"Turn, Turn, Turn"

Ecclesiastes 3:1-13

Rev. Caela Simmons Wood

First Congregational UCC, Manhattan, KS

February 6, 2022

“Everything’s temporary.”

Two words that can call forth a whole torrent of emotions. 

If you’re sick and laid up in bed and miserable and every day seems like an eternity because you just can’t get comfortable, remaining yourself that “everything’s temporary” can feel like good news. This, too, shall pass, right? And soon enough you’re likely to feel better. 

Those two short words can be a balm. 

But if the person who is laid up in bed is your beloved parent or grandparent and if you know that you don’t have much time left to sit by their sick bed because they are nearing the end of their life - well, then, “everything’s temporary” can make you feel a bit panicked. There isn’t enough time left to hold onto all this goodness and love before it undergoes a permanent change.

Those two short words can feel like a shock. 

And, of course, “everything’s temporary” isn’t quite true. Many of us humans would argue that SOME things are permanent - like God’s love or Christ’s presence or the refreshing, renewing wind of the Spirit. Sitting with the question, “what do I think is permanent?” is a wonderful prayer practice. You might try it sometime and find yourself surprised to discover the truths that lie inside of you. 

But MOST things are temporary. Even January of 2022, which, let’s be honest, must have been at least 3,589 days long, right? 

But we made it through. It came. It went. It did not last forever. 

Millennia ago, a person named Qoheleth wrote a treatise on everything being temporary. We don’t know much about Qoheleth, but the name means Teacher and the book, Ecclesiastes, is one of the newer books in the Hebrew scriptures, likely written between 300-200 BCE. 

I remember, when I was a child, that my father told me this was his favorite book in the Bible. In fact, I believe he said it was the only book he much liked at all. For that reason, I picked it up and read it. It’s not long. You could read the whole thing in one sitting if you’d like. I remember paging through it as a 10 or 11 year old and coming away scratching my head a bit. It’s certainly not like a lot of other books in the Bible. 

For one thing, there’s not much of a story. For another thing, it doesn’t explicitly say much about God. And for another thing, it seems like something someone could have written yesterday. It’s full of existential angst, wonderings, big picture questions. 

It feels like a really, deeply HUMAN book - with all our warts and all. It’s definitely not a pithy little “live laugh love” crossstich. It’s gritty and raw. I’ve heard people say it’s fatalistic or pessimistic, but when I read it I come away feeling like, “Yeah, someone gets it. This is real.” 

And how pessimistic can a book be if one of the major themes is to eat, drink, and be merry? There’s a lot of joy in this book mixed in with the hard stuff. Which is to say: it’s a lot like LIFE. 

Qoheleth says, “What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done; there is nothing new under the sun.” And I suppose that can feel hopeless - like perhaps no progress can be made. But it can also be quite comforting to know that what we’re experiencing has been experienced by others before and that our troubles and celebrations and difficulties and accomplishments are all part of one long, eternal, unending duet between humanity and the divine. 

Over and over again, Qoheleth’s refrain is that life is hevel. Which is Hebrew for breath or vapor. 

A translator somewhere extrapolated that into “vanity.” 

“Vanity of vanities, says the Teacher. All is vanity.”. 

Hevel has also been rendered pointless, useless, futile - yikes. I guess you can see why some people find this book pessimistic. The Message renders it more literally: “Smoke, nothing but smoke. It’s all smoke.”

Smoke, vapor, breath - these things are fleeting, ephemeral, evanescent. 

Temporary. 

I don’t know about you, but winter is a time when I often forget that things are temporary. It’s my least-favorite season (no offense to anyone who loves it - you do you) and when I’m on day 3,588 of January, I can start to forget that this isn’t forever. That this, too, shall pass. 

12 years ago in the wintertime, I was hugely pregnant and having a hard time remembering that everything wasn’t forever. I was so eager to meet our new child and so deeply, deeply tired of being pregnant. I was ready to fast-forward to the next good thing. I was done with winter. Done with waiting.

And then the snow came. It snowed every day for a couple of weeks in Indiana that year, I think. My due date came and went. Still no baby. And every morning I would wake up to hear David shoveling our driveway, God bless him, what a guy. He wanted it to be clear, of course, so we could safely make our way to the hospital. 

Every day was the same. Open my eyes. Still pregnant. Scrape, scrape, scrape of the snow shovel outside. 

Of course, it WASN’T forever. Eventually, after 3,589 days of waiting, our sweet baby arrived. And I’ll never forget how surprised I felt when, just a few weeks later, I was out for a walk with this astounding, amazing, incredible new human being. Just snuggled up tightly against me in a wrap and I was wearing only a light jacket. Because it was - quite suddenly, and quite surprisingly - spring. 

Winter hadn’t been forever. Not at all. How had I forgotten this?

Qohelet didn’t forget. Qohelet reminds us that nothing is forever. That life itself is ephemeral, evanescent, fleeting. There is a time for everything under the sun. 

A time for the scraping of driveways and a time for the melting of snow. 

A time for waiting and a time for fulfillment. 

A time for welcoming new life and a time for saying goodbye to our elders.

A time for tears and a time for giggles.

A time for mourning and a time for dancing. 

A time for peace and even a time for war. 

And as much as we don’t want there to be a time for war or hate or any of the painful things that the Teacher includes in this book….we can’t help but look at these old, old words on the page and feel “Yes. That’s true. This describes the beautiful complexity of being human. It’s all here. All these things. The good, the bad and everything in between.”

Vapor, smoke, breath. Here and then gone again. 

Just like the snow that covered the ground earlier this week. 

If you go out on a walk this afternoon- and if you happen to look up while walking under a tree you might notice buds. The leaves and flowers are there waiting, you know. Curled up tight still, but there. They remind us that although January 2022 may have seemed 3,589 days long, it actually did come to an end. Just like winter will. And spring after that. And summer after that. And Autumn, too. 

It all keeps turning. And God is in the turning. And we keep turning with it. That’s what the song says, right? “To everything (turn, turn, turn) -  There is a season (turn, turn, turn) -  And a time to every purpose under heaven.”

And so we are invited to join in the dance and keep turning. 

To turn up the volume on our favorite song and dance our little hearts out. 

To turn down the covers and crawl under warm sheets on a cold winter’s night. 

To turn our faces up and feel the warmth of the sun kissing our cheeks. 

To turn inward and listen for the still small voice of Love within each of us. 

Tu turn out and speak up loudly for justice, for peace, for those who have been pushed aside and oppressed. 

To turn around and right past wrongs; to set our feet onto new pathways. 

To turn towards love, towards the breath of the Spirit making all things new, towards the Holy - which we find not only in heaven but right here on earth in each other's eyes. 

To turn, turn, and keep turning. 

Knowing that all of it - every last bit of our lives - is held within the eternal light of Christ, who is still making all things new. 

Thanks be to God.