Ecclesiastes is read in the Jewish community during the feast of Sukkoth, a joyous pilgrimage festival that normally occurs in September or October. This festival underscores the precariousness of life and yet the joy to be found even in the enigmatic nature of life. Ecclesiastes focuses on the limits and contradictions of life in order to teach wisdom. Even the best life is limited in knowledge, virtue, and power, troubled by evil and injustice, and ultimately ended by death.
This morning’s antithetical pairings are a literary device to represent life’s totality and variety. Some scenarios may seem obviously good or bad, but time and/or circumstance can often invert the value of actions, for in everything there is a season.
The scripture reading this day comes from Ecclesiastes chapter three verses one through eight:
There’s a season for everything
and a time for every matter under the heavens:
a time for giving birth and a time for dying,
a time for planting and a time for uprooting what was planted,
a time for killing and a time for healing,
a time for tearing down and a time for building up,
a time for crying and a time for laughing,
a time for mourning and a time for dancing,
a time for throwing stones and a time for gathering stones,
a time for embracing and a time for avoiding embraces,
a time for searching and a time for losing,
a time for keeping and a time for throwing away,
a time for tearing and a time for repairing,
a time for keeping silent and a time for speaking,
a time for loving and a time for hating,
a time for war and a time for peace.
For the Word of God in scripture, for the Word of God among us, and for the Word of God within us we say…Thanks be to God.
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