5th Sunday in Lent
March 29, 2020
Ecclesiastes 3:1-13
Busy: A Time for Every Matter
A Time to Refrain from Embracing
When I was in seminary at Duke, I read the daily
university newspaper. One op-ed column stands out in my memory for its title,
“Life at 72 Degrees.” It talked about how office buildings, and university buildings,
are kept at 72 degrees Fahrenheit year round, regardless of the outside
weather. If you’re inside and away from a window, you have absolutely no idea
what the weather is like outside or even a clue as to the season, unless you
happen to see someone carrying an umbrella or a heavy coat. Office buildings
and university classrooms have evened out their climate control so that the
climate inside is always the same. Now, I don’t know about your house, but the
thermostat in my house is not set to 72 degrees year round. It’s colder
in the winter and warmer in the summer; we adjust it according to the seasons.
When we lose those seasons of life, then we come to believe that no time is
off-limits. When we don’t put boundaries around work and rest, then we’re never
“off” and our bodies can’t truly rest.
In the
church we have seasons, also. The church year begins with Advent, the four
weeks when we prepare for Jesus’ birth, the 12 days of the Christmas season,
followed by the season after Epiphany, when the wise men come following the
star. After Epiphany comes the season we’re currently in, Lent. This is
typically a time to prepare for Easter, to prepare for a massive celebration of
Jesus’s victory over death, resurrection. We do so by turning our hearts back
to God. We often give something up for Lent to help us refocus ourselves on
God, to reconnect with God. I’ve been seeing memes on Facebook from my clergy
colleagues about Lent this year. One said something like, “I didn’t know I’d
have to give up so much for Lent this year!” Another one said, “This is the Lentiest
Lent I’ve ever Lented.” I think I’ve subconsciously tried to make Lent end
early, like when I thought this Sunday was Palm Sunday, and a few of you
reminded me that no, we’ve got one more week. It happened again with the
sign-up for the prayer vigil; I originally put down the dates as being this
Friday and Saturday, and that even had a couple other sets of eyes on it before
one person emailed to say, Pastor Heather, Good Friday isn’t til April 10.
Drat. I don’t know about you, but I’m ready for this Lent to end. And the bad
news is that as a society, we’re going to stay in Lent after April 12. We will
not be resurrecting until at least May.
Here’s the thing about this Lent, we’re in a different
kind of Lent than most of us have ever been in before. We know the outside
season is spring. We know the church season is Lent. Let’s talk about the
season we’re in as a country. How would you describe this season? High anxiety?
Self-isolating? On edge? A time to “refrain from embracing,” to quote from
Ecclesiastes. We’re currently in a brand-new season that none of us have ever
been in before. There are similarities to other seasons like when you’re home sick,
or when schools and businesses close due to a blizzard; but still, this is
different. First times are higher anxiety, even when you’re prepared. Think
about when you drive somewhere new for the first time. It always feels like it
takes longer to get there than it does to get home. That’s because first times
are always more stressful. And, times of isolation are always more stressful.
I’ve mentioned before that a previous Surgeon General
said there is a loneliness epidemic in America. Now, what’s funny about
loneliness is that it’s a feeling and a perception. You can feel lonely while
in a crowd of people just as much as you can feel lonely in a house by
yourself. A study from a year ago found that “Two in five Americans report that
they sometimes or always feel their social relationships are not meaningful,
and one in five say they feel lonely or socially isolated.”[1]
And that was before we had to keep six feet apart from each other if not stay
in our homes! “About a quarter of older adults fit the definition of socially
isolated — which measures routine social contact — and 43 percent said they
felt lonely. You can be socially isolated without reporting feelings of
loneliness, and you can be lonely without being socially isolated.”[2]
But here’s the problem, “human beings evolved to feel safest in groups, and as
a result, we experience isolation as a physical state of emergency.”[3]
Moreover, whether in isolation or not, all feelings of loneliness cause stress
and sustained stress is never good for our overall health.
This brings us to the problem with the phrase “social
distancing.” I tried to look into the history and origin of the phrase, to see
if it predates social media, because it only makes sense if it does. During
other pandemics, like the Spanish flu of 1918, isolation meant social
isolation. There was no internet. There was no telephone. If you were keeping
your physical distance in order to not get sick, then you were also keeping
your physical distance. Today, however, isolation does not mean social
isolation, it simply means physically distancing yourself. We have so many ways
to stay connected socially without having to be in person. I’ve seen memes
reminding you that your cell phone can also be used as a telephone! You know
I’ve increased my phone calls as I check in on each of you. We’re doing
Facebook Live. Another option is video conference calls when then we could all
see each other, rather than y’all only seeing me. During this season when we
refrain from embracing and being out in public, it is important that we remain
as connected as possible. It will help our physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual
health. Remember, our Lent theme has been to reconnect with an unhurried God.
To compensate for fewer in-person social interactions, we have to increase our
virtual communication and remember that phone calls, where you can hear each
other’s voices, are richer than texting or emailing. One other meme I saw was
about how learning how King Henry VIII of England responded to an epidemic
explained a lot about him. King Henry VIII, of course, is the one famous for
his 6 wives and for splitting from the Roman Catholic Church to create the
Church of England in order to divorce his first wife. Well, a couple times
during his reign there was a sweating sickness epidemic, which had a 30-50%
mortality rate within 3 to 18 hours of first showing symptoms.[4]
In fear of catching it, King Henry VIII literally slept in a different bed
every night in order to avoid it. As I said, it explains a few things. Beloved,
this is a season that we will get through. And we will celebrate resurrection
on the other side when the stone is rolled away.
In talking about times and seasons, I struggled with what
other scripture passage to pair with Ecclesiastes 3, a time for every matter
under heaven. I came up with a few ideas, like how Jesus knew when it was time
for him to head to Jerusalem. In Matthew’s Gospel, he told his disciples three
times, it’s time to go to Jerusalem where I’m going to be handed over to the
chief priests and authorities and be put to death. Holy Week starts next
Sunday, so that seemed like good timing. There are the times in John’s Gospel
when Jesus says it’s not my time, like when his mother asks him to turn water
into wine, and Jesus says it’s not my time, because this is the very beginning
of what’s called his public ministry, and his mom says please, and Jesus says
fine and gives instructions to the stewards for what becomes his first recorded
miracle. Then there’s after the resurrection, at the beginning of the book of
Acts when the disciples ask “Lord, is now the time?” Jesus, when is your time?
Well,
let’s go back to John’s prologue, chapter 1, verse 1, “In the beginning was the
Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the
beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that
has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The
light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” The Word
is Jesus. Jesus was there at the beginning. He’ll be there at the end. And he’s
there at all the times in between, too. Jesus is there when it’s a time to be
born and when it’s a time to die. He’s there in the planting and in the
harvesting. He’s there in the embracing and in the time to refrain from
embracing. Jesus is with you in old times and in news times. He does not ever
leave your side. Promise. So as you’re being a good citizen and keeping your
physical distance, Jesus is there with you, too. You are never alone. When you
feel lonely (not if, but when, because I think it’s going to
happen to all of us at one point or another during this pandemic), when you
feel lonely, pray. Ask Jesus to remind you of his presence. Ask him to give you
the name of a person you can call and connect with so you feel less lonely. If
you're really not sure, call me. I am your person to call if you don’t think
you have one. This is part of a pastor’s job during a pandemic. I stay
connected to God to help you connect to God. I practice different
stress-relievers to stay calm so that I can pass on to you that feeling of
calmness. I’m calling a couple of you each day to connect with you (and hear
different voices!), yet if you are not feeling connected and I haven’t
contacted you yet, please reach out to me first. I’m here. Jesus is the light
that shines in the darkness and the darkness does not, cannot, overcome it. In
many ways this is a dark season that we’re living through. But it cannot
extinguish Jesus’ light. Let that light shine through you. Reconnect to that
light if you’ve lost sight of it. That’s my job, too – to stay connected to the
light, point the way to the light, so that you can remember it’s there, also.
No matter how bad the time gets.
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