Family therapist and author, Virginia Satir, has said that, in her experience, there are two big questions that present themselves to every parent in one form or another:  (1) “What kind of human being do I want my child to become?” and  (2) “How can I go about making that happen?” (The New Peoplemaking, ch. 15,1988).

 

 

What good questions for parents to be asking!!!  Without a doubt, these are questions that Greg and June  reflect on deeply in their hearts and minds... in relation to Abigail, who was just baptized this morning.

 

 

Asking good questions is an important thing for parents to do.  It helps them pay attention to the things that matter most. Asking good questions is an important thing for us all to do.  But asking good questions is not always that easy. It's often much easier to ask unhelpful questions, like,  “Why am I such a loser?” or “What's wrong with you?” -- questions that wound and can lead us into downward spirals emotionally and spiritually.

 

 

Long ago, way back in medieval times, Thomas Aquinas suggested that it is the quality of the questions that we ask which cultivates true wisdom in our lives... because questions are like sprouting seeds in our mind... they keep stretching forward, searching for their solutions.. they keep searching, even when we are not consciously aware of it. So the kinds of questions that we (and others) plant in our minds is very important.  

 

 

Good questions, for Aquinas, were questions that arise not simply out of a vain curiosity, but from a thirst for eternal truth, from a desire for the goodness of God to be incarnated in our lives. Good questions, in a nutshell, are questions that guide us into becoming more like Christ –more secure in our relationship with God and with ourselves and with others.

 

 

So the question arises – how can we learn to ask really good questions?

 

 

How can Greg and June learn to ask the kinds of questions that will help them become wise parents to Abigail throughout her life, which is just getting started?  How can all of us, couples and single people,  retirees and busy working people, learn to ask the kinds of questions that will cultivate real wisdom in our lives?  And how about those among us struggling with illnesses of various kinds? Or those who find themselves enmeshed in conflicts with family members or neighbors or co-workers?  Or those who may have only a short time left to live? How can we all learn to ask good questions in our lives?

 

 

Fortunately, we have an ancient spiritual tool, which was purposely designed to help us learn how to ask life's most important questions. The “ancient tool” that I'm referring to is the Church Calendar. This unusual spiritual tool that was already being developed by the early church in  the 2nd century... By the 4th century it was essentially complete, and in the same basic form that we use today.

 

 

 

Today is a very special day in the Church Calendar. Today is the end of the Church Year.  The day that we journey and pray toward, all year long.  The day which celebrates the “Reign of Christ” in our lives, which is our ultimate end in the Church.

 

 

 

In this diagram on the screen,  you can see this final day marked off at the zenith, at the very top of the circle.

 

 

And you can see that, clearly, this was no ordinary calendar of months and days. Its purpose was rather to identify (mark off) the spiritual seasons of the soul, to help the early disciples learn how to keep asking key spiritual questions in a society, which was not very spiritually-centered at all.

 

 

As this circular calendar keeps revolving around and around, year after year ( of our lives ), we keep reflecting over and over again, on life's most crucial questions,  arranged into the five symbolic seasons of Advent, Epiphany, Lent, Easter, and the final and largest of the seasons,  the “Season After Pentecost,” which has gone by many names over the years.

 

 

We might say that, in a way, the calendar was created to “behave” like Jesus himself behaved in his role as a spiritual teacher...it continually raises the subtle spiritual questions – which no one else seems to be raising.  The questions which might otherwise not arise in a society with a narrow, materialistic horizon.  The Calendar for the early church was a tool for creating a spiritual culture, a set of meanings, a vision of life, that truly nourished their souls... in that spiritually bleak context of Roman-dominated society.

 

 

 

And still today we follow this ancient calendar for essentially the same reasons. So that, from the first moment of our baptism into the Body of Christ... to the last moment of our funeral service, we belong  to a community that is asking and finding solutions to..... the questions that really matter.

 

 

Today, on our Calendar, we celebrate the “Reign of Christ” in our lives.  Now...that sounds like a very Christian thing to do... but, we might well be asking, “What does that unusual phrase, “the 'reign of Christ' in our lives” actually mean?  

 

 

That's a good question.  It's not an easy question...... because discovering answers to that question is precisely what the other 364 days in the Church Calendar... are helping us to do all year long.

So, today, is a perfect day to look back and reflect for a few moments on the spiritual path that the Calendar has been leading us through over the past year.  Now, keep in mind, that we only begin to explore the many themes and questions of the calendar over the course of an entire year. So this morning, we will only briefly highlight 1 or 2 key questions contained in each of the seasons.....

 

 

...beginning with the season of Advent.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Actually, Epiphany is an old word used to describe this season. In the Western Church  we now usually call it the “Christmas Season.” But I thought I would use the older word, epiphany, here, because in some ways it is really more descriptive of the season.  “Epiphany” means “manifestation of the Divine.” It conveys the sense of light breaking through darkness.  It's not limited to just the birth of Jesus, which is only the beginning of the divine manifesting in his life.  Epiphany goes all the way up to the baptism of Jesus by John in the Jordan river... But whatever name we call this season by, the point of it is how we cultivate awareness of the ongoing reality of divine incarnation in the world.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And then we're back to the largest of the liturgical seasons, the “Season After Pentecost”, which culminates today, in the “Reign of Christ.”

 

 

 

Actually, the entire “Season after Pentecost” is about the “Reign of Christ” in our hearts and minds, which gets initiated by the Spirit at Pentecost.  This final season is, in a sense, the bringing it all together season – where, through surrendering to the Divine Spirit within us,  we actually live out, we actually come to embody, the truths of Advent, Epiphany, Lent, and Easter....  so that Christ is actually being made present in the world through us... It is in this final season of the soul that we realize in actual practice... that the very same Spirit that was in Jesus – enabling him to live the life he lived – is also within us.

 

 

The big question of the Season After Pentecost is: “How can we cooperate with the Spirit of God within us, so that the Reign of Christ is actually realized within us and within our world?” And, as you can imagine, reflecting on such an enormous question requires guidance and insights from all of the seasons.

And so the lectionary texts that we use for this largest of the liturgical seasons are a mixture of texts from all the seasons, kind of like a big buffet of wonderful, nourishing leftovers.  This season does have a special overarching emphasis, though, on the mission of the Church in the world.

 

 

This final season envisions the ultimate Christian life –  a life in which God is embodied in us through the Spirit, a life in which the Living Christ actually regulates our lives from within. (Significantly, this is the season whose symbolic beginning is Trinity Sunday... because now we are actually participating consciously in the life of the Trinity.) In this final symbolic season, having received all of the teachings of Advent, Epiphany, Lent, and Easter, we cultivate the joyful awareness that we have everything it takes... to go forth... to make Christ present in the world.

 

 

So clearly this is no ordinary calendar. It is more like a map of the process of spiritual development that continues on and on throughout our lives. Over the course of the yearly cycle, we come to appreciate how the two halves of the calendar work in harmony, like being and doing. The right half of the circle, the movement from Advent through Easter, describes the spiritual process that enables the inner reign of Christ. The left half of the circle describes the process where God acts in the world through us, through the Church, the Body of Christ.  And on and on it goes.

 

 

 

Just by reflecting on the few questions that we have here this morning, it becomes clear that these are questions that we will together be reflecting on and finding answers to for the rest of our lives. It also becomes clear that these kinds of life questions don't just arise during certain months of the year. Some days you might find yourself experiencing the questions of Advent, Epiphany, Lent, and Easter all before noon!!!  Although today is technically in the “Season after Pentecost” you may find that, spiritually, you are in the middle of one of life's “Lenten moments.”  ...or perhaps basking in the light of Easter.

 

 

Still, the way that we systematically reflect on these spiritual seasons of the soul – throughout an entire year – is probably a very wise approach. It assures that we cover all of the bases, (not only our favorite ones.) It helps us to develop a strong inner framework, a strong sense of the Christian life as a 'whole,' so that we don't get too off balance, as we grapple with life's ups and downs.

 

 

And with each passing year, each new go-round of the Calendar, we develop new practical insights into these great life questions and their solutions. We realize that we are asking better questions, questions that may not even have been visible on the horizon before. We notice that we are actually living more wisely than we were the year before, and the year before that. We come to feel  more at peace, and more confident about the goodness of the contribution that we are making in this life.

 

 

Somehow this process of paying attention, year after year, to these crucial life questions... gives us the perspective that we need... to be able to see... how much we've actually grown spiritually.  And that's a wonderful discovery, because.... it gives us genuine hope, not only for our own lives, but for the lives of others in our world.

It's quite an amazing tool, this Calendar, that our ancestors in the early church developed and handed down to us. And today it is telling us that it is time to celebrate.... our passage through another sacred cycle, to celebrate our movement, ever closer to the reign of Christ in our lives and our world.

 

 

As we pause for a few moments to reflect on the personal meaning for us of this spiritual Year End... Michael is going to play a beautiful Jewish folk song for us... it celebrates God's faithfulness to us... over all the years of our lives....from the very beginning... to the very end...