Sunday, August 6, 2023
Spirit of Hope Lutheran Church, Lincoln, NE
Tenth Sunday after Pentecost (narrative lectionary)
watch this service online (reading starts around 23:22; children’s sermon starts around 29:14; sermon starts around 36:56)
Reading(s): Ecclesiastes 1:1-11, 3:1-17, (Luke 13:1-3)
For the children’s message before this sermon, I brought a little 3D printed figurine of the character Grogu (AKA Baby Yoda) from the show The Mandalorian that my brother had made. We talked about how a 3D printer makes something by tracing a pattern over and over and over and over in order to build up layers of plastic to make something. I asked them about what things in their life they do over and over — like eating or brushing teeth or going to school — and why. And I asked them about the things that we do together as church over and over — like praying, worshiping, serving, singing, etc. — and why. In both cases, we talked about health and growth and learning.
Generations of believers before us practiced many of the same faith practices we do over and over long before any of us were born. God’s people have been reading the same book for the last 2000 years! The author of our reading from Ecclesiastes says that people do the same things over and over from generation to generation, that there is nothing new under the sun. And while we can hear this in a hopeless way — that we’re doomed to be boring, just doing the same stuff over and over — we can also look at it like 3D printing. We’re building a foundation with every prayer, with every song or act of service, a foundation building up the body of Christ, building up our relationship with God and with our neighbor.
“Vanity of vanities, all is vanity!” “What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done; there is nothing new under the sun.” “All things are wearisome, more than one can express…” Okay, Eeyore.
Out of all the books of the bible, I think Ecclesiastes is probably the one that most clearly reflects just how long all these texts were written before the invention of antidepressants. (lol)
It’s very easy to experience Ecclesiastes as kind of a downer of a book. These verses that we read today are not an anomaly – Ecclesiastes has 12 chapters, and pretty much all of them sound like this. The book’s author comes across as being very cynical and pessimistic about the things that humans do. He keeps coming back to this refrain that there’s “nothing new under the sun.” In his eyes, the human race is basically just living out a large scale version of the movie “Groundhog Day” – each generation just keeps repeating the same patterns and cycles of the generation before them, and the generation before that. There’s nothing that we do that hasn’t been done before.
But despite this kind of discouraging and fatalistic tone that Ecclesiastes has, there is actually some really good news in it – good news especially for us, for people who are living in these particular days. And, ironically, the good news is actually in some of these very things that the author is lamenting.
This time we live in is a wild time to be alive. So much keeps changing, and so fast – especially with technology – and we can often find ourselves struggling to keep up. I’ve only been here half a month, and already I’ve heard several of you talk about the struggles and growing pains you’ve had with technology here in this congregation.
And of course, this isn’t limited to technology. In just the last five years alone, we have experienced historic elections, historic flooding, a historic civil rights movement, historic actions on climate change, a historic labor movement, and of course, a historic global freaking pandemic – and I’m sure I’m forgetting to mention some other “historic” things. We thought we’d seen everything when we elected a reality TV star to be our president – and then along came 2020 like, “Hold my beer.” And again and again we’ve heard the same refrain: that this or that is “unprecedented” – that these challenges we’ve faced are “unprecedented” – that we have wandered into uncharted territory where no one’s ever gone before.
But the author of Ecclesiastes would no doubt push back against all this hype about “unprecedented” times. It’s true the particular details of the issues we deal with might be unique to our situation, but none of it is wholly new. Before we struggled with the impact of social media and remote technology on our lives, previous generations struggled with the impact of technology on their lives – technology like TV and radio, the advent of cars, electricity, the printing press – even the written word once upon a time, if you can believe that!
Before we lived through the Covid-19 pandemic, generations before us lived through Spanish flu and smallpox and cholera. We have writings from Martin Luther himself about life in a pandemic during an outbreak of bubonic plague! In 1527, he wrote about his frustration with people who refused to take the whole thing seriously, writing:
“They are much too rash and reckless, tempting God and disregarding everything which might counteract death and the plague. They disdain the use of medicines; they do not avoid places and persons infected by the plague, but lightheartedly make sport of it and wish to prove how independent they are. They say that it is God’s punishment; if he wants to protect them he can do so without medicines or our carefulness.”
Martin Luther
Sounds eerily familiar, doesn’t it? There is nothing unprecedented under the sun.
But that, in and of itself, is actually good and comforting news. It might depress us to realize how often human beings have struggled with the same problems over and over throughout the course of our history. But it’s also hopeful to recognize that we’re still here. Every single challenge humanity has faced, we have survived. In every generation, we have found ways to adapt and to keep moving forward.
And that means that we have generations of wisdom to draw on from those who came before us. We stand on a foundation built by the experience of previous generations – both their successes and their mistakes. And even as we learn, we are adding on our own new layer of wisdom and mistakes to pass on to those who will come after us.
But greatest of all, what we have is a faithful God – a God who has walked with God’s people throughout all their many generations. It is God’s steadfast presence and love that make it possible for us to persevere and to find hope. God helps us stay centered and grounded in seasons of upheaval and change. And in God, we are able to find the way to move forward.
And this is the point that even the author of Ecclesiastes gets around to eventually. He writes, “Though sinners do evil a hundred times and prolong their lives, yet I know that it will be well with those who fear God.” There is simply no challenge we could possibly face that God hasn’t seen before. There is no obstacle God could not help us overcome.
God is with us, just as God has been with all the faithful who have come before us. God lifts us up beyond the limitations of our human lives and calls us to be part of the work that God is doing. God provides for our needs in every season; and also, as the author of Ecclesiastes writes, God gives each of us work to do that we may find joy in doing.
For everything, there is a season, and I know that this season that we are beginning is a season of transition; it’s a season of gracefully letting go of what was, so that we may open ourselves to receive and prepare for whatever may come next. To be truthful with you, I don’t really know exactly what that’s going to look like. This congregation has never gone through a transition like this before. And I’ve never been a transitional pastor before!
But I do know that this is well-traveled territory. There is so much wisdom we can draw on – from our siblings in Christ around the Nebraska Synod and from all those who came before us. There are so many gifts and vocations with which God has blessed this congregation; and there are many opportunities for ministry, many different paths we could take. Our task now is to watch and listen for where God may be leading us, to pay attention to the stirring of the Spirit – to notice where in our ministry we feel deep joy bubbling up, to see where in our community there is some deep hunger. I have no doubt that God will show us the way that God would have us go – “I know it will be well with those who fear God” – because that’s the way this story always goes, the way this story always has gone, time and time again.
This is the Day 
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