Readings:
Ecclesiastes 3:1-11
Luke 9:18-22
Reflection:
Ecclesiastes – “there is a time for everything”. Takes me back automatically to a different significant time for my generation` -Joan Baez singing Turn, Turn, Turn’ in moratorium marches in the late 60s- 70s.
The reading speaks of the many different times in our lives, each period asks something different from us. And offering something different to us. This year is not last year. Next week is not this week. I am not who I was at 14, or 20, or 40, or 70 . Life changes, and we change with it.
But! Something of who I was remains. Something of the 14 year-old, the 20 year-old, the 40year-old and the 70 year-old is still alive, making up and enriching the person I am now. Nothing get’s lost. When we see an old black and white photo of ourselves at a friends 21st, or hear a favourite song from teenage, and we think: “Where have the years gone?” Well, that’s a sure sign the years haven’t gone at all.
This is where God meets us: who I am and where I am now. There is not one answer for the whole of our lives, one right way that remains unchanged. Nor one moment left behind. God meets us today, but there is more to ‘today’ than meets the eye. Time builds upon time, season upon season.
In the Gospel, Jesus asks, “Who do people say that I am?” The apostles answer John the Baptist, Elijah, one of the prophets. Then Peter says, “The Christ of God.” But it’s not as Peter gets it right, and the others wrong. There is something true in each of respnses. There is something of the prophet in Jesus, something of Elijah, something of John’s courage and urgency. Each sees something real in Jesus. Each brings something of their own story to the gospel moment
So too for each of us. God has met us differently at different times of our lives. What mattered deeply when we were twenty may not be what matters most at seventy. But something of each differing moment of our relationship with God remains alive. In every encounter there are many different faces of Christ, and the mane faces of my own that I bring.
So, yes, there is a time for everything. But nothing is wasted. God’s love for me, and my love for God just becomes ever more richly textured though all seasons of my life.
Tom McDonough CP is the parish priest and community leader at St. Paul of the Cross, Glen Osmond.