There is a time for everything, and a season for every purpose under heaven: a time to be born and a time to die … (Ecclesiastes 3:1-14).

This week we’ll finish up our Way of Wisdom series and lay some groundwork for the next series (but no spoiler alerts from us!).  Ecclesiastes 3:1-14 (for those of a certain age, cue The Byrds’ “Turn, Turn, Turn”) will be our focus text this week.

This may be a familiar passage, but it raises some interesting questions.  Is there really “a time to kill (verse 3) … to hate (verse 8) … for war (ditto)”?  And no fair “spiritualizing” these words: while it is true that we should “put to death” (kill) whatever is ungodly in us, and we ought to “hate” sin, and that we are involved in “spiritual warfare”, this is not what the passage is talking about.

We certainly understand that these terrible things happen – and seemingly all the time!  Is Ecclesiastes teaching a kind of fatalism – “whatever will be, will be?”  Or that it is God’s will, at least some of the time, that we kill, hate and make war on each other or on some other “others”?

Modern Westerners (that would be us) have been described as the people who always know what time it is, but have little idea what time is for.  For us, time is something we can take, spend, set aside, kill, waste, invest – “time” is pretty much a “resource” we can use, according to our agenda and will.

But perhaps God designed time to be the condition in which we pursue the “good” parts of this passage, and seek to lessen the “bad” ones.  In other words, what if God has given us the twenty-four hours of this day to plant, heal, build, laugh and dance, give and receive hugs, seek the LORD, mend and make peace?  Yes, of course: all the bad things are also to be expected.  Until Kingdom come, humans will find reasons to uproot, kill, tear down, weep and mourn, scatter, throw away and the rest.

What if the purpose and meaning of time are to help us learn what God is doing, what humans are doing, and how we, as people of God, should handle ourselves in the light of this?

Perhaps our passage is a call to attentiveness to God, to costly obedience, to faithful action, even if those actions don’t work out the way we hoped?  What if, in the face of times of killing, hatred and war, our call is to pursue healing, love and shalom?

Perhaps it is not our job to prevent all the bad things from happening, but instead to show something of God’s heart in the face of them?  And when the good things come, to give thanks to the One from whom they come?

What if that is what today is for?  What if that is what time it really is?  How would you like to respond?