ecclesiastes 3 were popular already, then further popularized by the Byrds. But the author of Ecclesiastes also wrote the words in the second verse of the book, “Vanity of vanities, says the Teacher, vanity of vanities! All is vanity.” The author was likely at a time in their life when reflection was always around them. All they had was time, and so they wrote these thoughts down. In the autumn of their life, both good and bad and the dichotomies between them, seemed apparent.
The author had thoughts, and wrote them down. They never directly identify themselves, but some scholars believe the book was written by King Solomon. But whoever it was, they had purpose in their life, and then maybe toward the end of their life, they saw that purpose slipping away.
We could read this text out of Ecclesiastes as a reflection of our own lives, a simple matter-of-fact way of looking at life. But then he clinches it up there in the last line of that thought. “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 God. That which is, already has been; that which is to be, already is; and God seeks out what has gone by.” (Ecclesiastes 3:14-15)
Whatever we do, whatever has been done, whatever will be done - has been done by God. That what we do in life, is done with God, always ever present with us.
Martin Luther, the man we remember and the reformation we recognize in our celebration over the weekend - saw this presence of God in how he saw our own ministry as God’s people. As baptized members of the body of Christ, by God’s authority, we are called by God to God’s people to serve one another, in whatever function that is. The reality that is known as the Priesthood of All Believers, is this idea that all of us are ministers of the same Gospel, that all of us have been called through our baptism, through the calling and naming in the waters of baptism - that we look upon each other as God looks upon us - as God’s beloved.
We are called and named through our baptism to serve one another throughout the seasons of our life. As the author of 1 Peter points out - “like living stones, let yourselves be built into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.” (1 Peter 2:5)
And like actual stones, we are individual, we are unique. The seasons of life that form us as children of God are like the seasons of time forming and shaping rock. As much as time shapes us, and time shapes stones - so also does water. Water is one of the building blocks of life, the element that we are washed in and shaped by in our baptisms, as it washes and shapes stones. And when we come together, as shaped and washed living stones, and we form a community - so also we form a spiritual house, a dwelling place, a church. Individual and unique stones are formed together, gathered together to literally form a home, and as much as stones are required to build a building, individual members are formed together to become church, to fill one with the other.
The outside of this sanctuary is covered in stones, placed upon each other, to form walls that give structure. Our worshipping community, our church gives structure to each other, so that individual people, individual living stones don’t fall through the cracks.
Who are we as people? As a community? Like the living stones that we are, and the water that shapes us, we find ourselves in the land of water. The word, ‘Minneapolis’ is a combination of the Dakota word for water, and the Greek word for city, or collection of people. We are literally in the city of water. Minneapolis, or more precisely Fort Snelling is where the body of water our state hails its name from, the river of sky-tinted water - and the Mississippi, one of the longest rivers in the world. The two rivers were shaped by melting glaciers, with the Minnesota River pouring out of Big Stone Lake in western Minnesota, not too far from where I grew up. The glaciers themselves were giant frozen chunks of water, that carved their way through Minnesota, forming and shaping the landscape of the state we live in. And then they melted, formed a body of water known as Lake Agassiz, that over time shifted, but eventually drained into the bodies of water that contribute to the immense amount of lakes in this state.
Water shapes and forms us, and shaped and formed the land we live in. Water too, connects us. Again, water is an essential building block to life, so we as human beings are connected to every living creature on the planet through the water we need to survive. So also are we connected to every member of the body of Christ, through the waters of our baptism.
According to the idea of the Priesthood of All Believers, we are all ministers to each other, able to carry on the message of the Gospel, stewards of God’s grace, and called by God for a vocation in life. With this vocation, we are called and named through our baptism to go out into the world to make it a better place for us all, bestowing God’s Grace, Love and Mercy to the rest of the world, in the name of Christ, the One who sends us.
To everything, (turn, turn, turn…) there is a season. (Turn, turn, turn.) A time to cast away stones, a time to gather stones together… “Like living stones” the epistle says, we are gathered together under the name of Christ, to minister to each other, through the waters of baptism that form and shape us. As Christians, we believe and proclaim that this Christ, the man who gathered people together, and taught and fed and healed and served them, and then was killed by them. Jesus the Christ, the savior of us all lives among us and gathered us living stones, and calls us all to live among each other - to in turn serve one another for the benefit of us all.
In this land of sky-tinted water, in the city of water, we can come together to help our neighbors in Puerto Rico, and in California and Texas and Florida, and even with the President of the Virgin Islands as our leader, we can hopefully come together to help heal from the damage of the many disasters they have faced. Because even if the President of the Virgin Islands doesn’t think we’re all connected under the same flag, maybe he can remember that through the waters of our baptism, we are all connected to each other as it is anyway.
… And a time to every purpose, under heaven.
Amen.
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