Is It Time?

Ecclesiastes 3:1-14

Scott Huie

Westminster Presbyterian Church

October 14, 2007

Watch Video—“60 Seconds”

(clip emphasizes the need for a wise stewardship of time)

One of the greatest discoveries that you and I can make is that each day of our lives bestows a 24-hour gift of time.  And the difference between promise and performance, possibility and productivity is normally how we use it. For each of us, life revolves around a clock and calendar. One way to see life is, very simply, the negotiating of time, and the question that so often arises is, “Is it time?”

What time is it in your life?  Around our house, we often ask, is it time to eat?  I suppose we Huies like food!  But there are many other time management issues that emerge, like: Is it time to get a haircut?  Is it time to bathe the dog?  Is it time to mow the grass?  Is it time to change the oil?  Is it time for a snack? Again, we Huies like food.

Early in our years as we sit in a classroom, we wonder, is it time for school to be over?  We anticipate the arrival of 3 pm with great delight.  As it relates to the calendar, we often ask, “Is it time for summer vacation yet or Christmas break or spring break?”  When we get home from school, we ask such questions as, “Is it time for football practice, cheerleading, piano lessons?”  After we eat, we ask, “Is it time for “Hannah Montana” to be on TV?”  And then as the day unwinds, we ask, “Is it time for bed?” 

As we age, many of the questions remain, but new ones emerge.  Is it time to start graduate school? Is it time to get married?  Is it time to change careers? Is it time to move?  Is it time to sell the house?  Is it time to buy or time to sell those few stocks we have?  Is it time for “Desperate Housewives” to be on?

Even as ministers, we are so consumed by choices of how we spend our time.  Is it time to pray, gather the committee, do visitation, work on a sermon?  In fact, after 14 years in the ministry, I have come to realize that the biggest issue between a minister and his or her parishioners is the timing of the Sunday morning sermon.  We get a lot of ribbing for how long we preach.  Some comments I’ve heard:  “He passed by a lot of good stopping places in that sermon.”  “She’s through with that sermon, but she won’t stop.”  “That sermon seems to exhaust time and encroach on eternity.”  I remember this comment once at the door, “Preacher, I enjoyed your sermon this morning—and this afternoon.” 

It doesn’t bother me all that much to see you folks looking at your watches every now and then, but I do get a little rattled when I see you start shaking your watches!  Don’t worry: I know the football games start at 1 pm.  We’ll get you out in plenty of time. Just be thankful we don’t live in the Central time zone!  In everyone’s life, time is such an issue.  Is it the right time?  Where does my time go?  And who’s in control of my time? 

The book of Ecclesiastes has the benchmark reading on the passage of time in all of literature.  In our young adult Sunday School class, we have thoroughly enjoyed going through this challenging and mysterious book.  At first glance, it’s a book that you sometimes wonder how it made it into the canon.  The writer, who has been around and tried everything, asks the question, “Is life worth living?” and conveys quite a few convictions that add up to a negative answer. “Everything is meaninglessness—vanity,” he writes, “pursuing wealth, wisdom, pleasure, even hard work.  Life is empty; it’s a waste; it’s a vicious cycle.”  You can’t get much more cynical than that.

But then there are moments when the writer’s cynicism gives way to hope and wisdom.  One such moment we find in chapter three, its best-known passage, the beloved list of things for which there is a proper time.  It is the poetic gem in a seemingly otherwise dark and convoluted book.  Back in the 1960s, these words were made into a popular song.  Anyone remember the artist?  The Byrds. 

The writer—commonly called the Teacher—does not say why things occur at their appropriate times.  They just do.  He does this by setting up 14 little pairs of opposites presenting 28 common experiences in day to day life.  Moving from theology to physics, the recitation of these experiences confirms that for every action there is indeed an equal and opposite reaction.  Or in good Chinese philosophy, for every yin, there is a yang.

The first item on the list, “a time to be born, and a time to die,” is clearly out of human hands, but the rest involve human choices.  It mentions times to plant, to uproot, to kill, to heal, to weep, to laugh, to mourn, to dance, and on and on, until ending with “a time for war, and a time for peace.”  For everything, there is a season.  For everything, there is the right time.

Now that could have been it.  The Teacher could have left the matter at that and let us, the reader/the hearer, fill in with our own meaning.  Instead, the Teacher provides an interpretation of the poem.  What he says is this: God does the timing.  God has a plan, and God does a good job at it.  God has made everything “suitable for its time,” or—I like this NIV translation better—everything “beautiful in its time.”  God is the timekeeper.  God is the time filler.  God is the one behind the scenes doing the timing, from the cradle to the grave.

These words from the Teacher are a simple acknowledgement of the way life is.  God has made the various ups and downs as the necessary rhythms of life. God has made life a little like riding a roller coaster.  There are highs.  There are lows.  There are times when the ride is slow, laborious, and uphill.  There are times when the ride is at full throttle and the best we can do is simply hold on and enjoy the thrill.  There are times we feel like, through the highs and lows, we are just hanging on by our fingertips.  Life indeed can be a roller coaster ride.

In the past six weeks, I have done five weddings.  I have witnessed quite a few of you and others experience the time to marry and to celebrate the gift of a life partner.  For you, it’s a time for dancing.  During that same time, I have also witnessed quite of few of you go through the heartache of losing a loved one, especially a parent, a spouse, or a sibling.  You have and still are experiencing a time to mourn and weep and will likely continue to do so for quite some time.  There is not much dancing in your life right now.   Others of you have experienced serious relationship break-ups.  Others of you have gotten a promotion.  Some of you have been laid off.  Some of you are sitting here exhilarated, but others of you are just bone-tired.

Build in the very fabric of life are various seasons, like spring, summer, fall, and winter. With each of life’s seasons, there is a wide variety of experiences and events that touch upon nearly every emotion: joy, sadness, anger, bliss, fear, hope, companionship, loneliness.  That is simply the way that God made life.

So how are we ultimately to view the passage of time?  How are we to view this roller coaster called life?  In Biblical days, there were two distinct ways of viewing history.  The Greek way was to see history as going around in circles, an endless repeating of itself.  There is no beginning or end to the world.  The various seasons simply repeat themselves.  Over and over it goes, always rising and falling and rising again.   The Hebrews, on the other hand, saw history, not as a circle, but as a line.  History is not a merry-go-around; it goes somewhere.  History has a beginning and an end.  It has purpose, movement, and direction.

The Teacher was strong on the circle.  He seemed to think like the Greeks.  However, in places, like today’s passage, he hinted at the line.  He became more Hebraic.  Maybe we are closer to the truth as we combine the two and see history, not as a line or a circle, but like a helix or a spiral.  Like grooves in a screw, there is repetition, sure, but it’s going somewhere.

However we picture the time process, the Teacher stresses that God is in control and has a plan.  Now does that mean that God causes everything to happen, from an in-grown toenail to the tragic death of a small child?  I don’t think so.  I believe that there are things that happen that are contrary to the will of God.  Goes doesn’t will evil.  It is outside of God’s character.  God does not will everything, but—listen carefully for the distinction—God wills good in everything.  As Paul writes to the Romans, “All things work together for good for those who love God and are called according to his purposes.”  As the benediction goes, God goes before us to lead us, above us to protect us, behind us to push us, under us to carry us, and beside us to hold our hand.  In fact, God has the whole world in his hands, the clock and the calendar.  Indeed, I want to affirm that this morning.

But we can’t really talk about God’s timing without coming to the question of our timing.  The Teacher says, “God has set eternity in (our) hearts.”  In the midst of our temporal lives, God has given each of us a glimpse—a hunger—of the eternal.  But then the Teacher goes on the say we “cannot find out what God has done from the beginning of time.”  That is, God’s ways are not our ways.  God’s thoughts are not our thoughts.  And that makes us itch.  That makes us anxious.  That makes us join together with Augustine, who once famously prayed, “Our hearts are restless until we find our rest in thee.” 

We modern Americans like to lay heavy claim on our timing, and not just God’s timing, and for the most part I want to affirm that.  While I had no say-so when I was born and feel I don’t have much control when I die, I can do something about when I speak or when I shut-up, when I tear down or when I build up.  With the Teacher, I know I can be wise or I can be foolish.  I can enjoy life or I can not enjoy life.  I can see life as an arbitrary, random process, or I can see life as a gift from God.

Is it time?  I do keep struggling with time in my life.  It can be such a juggling act.  I want to live a full life.  I want to life a balanced life.  And I hear the Teacher’s words, God has made “everything beautiful in its time.”  I admit I sometimes scratch my head at that one.  I look around and I see the mess in Iraq.  I see the mess in Washington.  I see the mess in my own life.  Everything beautiful in its time?  Everything?

And then I look at the cross—so messy on that Friday—and see that at the right time—on Sunday—God made that cross beautiful.  “At the right time,” Paul writes, “Christ died for the ungodly.”    Now, friends, is the acceptable time.  Now is the time, in whatever season of life you find yourself, to see life as it is—a precious gift.  Cherish that gift.  Stand in awe before the gift-giver, our Creator.  Live for Jesus Christ.  It is time!  Amen.

PRAYERS OF THE PEOPLE/October 14^th 2007

God, ever creating, ever working: We turn to you for wisdom and courage in trying to apply our faith to what we do each day.  Be with us in the seasons of our lives.  Some of us are in the spring of our lives, that time from birth through childhood and youth.  We are like buds on a tree that has not quite come to bloom, yet which need tender care.  We lift up our young people.  For those right now in the nursery to those on the Senior High camping trip in the mountains, we pray that you would come along with them and help them to grow physically, emotionally, socially, intellectually and spiritually.  Bring them through the perils of childhood and the dangers of youth, and equip every last one of them to grow up to confess you in faith.

Some of us, O God, are in the summer of our lives, the longest season, the middle years of life.  It’s a time of all sorts of wonderful things—getting married, having babies, building careers.  Lord, be with those in that very productive and satisfying season of life.  Help them to have balance in their lives and not burn out.  Through thick and thin, O God, help them to build homes of love and grace, whether they get married or remain single, whether they have children or not.

Some of  us, O God, are in the autumn of life, the later middle years that reach into the early part of retirement.  Help them to recognize both the times to work and the times to relax and reap the harvest of their early planting.  Help them to be faithful parents to their adult children, and help them to become faithful grandparents, if that is your will.

Some of us, O God, are in the winter of life, in those twilight years.  Lord, we pray your tender hand upon those who feel winter in their bones.  Keep them strong, if not in body, at least in mind.  May those in the winter of their lives feel a new sense of your purpose as they prepare for the end of life.

Wherever we are in life, O God, we pray that you would take all of us through this season and to the next with purpose.  Give us joy and direction.  Provide for us a sense of eternity in our hearts, for we know that you have made everything beautiful in its time, and for that we are eternally grateful.

And finally, hear us, O God, as we say the prayer that Jesus taught, praying, “Our father…”