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Notes From a Sermon: For Everything There is a Season

Notes From a Sermon: For Everything There is a Season

Last updated on: January 28, 2025 at 8:20 pm by Jim Meisner Jr.

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Notes From a Sermon: For Everything There is a Season 2025-01-28T20:20:43-05:00 Jim Meisner Jr.

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The sermon for Dec. 29, 2024, is from Ecclesiastes 3:1-13, and is entitled, “For Everything There is a Season.”

Today’s scripture reminds us that there is a time for everything. A time to ponder the past, and a time to focus on the future. A time and a season for everything.

In verse 11, it says, 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.”

“He has put a sense of past and future into their minds.” What does that mean? It means our minds and thoughts wander among the shadowy memories of all of our yesterdays. It means we imagine the future. We imagine the future, sometimes in a bad way. We anticipate and sometimes try to avoid the pain of things we know may be painful. We sometimes succumb to moments of doubt and fear. We surrender to worry, with a sense of future in our minds, put there by God.

And what do our worries, cares, and concerns gain us? Happiness? Joy? A minute longer added to our lives? One more breath on this earth?

Look at the beautiful birds in the trees, Jesus says, and listen to their songs. These wonderful, colorful birds have no homes, and yet they sing songs of joy to one another and hymns of praises to their creator. If the birds don’t worry, Jesus says, then why should you?

There is a time for everything, scripture tells us. But there’s no time, and no need, Jesus says, for worry. All good things, in all good time.

Some today, are glad to see the year end: 2025 can’t get here fast enough. The year has been hard, a struggle. The headlines and news, overwhelming. Some of us have experienced sadness and loss this year, and think, ‘good riddance to 2024.’

Others, are sad to see these final days of 2024. They remember joys and successes, achievements and accomplishments, all slowly fading to happy memories to be revisited again and again.

Every today is a transition, a moving forward towards the unknown of tomorrow. We don’t know what tomorrow will bring, some say, but let it come. Let tomorrow come.

Finances and romances. Births and deaths. Stressors and pressures. Distractions so distracting that we forget what’s actually important.

The world tells us this is important, and that is important. Society says occupy your mind with this idea and worry about that. Our own hearts tell us what’s important. The Creator of Heaven and Earth writes upon our souls the things that are truly important. Make time for this, our hearts say, it is not time for that.

Sometimes we feel conflict in our spirits, because we are living as the world says to live, and not living aligned with God. We focus on the wrong things.

The scripture tells us to focus on one thing at a time, when it’s the time to focus on that one thing. “For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven.”

All time for God is now. Yesterday, today and tomorrow are as one. We have a sense of past and a sense of future in our minds, but for the Lord, there is only now. God doesn’t move from page to page, day to day, the way we do. God moves outside of time. For God, there is no yesterday or tomorrow – only the eternal now.

These words from Ecclesiastes remind us that there is a time for everything. But these words also are a reminder to try to follow God’s example, and be present in each moment, experience the now. Enjoy this moment, don’t worry about the past moment. Pay no mind to the next moment, be present in this moment, this time. Right now.

It’s not easy. We live in interesting times. Difficult days, for many of us. Record high homelessness. Prices rise, and corporate profits and CEO compensation increase even faster. And yet the Federal minimum wage of $7.25 hasn’t increased since July, 2009. Congress just voted themselves a pay raise, but there’s no raise for our neighbors running cash registers or stocking shelves.

Politicians and cable channels and corporate advertisers want us to be angry and afraid and upset with people we don’t know, about issues that really don’t make a difference in our lives, to distract us from what’s really going on – more money in the pockets of the CEOs, and more IOUs in our pockets.

For example, how many transgender people have you met? That you were aware of? How many trans people have you interacted with in the past six months? Before the election, you saw all sorts of stories on the news about trans students in locker rooms and trying to compete in sports.

There are more than 500,000 student athletes in the NCAA across the country. How many do you think are trans? Nearly half the states in the country passed anti transgender legislation last year. And we hear on the news about transgender competitors in sports, so of the half a million NCAA college athletes, how many are transgender? Fewer than 40. 40 people out of more than half a million. More Americans are personally affected by lightning strikes, than they are transgender athletes. So, what is really important?

Politicians and cable news channels and radio talk shows whip people into a frenzy, to distract us from real issues that really affect our lives.

They tell us lies that we know with our own eyes aren’t true, but we come to believe them, because the lies get repeated so many times, that the truth no longer matters, if it’s remembered at all.

Politicians tell us that Spanish speaking people from Ecuador, Honduras, Guatemala, or Mexico are streaming into the United States – massive migrations, especially around election time – streaming into the United States, to take our tax dollars and get stuff for free. That’s what the politicians say, that’s what people say online. Donald Trump said that immigrants were eating people’s pets. Immigrants eating people’s cats and dogs. Donald Trump was lying, of course. Immigrants don’t eat people’s dogs and cats. Repeat the lie often enough, and the truth will get drowned out.

Politicians and cable news lie about immigrants, and they want us to believe the lies. Believe the lies, not what we see with our own eyes.

And what do we see with our own eyes? Spanish speaking men climbing all over this roof, working hard and fast and doing a good job, for an employer who trusts them and whom we trust to do the work well and at the quoted price.

What do we see with our own eyes? Spanish speaking neighbors and their kids passing us in the aisle at Walmart – mothers and children. Families. Just like ours.

What do we see with our own eyes? Families sitting quietly, eating at another table across the restaurant. Families, just like ours. Our neighbors.

Politicians and cable news tell us to fear these people, our neighbors. And I just can’t do that, because the Bible says to love them. Jesus says to love them.

In the coming months and throughout 2025, Present Trump intends to spend billions of our tax dollars to arrest and deport our neighbors who don’t have the proper paperwork. Six months from now, the men who installed our new roof could all be deported to other countries, along with their wives and children. Their children, born here in Virginia, in the United States, may be deported to foreign countries they’ve never been to. Never even heard of.

Some of our neighbors are not looking forward to 2025.

Last week, I talked about commitment. I asked what our commitment to God looks like.

What sort of country would we have, I asked, if American Christians actually loved Christ, and loved others, loved our neighbors, more than we love our country? What sort of world would we live in, if we all lived the way Christ tells us to live?

What would happen if more of us followed the law of the Lord, and not the law of the land? What would our nation be if we loved our neighbors, the way Jesus tells us? What does committing to Christ, mean? What does it look like? What will it look like, in 2025?

I ask again, how are we willing to respond to the new born baby who tells us to love God and love others? How committed are we in our commitment to Christ?

How is God calling us to respond? What is Christ calling us to do? I asked that last week, and I’m asking it again this week, because I’ve been asking myself this question. I’ve been praying deeply about it. What is Christ calling me to do? What does God want me to do? How do I, personally, respond?

What am I willing to do, to respond to God’s calling?

There is a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance. A time to keep and a time to throw away. There is a time to build and a time to breakdown. A time to keep silent, and a time to speak.

In the coming year, there will be hard times. There will be difficulties and disappointments. There will be frustrations and failures. There will be tragedies, as well as triumphs.

2025 will bring untold joys, countless moments of happiness. Celebrations and graduations. Achievements and accomplishments. Growth and gratitude.

Let us thank God for the opportunity to celebrate each season of our lives, and the lives of our loved ones and friends. To pause and consider the joys and sorrows for what they are, as they unfold.

I believe this, with all my heart. And I encourage you, with all my heart, to give thanks to God for all things in all times. The good and the bad. The sun and the rain. The shadows and the sunlight.

And, I encourage you to seriously struggle with how God is calling you to respond. What is Christ calling you to do?

As I said, I’ve been grappling with these questions, myself. What is God calling me to do. What is Christ calling me to do?

Scripture says there is a time for everything, and my time here at Poole Christian Church has come to an end. Just as the Lord brought me here, I believe God has called me to leave this church.

My friend John will be here next week. I have a list of others who can fill the pulpit going forward.

I’m not leaving to pastor another church. I’m going to go sit in other pews, in other churches, in other places and other spaces. And listen for the still, small voice of God.

I’m looking for full-time jobs in Northern Virginia. God willing, I’ll get a job in D.C. in the next few months, and we’ll move closer to my daughter.

And so, now is the time. The time to say thank you. Thank you for your support and your friendship and love. Thank you for inviting me and my daughter and I into the life of this congregation. Thank you.

God bless you. God be with you.

Now that I no longer serve a church, I’d LOVE to visit your church or any group of you and your like-minded friends and fellow seekers. Send me a message.

Faith on the Fringe