Sermon given by Rev. Frank Clarkson, September 15, 2024.

I like to begin a memorial service with these words from Ecclesiastes:

To everything there is a season, 
and a time to every purpose under heaven:
A time to be born, and a time to die…
A time to weep, and a time to laugh;
a time to mourn, and a time to dance.

They express a timeless truth, that there is a time for everything, a time to mourn, and a time to dance. There are seasons in our lives; times of growth and expansion and happy excitement, and times of loss and sadness and decline. A good life has both, doesn’t it? I experienced a condensed version of this yesterday: the memorial service for Barbara Gove in the morning, a wedding in the afternoon. A time to mourn and a time to dance.

Our worship theme for September is “Seasons.” Which I sense as a time to look not only at the seasons of the year, but at the seasons of our lives. The church year has seasons too, and I love how they tend to follow those of the natural world. The light shining in the darkness at Christmas, the inward journey of Lent as winter drags on, the coming of Easter just as the promise of spring is arriving. 

As I get older, and recall those who have died, so many dear souls, the word that comes to my mind is “sobering.” It’s sad and sobering to contemplate our losses, to acknowledge our own mortality. So some of us just don’t do it! We push away the sad parts, which is normal and understandable. And our society conspires with us in this—we’re taught that joy is more welcome and accepted than sorrow. You know the expression: “When you laugh, the whole world laughs with you. When you weep, you weep alone.”

But is it true? No, of course not. This is one of the reasons we have this community, and this sanctuary. Just look at all the Kleenex around here! If nothing else, this is a safe place to cry, and this congregation is a good place to share your sorrows. I’ve long believed that tending to our darker emotions is deep and important work, and a way to a fuller and happier life. Over the years I’ve seen so many people tear up, and then apologize for it. Maybe because they don’t want to make anyone else uncomfortable? But aren’t tears and sobs a blessing, an authentic expression of your emotions rising to the surface?

I have a minister friend who serves in northern Vermont, where Yankee frugality and stoicism are practically an art form. He told me about a visit to a church elder in the hospital. Sitting at this man’s bedside, they were talking about his decline and what lay ahead, when a single tear ran down that old man’s face. A moment later, that old Yankee broke the silence, saying, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to get all emotional on you.”

The invitation is to live as fully as you can into the season that you’re in. You many not love the darkening days of fall or the cold of winter, and it’s good to find ways to cope if they are hard for you. But does it work to pretending that those days aren’t here, when they are? It’s better to face what is, and embrace it, as much as you can, while it’s here. Easier said than done, but something worth paying attention to, right? The farmer and poet Wendell Berry put it this way: “At night make me one with the darkness, in the morning make me one with the light.”

Farmers and gardeners know something about seasons; so do birdwatchers and astronomers. If find this so attractive—these reminders to pay attention to what is going on right now, to be here, in this present moment. To soak in what is, whether that’s enjoying a sunny day or struggling through a sad time. Because all of it is fleeting. There are birds to be watched and fish to be fished for and tomatoes and corn to be enjoyed, each in their season, because they won’t be here forever. And this fact makes them even more precious, doesn’t it?

A couple of days ago I saw this headline in the New York Times: “September is a Summer Month.” The line under that read, “Die-hard fans of the season say the best part starts after Labor Day.” It was a carpe diem kind of story, about people enjoying the warm and beautiful days of this month that we’re having right now. 

Years ago I stopped by to see a minister in his church office in mid-August. He was a tightly wound kind of guy. I said something about trying to suck the marrow out of the waning days of summer. He turned to his desk, with papers neatly stacked, and everything in its place, and smiled and said, “As far as I’m concerned, summer’s over.” That made me kind of sad.

One of the people quoted in that NY Times article shared this message he found several years ago on social media:

“Dear Everyone: Labor Day is NOT the ‘End of Summer.’ I don’t care if there are pumpkin spice lattes to be had and school supplies to be bought. Summer doesn’t end for weeks. Let’s stop rushing through the season.”

This must be why I feel annoyed when there’s candy corn and other Halloween candy on the shelves of the grocery store in August, for God’s sake! I want to stand up on a soapbox and say, “Stop the madness! Boycott candy corn until October! Stick it to the man who’s top trying to pull us into a future that’s not here yet! Be here now!”

That’s my simple message for us today: be here now, while we can. 

As we just sang, ours is an earth forever turning. Bringing sunlight and darkness, warmth and cold, winter and summer. It’s the same with our lives, though these human-level changes come on a less predictable schedule than the seasons of spring, summer, fall, and winter. And the invitation is, always, to be present to them, as much as you’re able.  

You hear this in Mary Oliver’s poem that we just heard. Try and picture her, on an autumn day, walking out into the woods where she lived on Cape Cod, to one of those ponds she loved to visit:

Look, the trees
are turning
their own bodies
into pillars

of light,
are giving off the rich
fragrance of cinnamon
and fulfillment,

the long tapers
of cattails
are bursting and floating away over
the blue shoulders

of the ponds,
and every pond,
no matter what its
name is, is

nameless now.
Every year
everything
I have ever learned

in my lifetime
leads back to this: the fires
and the black river of loss
whose other side

is salvation,
whose meaning
none of us will ever know.
To live in this world

you must be able
to do three things:
to love what is mortal;
to hold it

against your bones knowing
your own life depends on it;
and, when the time comes to let it go,
to let it go.

We do, in our lifetimes, live and learn and practice this being mortal. We do learn how to hold on, and let go. How to love and to be loved. We do, I hope, sense that there is more to life that what we can see and make sense of. A spirit that abides, even and especially in times of pain and loss. The sense that we are part of something that is more. I hope that you have this hope, because it will comfort you in sorrow, and companion you in joy. It will help you to keep holding your heart open, and holding what is mortal against your bones, through the seasons of your life. Through the changes and the chances of it all. 

“The letter fails, the systems fall, and every symbol wanes;
the Spirit overseeing all, Eternal Love, remains.”

Now and forever,

Amen.