From March 22: A Season for Everything

This past Monday at vestry, I invited us into a short Bible study from the book of Ecclesiastes (3: 1-8).
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 kill, and a time to heal;
a time to break down, and a time to build up;
a time to weep, and a time to laugh;
a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
a time to throw away stones, and a time to gather stones together;
a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
a time to seek, and a time to lose;
a time to keep, and a time to throw away;
a time to tear, and a time to sew;
a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
a time to love, and a time to hate;
a time for war, and a time for peace.

There is a season for everything-everything and everyone is held in God's hand. What's perplexing is the way that those season so frequently overlap. At ChristChurch this winter we've had wonderful growth in attendance, having close to 100 on several Sundays between our 8:30 and 10 service. We have six baptisms just in the month of March! At the same time, I have heard so many stories from you-and shared my own, about family members who are sick. There is such intense joy at the growth of our community, but at the same time such grief at facing the prospect of saying goodbye to people we love.

No life is without suffering, neither is any life without powerful gifts. There was a season to give, and a season to receive, a season to greet with joy and a season to depart. For us, too. As we look toward Easter, who knows what it will bring? Sorrow and sighing, but also growth and rebirth. Grief is another measure of love; even for me as a priest, it's pretty impossible to keep an abstract distance when it comes to people I love. We pray "to see in death the gate of eternal life," and "for your faithful people, Lord, life is changed, not ended," but it still hurts.

That acknowledgment, it seems to me, is one of the things that only church can do. A bowling league creates community. An activist group makes the world a better place, forming its people in the values of the cause. Nature can be restorative beyond measure. When I am feeling depleted and exhausted, walking at Waltham Fields farm and putting my hands in the earth feels as holy as any sacrament. But church is the one place we can come just to go to pieces. This can be a place for lament and sorrow, for questioning and frustration. Those hard pews are a strong enough shelter for all the grief we can bring. They don't offer excuses, or explanations, or advice. They just accept, offer refuge, remind us that others have sat there with the same tears. They remind us that our grief doesn't have the last word.

So whatever season you're in-a season of grief or suffering, a season of growth or renewal-give thanks for the church. It can disappoint us and it can frustrate us-it is still, after all, using human hands to get its work done. But at its best, church is also a place of joy and wonder and jubilation and forgiveness. Thanks be to God, always and forever. [and, whispered because it's Lent, alleluia!]

Blessings,
Sara+