Hearth & Altar

There is an appointed time for everything, and Ecclesiastes lists fourteen pairs to prove it - a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot, a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to embrace and a time to be far from embraces. Most families have heard some of this list read at a funeral. Hearing the whole thing on an ordinary Friday, outside of grief, is different. It is not a poem about death. It is a poem about every season a family actually lives through, named honestly, without picking favorites among them.

Today's Gospel gives you the second half of the lesson. Jesus asks his disciples who people say he is, and they report the rumors - John the Baptist, Elijah, one of the ancient prophets. Then he asks the harder question: but who do you say that I am? Peter answers correctly, and Jesus immediately tells them what that answer is going to cost him: suffering, rejection, death, and only then, on the third day, being raised. The right answer did not lead to an easier road. It led straight into the hardest one.

Put the two readings together and today asks a family to do something most families avoid: name, honestly, which season you are actually in right now, rather than the one you wish you were in. Ecclesiastes gives you permission to say it plainly, whatever it is.

• For our family, that we would name our actual season honestly instead of pretending it is a different one, we pray to the Lord.
• For the grace to answer the question Jesus asked Peter - who do you say that I am - for ourselves, not just repeating what we've heard others say, we pray to the Lord.
• For all families currently in a season of mourning, that a season of dancing would come for them in God's own time, we pray to the Lord.
• For the courage to follow Christ even when the honest answer about him costs us something, we pray to the Lord.

At dinner, go around the table and have each person name, in one word, the season they think the family is actually in right now - building, mourning, planting, gathering, whatever fits. Do not correct anyone's answer.

Ask your children Jesus's actual question tonight, adapted to their age: not "what do other people say about Jesus" but "who do you say he is?" Let the answer be their own, even if it is simple or incomplete. The whole point of the Gospel today is that secondhand answers were not what Jesus was after.

Then read a few lines of Ecclesiastes' list slowly and ask which pair describes right now for your family. If it is a hard season - a time to weep, a time to be far from embraces - do not rush to correct it into something more comfortable. Let it be named honestly. Scripture itself says there is a time for it.