SUNDAY, OCTOBER 5 2025 -
October 5, 2025
Deborah Laforet
“Life and Death”
Let us pray. May the words from my lips and the meditations of my heart be guided by your
Spirit and be words of wisdom for this day. Amen.
When I worked with the children of St. Paul’s, I used to use a teaching method called “Godly
Play.” Godly Play is based on Montessori methods of teaching. The classroom was centred around the
child, and the stories were designed to bring wonder and meaning. There was one story that I
appreciated that we don’t often teach to our adults. It’s not in our bible, but it’s a story about our church
and it’s seasons.
We talk about the four Sundays of Advent, in purple or blue, followed by Christmas and the
Sunday after Christmas. We then talk about Epiphany, which is followed by six Sundays of Lent, and
then seven Sundays of Easter. Finally the season of Pentecost. One of the main points of this story
shared with the children is that the calendar is in the shape of a circle, not a straight line, because ‘for
every beginning there is an ending and for every ending there is a beginning.’ This is a lesson of life and
death, it’s a lesson about celebration and hardship, and it’s also a story of creation.
We are currently on the fifth week of our the season of creation, and this year, we have been
delving into the first story of creation, in the first chapter of our bible. Because we took last week to
focus on General Council, this week we heard about the fourth and fifth days of creation, the days when
we read God created the lights in the dome of the sky, and when God created the creatures of the water
and the sky.
This first story of creation is a beautiful poem of God’s created world. It’s a story of life - of
water, of earth, of plants, of creatures - and God’s command to be fruitful and multiply. It’s a poem of
awe and wonder and majesty. It’s a creation story, and with creation comes cycles, including the cycle
of life and death. Finding awe and wonder and majesty might be easy when we look at snow covered
mountaintops, vast oceans, and the variety of life on this planet, but might we also find awe and wonder
and majesty in death as well?
I admit it’s harder to find passages in the bible that celebrate death. In fact, there are many
passages asking for God’s protection from death or God’s comfort for those facing death, for themselves
or for loved ones. In fact, when I googled this question about the beauty of death in the bible (because
that’s what I do when I have a question), I found only one verse in the whole bible. Maybe there are
others, but only this one came up in my search, from Psalm 116, verse 15, “The death of your faithful is
precious in your sight.”
Now, another passage that came up is one we often read at funerals. It’s from the third chapter of
Ecclesiastes and tends to have meaning for people when they are facing death. “For everything there is
a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die;
a time to plant and a time to pluck up what is planted; a time to kill and a time to heal;
a time to break down and a time to build up; a time to weep and a time to laugh; a time to mourn and a
time to dance;” and so on. Life and death are part of the seasons and cycles of the world in which we
live, no matter how much we fight against it.
On day four, we hear God say, “Let there be lights in the dome of the sky to separate the day
from the night, and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years.” The separation of
days, of seasons, and of years, are signs for us as we mark the passage of time. For thousands of years,
people have held ceremonies for full moons and winter and summer solstices. They have created
celebrations of light during the darkest times of the year, celebrations of thanksgiving for harvest times,
days for people to offer atonement, and days to honour the dead. As a church, we have carried on those
traditions, fitting them into our faith stories, and coming together as a community to celebrate, to
remember, and to honour. It’s part of why being part of a community is a healthy part of our well being.
We gather to share our stories, our celebrations, our struggles, and to mark the passing of time.
We live in a culture that is trying so hard to avoid conversations of endings and death. People
buy products or have surgeries to make them look young forever. We push our seniors into homes with
other seniors, separating them from the rest of society. Death happens behind closed doors, with trained
professionals, rather than with their families. Death is then covered with a sheet, taken to a mortuary,
and sometimes buried without a funeral or any kind of ceremony.
What if we honoured death as a part of life? What if we looked at death with the beauty and awe
we see in life? Life and death are intertwined, but of course, death is painful, not only for those dying
but for those saying goodbye. It’s a loss. It hurts. It’s unpleasant. It means change. It means moving
forward in a different, maybe a more difficult, way. But you know what? Birth can be just as hard. Ask
a new parent. Ask someone starting up a new business or starting a new job. Ask four churches who are
talking about amalgamating and starting a new church. Transitions are hard, both in life and in death.
Both can be celebrated, honoured, and both can hold beauty and awe.
For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven.
For every beginning there is an ending and for every ending there is a beginning.
For everything God created in our creation story in our bible, there is life and there is death. The
creatures of this earth, the plant life of this earth, are born, they grow, live their lives, and then they die,
they are absorbed by the earth, and then become a part of that earth, that will then bring new life again.
This is one of the most wonderful parts of our Christian faith, that we profess to believe “In life, in
death, in life beyond death.” We hold this wonderful story of resurrection, of death not being the end,
and not just for this one person who lived with us two thousand years ago, but for all life. And we
believe that God is with us through it all.
Just yesterday, I was listening to a CBC podcast, called, “Unreserved.” I was listening to Gary
Farmer, who was remembering his friend Graham Greene, an indigenous actor who died last month. As
he expressed his grief at this loss, he shared a teaching. He said that Raven could have made us from
rock, so we would be around forever, but instead we are made of leaves, so that we would come back in
another form and live another life.
Death is a part of life. Life is a part of death. There is mystery in this. There is wonder in this.
Yes, it’s messy. Yes, it’s confusing. Yes, it can be deeply painful, and heart breaking. Such is life, my
friends. It’s why we hold onto our faith - to help us make sense of it all, to provide us comfort and
reassurance that we are never alone, and to give us hope that in every beginning there is an ending and in
every ending there is a beginning. For that, we give thanks. Amen.
1 Samuel 3:1-12, 15-19
(Introduce yourself.)
Today, we are reading a story that shared by youth at General Council. It is the story of
Samuel and his teacher, Eli, found in the first book of Samuel, chapter three, verses 1 to
12 and 15 to 19.
14 And God said, “Let there be lights in the dome of the sky to separate the day from the
night, and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years, 15 and let them be
lights in the dome of the sky to give light upon the earth.” And it was so. 16 God made
the two great lights—the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night
—and the stars. 17 God set them in the dome of the sky to give light upon the earth, 18 to
rule over the day and over the night, and to separate the light from the darkness. And God
saw that it was good. 19 And there was evening and there was morning, the fourth day.
20 And God said, “Let the waters bring forth swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly
above the earth across the dome of the sky.” 21 So God created the great sea monsters
and every living creature that moves, of every kind, with which the waters swarm and
every winged bird of every kind. And God saw that it was good. 22 God blessed them,
saying, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on
the earth.” 23 And there was evening and there was morning, the fifth day.
24 And God said, “Let the earth bring forth living creatures of every kind: cattle and
creeping things and wild animals of the earth of every kind.” And it was so. 25 God made
the wild animals of the earth of every kind and the cattle of every kind and everything
that creeps upon the ground of every kind. And God saw that it was good.
May the Spirit guide our understanding of this sacred scripture. Amen.