Spiritual But Not Religious

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"Spiritual But Not Religious"

Ecclesiastes 3:9-15
September 11, 2011

What gain have the workers from their toil? I have seen the business that
God has given to everyone to be busy with. He has made everything suitable
for its time; moreover he has put a sense of past and future into their
minds, yet they cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to
the end. I know that there is nothing better for them than to be happy and
enjoy themselves as long as they live; moreover, it is God’s gift that all
should eat and drink and take pleasure in all their toil. 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 him. That
which is, already has been; that which is to be, already is; and God seeks
out what has gone by.

You know, in preparing for this Sunday’s service, and the baptism we just
experienced a few minutes ago, I couldn’t help but reflect on my own
baptism, which was as an adult, sometime in the mid-1980’s, at Henderson
Hills Baptist Church, in Edmond, Oklahoma. Some of you were baptized as
adults, though I think most of you were probably baptized as children, just
as Raeghan was a few second ago. The one thing I do like about being
baptized as an adult is that I do have a memory of the event, though it wasn’
t a real positive memory, to be honest, for reasons I will not share with your
right now. The good news, of course, is that what matters is not whether
you and I can remember our baptisms, or whether or not we have a positive
recollections of that moment, but whether or not God remembers that
baptism, and I have no doubt that God surely does, God remembers each
and every baptism, of each and every one of us, of all of us, which is all that
really matters, ultimately.

Still, in thinking about this sermon, I got very curious about the date of my
own baptism, which is a particular fact I don’t remember, and the reason I
was curious about the date is thinking that Raeghan and Raeghan’s family will
probably have no problems remembering the date of her baptism, because it
happened today, the 10th anniversary of the terrorist attacks on this
country, on September 11, 2001. Most of us can remember where we were
on that date, how we found out the news, what we saw on the television—it
was one of those moments that sticks in the memory, and certainly for my
generation, it was our “assassination of Kennedy” moment, the moment
forever marked in time by the memory where we were and what we were
doing when we heard and saw the devastating news of what was happening
in New York ten years ago on this very day.

Of course, what we hold in our memory today, of this baptism, this reminder
to us of God’s love and inclusion of us, God’s slow and lifelong
transformation of each of us from the inside out , from beginning to end, will
be a far more positive memory for us than what happened ten years ago.
And certainly that is what we needed on this day, when we grieve all those
this country lost on this day, and all those we and others would lose during
the last ten years, all because of one single moment of madness perpetuated
by hate and bigotry.

And yet, this day of remembrance, this day of grief for our nation and all
those lost, and this day of joy, at seeing a new life affirmed and fully
welcomed into the imperfect and good arms of this place and the larger
church universal, is also a reminder to us the nature of time, of how life is all
about the beginnings and the endings, and then beginning again. I want to
reflect on that truth today, and over the next three Sundays, in a sermon
series I am calling: Some Final Thoughts: Endings and Beginnings. I’m doing
the series so that as I end my ministry with you, and begin a new one in
Chicago, and you end your ministry with me, and begin something new with
someone else as your pastor, I just wanted to reflect on the fundamental
fact of life that everything changes, and that life is littered with beginnings
and endings, and then a new beginnings, which eventually gives way to yet
another ending. What is the old saying—the only constant for us humans in
this life is change, and nothing could be truer, I think. Now, as I get older, I
notice I am not as good with change as I used to be—Douglas always kids
me about the fact that when I walk the dogs I almost walk the exact same
route on the Kniebes Farm. I am a one way rabbit, he says, but I like that
way, as most of us do—there is something comforting about walking down a
well-worn path, a known road, familiar territory.

And yet, Douglas is right—I do like the familiar, the way things have always
been, but I think most people do. But the reality is that God seems to have
structured the world in such a way that change seems to be the way of it.
Even some of the early Greek philosophers knew this truth, though they
struggled with the idea. Heraclitus, a Greek Philosopher from the 6th century
before Christ, noted that one cannot step into same river twice, because the
river is never the same river—it is constantly changing, and we too are
different people from one second to the next, the ones who make our way
into the river. All life is change, Heraclitus noted, everything is in a state of
constant flux—the river changes us, and we change the river, simply by
stepping into it.

Now, our Scripture essentially notes the same thing, though it is the tail end
of a very familiar text, the one where the skeptical writer of Ecclesiastes,
which is the word for “teacher,” notes that there is a season for everything, a
time for birth, a time for death, a time for war, a time for peace, and so on.
The words we have before us today are the words right after that famous
text, and you can almost visualize the author trying to reconcile himself to
the facts on the ground—that everything is in flux, everything changes, and
all things begin and end, and there is a time set for each and everything. For
the writer, he does his work of reflection by saying this: God has made
everything suitable for its time; moreover he has put a sense of past and
future into their minds, yet they cannot find out what God has done from the
beginning to the end. You know, it is interesting that God has given us the
gift of real sense of past and future, of being able to remember what has
gone by, and to anticipate and fear what might come in the future.

Back to my dogs and dogs in general: interestingly, God did not give dogs
and most animals that ability to remember like humans do. In doing some
research, I found this interesting insight on how dogs perceive time:
Research on how dogs perceive time is limited. But we can learn more
about it when look at the extensive research done on other animals, such as
rodents, birds and primates. In his studies on how animals perceive time,
animal cognition researcher William Roberts made some remarkable
conclusions regarding animal memories, anticipation and more. He says
that animals are "stuck in time" [source: Roberts]. By this he means that,
without the sophisticated abilities it takes to perceive time -- like truly
forming memories -- animals only live in the present. Roberts thinks
animals are "stuck in time" because they can't mentally "time travel"
backward and forward. Humans can consciously and willfully think back to
specific memories and anticipate events. Animals cannot. (http://animals.
howstuffworks.com/pets /dogs-perceive-time1.htm)

It seems that we humans are gifted, and sometimes cursed with our ability
do what dogs cannot do, which is that we can travel backwards in time within
our minds and remember a positive event, or even a negative event, for that
matter. And it’s interesting here that the writer of this text understands this
gift to be something meant to call us into awe of God, this ability to
understand that there is a beginning and ending, a past and a future, a
backwards and a forward. That God has chosen to give us this gift, the gift
of being able to remember—to remember the best of times, the baptism of
Raeghan, the birth of children, the relationship between you and me, and you
and each others, and yet, also the gift of being able to remember the worst
of times—the events of September 11, 2001, the deaths of loved ones much
too early, the betrayals of forty years, experienced as if they had just
happened today. That good and yet sometimes painful gift, is meant to
evoke wonder and awe in us, that we can dwell on what has been, and to
anticipate what is yet to be, and, if you think about it, it really is an awesome
gift that God has given us, this ability to re-member the past, to put what
has been back together in our mind, re-member it, and yet, also to have the
ability to foresee a future, to imagine a new possibility for our lives.

And yet, I don’t want us to miss something larger here, found here, and
elsewhere, and that is the writer of this book really believes that as much as
things change, they always seems to stay the same. That is what he means
in the last line of today’s text, when he writes, in beautifully philosophical
language: That which is, already has been; that which is to be, already is;
and God seeks out what has gone by. The present is the past, and future is
the present, he seems to say, and God, God sees it all. The writer is trying
to give us perspective, by telling us that this may feel like a new thing, but it
isn’t, not really, he seems to say—we’ve done this before, that which is,
already has been, he writes. Certainly, as a congregation, you are
anticipating yet another change, another pastor, another, perhaps painful
good-bye, as am I, but this has been done before, in this place, many many
times before. Did you know that I am the 43rd pastor, if you include your
interim ministers, in some 158 years, years that stretch out before even the
Civil War? We have done this before, you have done this before, and this is
the time to remember, not only the good times of the past five years, and
some of the more difficult times, but also to remember that you’ve been
through this type of change before, this transition, and that you know how
to do this, and you will do more than get through it—you will meet God in
new ways, and through different and good and sometimes better and
stronger voices.

There is one other powerful word to attend to in this text, and that is the joy
that is found when we understand the deep rhythm of life, the reality of past
and future, and of the change that undergirds all of reality, the way of it in
this life, the change that is always new and yet old, all at the same time. The
writer continues a refrain one finds peppered throughout the book of
Ecclesiastes, that even in the midst of change, and some of the hardships of
life, and the constant flux of life, the change that never seems to change,
that in the midst of it all, he says, we shouldn’t forget to have a good time,
to enjoy the life we have been given in this world at this very moment. He
writes these powerful words write in the middle of today’s text: I know that
there is nothing better for them than to be happy and enjoy themselves as
long as they live; moreover, it is God’s gift that all should eat and drink and
take pleasure in all their toil. We humans, in our struggle with change, with
remembering the good times, and not being able to welcome the new but
different good times because it was not like it was before, we miss out on so
much goodness that is found in the present, in the here and now, that place
between the past and future. The wise writer here sees that we are gifted
with being able to remember the past and anticipate the future, but that
should not distract us from enjoying the present, to drink deeply of the
world before us, to eat of the banquet set before us. We miss the present,
the happiness found right here, when we live too much in the past, or worry
too much about the future—that is the shadow found in this good gift of
memory, of knowing that there is a past and a future, a beginning and
ending. But it is a shadow we can each fight personally by letting the light of
the present, of this moment, grow brighter within us. Beginnings and
endings, they matter, but what matters is to pay attention to the here and
now, to drink deeply of the goodness of this moment, wherever we can find
it, and feast on the table of life that is right there in front of you and me.
And the one who spreads it out before us, the banquet of life, is the same
One who presence is always constant, whose faithfulness to us does not
change, not in the past, the future, and certainly not the present.
Everything changes, except the presence of God in our lives, in Raeghan’s
life, in your life, my life, our lives, this church’s life. Knowing that truth
makes all beginnings and all endings something we can meet with joy,
because of the One whose love for us does not change, who never changes,
who stands beside us, always, and invites us, is always inviting us to the
banquet, the table of present moment, to enjoy forever. Amen.