“God in the Summer”
June 21, 2009 

Ezekiel 17:22-24
Mark 4:26-34 

One of the distinguishing features of Congregational hymnals is the number hymns on the subject of changing seasons. You can find them in the old Pilgrim Hymnal , from which our first hymn this morning was taken. You can find them in The New Century Hymnal . And our own hymnal contains some of these as well , even though it was published by the Presbyterians, who also take note of the earth tilted on its axis and revolving around the sun and the changes that brings to so many of us . 

When we sing, we take note of the cycles of the sun and the moon and the earth. And today we sa ng with joy that “the summer days have come again.”

In part this is an echo of our past, rooted in the Hebrew S criptures that praised God for appointing “the moon to mark the seasons;” that announced in the well-known words of Ecclesiastes: “For everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven.” Our faith has long recognized that the world changes and we change as well. Each new season brings new opportunities and new challenges.

While we in the United Church of Christ affirm that God is revealed to us through the S criptures and uniquely in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, our hymns suggest that we can also understand something of the Holy One through the natural world as it changes through the year.

We’re not naïve about this. The beauty of spring and the fullness of summer bring with them the destructive power of tornadoes, storms, and hurricanes. We know quite well here in Iowa City , that the cold of winter, during which one hymn tells us “love deepens round the hearth,” also increases the problems of hunger and homelessness. And in recent years all seasons seem to be a time for war rather than a time for peace.

So if God is to be discovered in the changing seasons, we know that we often have to look carefully.

This is the real theology behind our hymns about the seasons.

Discerning what God is doing in the world and in our lives and our congregation is difficult work. Try as we will, as the author of Ecclesiastes tells us, we cannot find out what God is doing from the beginning to the end. We have to be content with seeing only a short distance ahead, like traveling in a car down a winding road at night.

When asked about God, Jesus pointed to those things that were known, those things that were seen, those things that were common to everyone’s experience. More often than not, this meant that Jesus spoke about things in nature.

“Consider the lilies of the field,” he advised those who were curious about life before God. “Consider the birds of the air.” The first step in our search for God is not to remove ourselves from the world, but to immerse ourselves in the life that is all around us: in plants, in animals, in children playing, in men and women working and loving.

Instead of speaking directly about God, Jesus tells of a sower spreading seed on the ground, something many of us have either done or watched . We hear of the earth, how, with the blessing of the rain and the sun, it produces “of itself, first the blade, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear.”

Growth occurs slowly.

Growth occurs surely.

Just as slowly and surely the tiny mustard seed grows to become the greatest of all shrubs, providing shade and shelter for even the large birds.

Common, ordinary events. Yet it is in events such as these that we learn about God. It is from watching these events that we can begin to see the slow but sure work of God in the world. What God is developing in us and in this congregation and in the world does not appear overnight. It is more like a plant or a tree growing—constantly, usually imperceptibly.

The problem is, m ost of us are busy, somewhat impatient people. What we want, we want now . Like that sign in so many offices we say: “If I wanted it tomorrow I would have ordered it yesterday !”

To wait for Go d’s work to unfold around us lik e a growing tree, or grain in the field, stretches our patience to the limits.

The result of all our busyness is that we aren’t really awake or aware in our everyday lives.

A Buddhist monk recalled how the Japanese people have traditionally taken two or three hours to drink a cup of tea. They know what the tea really is, and they know what the presence of each other really means to them.

Think about that the next time you drive through McDonald’s or stop someplace else for a quick cup of coffee. Think about it as you rush through Rockwood Hall this morning, during coffee “hour” to get to the next place you’re supposed to be. (Can you imagine what it would be like if we actually stayed around for an hour and talked with each other once a week? The old Beatles lyrics speak for most of us: “Found my way downstairs and drank a cup/Looking up, I noticed I was late.”)

We don’t have the time for one another. We don’t make the time to know our great joys, our deep fears, our high hopes, our real hurts. We want to make decisions and move on.

This past week I found mysel f unexpectedly thinking about a neighbor who lived across the street from me when I was growing up. He was my friend’s father and was pretty much known for smoking, drinking, and swearing like a sailor. He was a Lutheran, I think, and I don’t know, he might have also been a prophet.

We lived on a street that led to a large subdivision, so there was a lot of traffic—people coming home, people heading out to work or appointments or shopping. And a lot of the people drove pretty fast down that street. (Forty years ago people were already in a hurry.) During the summer, this neighbor would sit on his porch or stand in his front yard and yell, “Slow Down!” at most of the passing cars. Over time, all the kids in the neighbo rhood (and there were many) joined in yelling, “Slow Down!” at anyone who dared to go beyond what we considered a reasonable speed.

From the vantage point of many years and being a parent myself , I can see my neighbor in a different light. He was concerned about the kids. He wanted to do something to protect them. He was thinking when others were thoughtless. Behind the façade there was compassion and concern.

Or maybe it wasn’t just the cars; maybe he sensed that life itself was going too fast.

Which is what I mean t by calling my neighbor a prophet. After all, a prophet doesn’t foretell the future. A prophet tells forth the word of God. And sometimes the word we need to hear is Slow Down! My guess is that your life is pretty busy and that you’re running from one thing to another. Look around and you might find that your kids are living that way, too.

When we look at the picture of Jesus in the Gospels, we see not only a busy Jesus, but also someone who knew how to Slow Down . He was able to stop in the push of a crowd in order to speak to one individual. He could pause in order to focus on what was important, not just what was urgent. He could take time out to pray.

It occurred to me that I thought of my neighbor this week because he died 40 years ago this summer. He was probably in his early 40’s at the time.

Our flurry of activity is one of the joys of life. We get pleasure from doing a lot, accomplishing a lot, and being with other people. At times, however, we need to Slow Down and bask in God’s good gift of time—time for doing nothing, time for family and friends, time for worship and prayer. Summer offers us the chance to at least practice going slower. Fall will be here—with all its demands—soon enough. Practice a little now so that you might know how to calm your life and your soul later.

T he summer offers us a wonderful opportunity to slow down, to look around, and to see one another and encounter God once more. If we feel like we are missing something in our lives—missing deep relationships, missing ourselves, missing God, then we need to start look again, in a new way.

The summer offers most of us the chance to get outdoors more comfortably and for longer periods of time. Warmer weather, more daylight hours make it seem as though there is a little more time available and that we can go places that are not as accessible during other parts of the year.

For some this means trips to other places. For some it might mean a Saturday hike. For others it is simply sitting in your backyard, listening to the birds of the air, considering the flowers .

This can also be a time for discovering God anew.

This summer, take the time that is given to enjoy this beautiful world in which we live. I’m not talking about anything hurried. Sit for a long time and look at what is planted in your yard. Take a slow walk into the deep woods. Float on cool waters. Become familiar again with your home, this earth.

Let nature tell you about itself and about its Creator. Hear the message that there is a season for everything and a time for every purpose under heaven.

Not everything that you discover will be pleasant. Nature will also tell you, if you listen and look long enough, that all things must pass, that we will die.

But listening, slowly, to the world around us, will make us more ready to care for the life that we have, the life with which we are entrusted. Understanding the earth is a first step toward caring for it, being stewards of the air and water and soil that are given to us.

Take time for all of this as a first step toward finding God. Living in relationship with God is as much about enjoyment as it is about duty and rules and words like “must” and “should.” Indeed, as the early Protestant Reformers reminded us, the chief ends of humankind are to love God and to enjoy God forever.

If we give ourselves some time to slowly enjoy the world, we will be open to finding God at work in all sorts of places. Once more the development of seed to blade to ear might speak to us of the wondrous acts of God in the world. Once more we might be able to look at other people—strangers or coworkers, spouses and friends, children and parents, members here—not as instruments to be used for one purpose or another but as human beings loved by God and created in God’s image.

Who knows, we might even be able to see some good and lovable parts of ourselves that we have been overlooking for some time. We might discover jut how loved we are in the sight of God.

All of this, as I said, does take time. It must not be rushed. But otherwise, it costs nothing. Like so much that is good in life—love, forgiveness, acceptance—it is priceless and free. We are surrounded by the glorious creation of a generous God. To know this God better, we can start anywhere.

God is waiting for us to come searching.

A ll the seasons of the year and of our lives can be op portunities to seek and to find.

What better time than now?

What better season than summer?