Take Time to Stop and Smell the Roses
It is precisely here and now in these days of summer that we have the opportunity –
and even the obligation –
to give listen to the declaration of God’s handiwork all around us,
to observe how God’s greatness is being revealed to us
in all the little events and quirks and miracles of the natural world
as they are being revealed to us.
So, its summertime in Drexel Hill.
A time where quite naturally everything seems to slow down.
Life all around us just isn’t as frenzied as it is at other times of the year.
Perhaps it’s the heat.
Or, the humidity.
Or, the heat index.
Or, the extra hours of daylight.
Or, whatever . . .
But, it does seem that the pace of things lessens, wouldn’t you say?
And, folks tend to spend more time out doors,
and/or more time in the company of others,
and/or
People in the cities sit on their stoops and put up chairs on the sidewalk so they can swap stories with their neighbors, and
say hello to all passersby,
and tease the young’ns.
Hammocks come out.
Awnings go up.
Flip flops and shorts are the order of the day.
When I started looking at it, it seemed to me that summertime in Drexel Hill reveals some lessons about the faith we profess.
And so, I have this series of sermons about these lessons.
It is summertime in Drexel Hill – and I am embarked on a series of sermons about what summertime teaches us about our faith.
Two weeks ago we emphasized that summertime teaches us that all moments are precious.
Last week we looked at how casualness is good.
This week we are considering how summertime encourages us to slow down and smell the roses.
We read the beginning of the song the Psalmist sings ( Psalm 19) which speaks to our experience here in the summertime:
The heavens declare the glory of God . . .
The [very] sky displays God’s handiwork.
Day after day it speaks out;
night after night it reveals God’s greatness.
[O for sure ] There is no actual speech or word,
nor is its voice literally heard.
Yet its voice echoes throughout the earth;
its words carry to the distant horizon.
It is precisely here and now in these days of summer that we have the opportunity – and even the obligation – to give listen to the declaration of God’s handiwork all around us,
to observe how God’s greatness is being revealed to us in all the little events and quirks and miracles of the natural world as they are being revealed to us.
But, alas, even knowing this,
even, perhaps, wanting to do this,
even thinking we should do this . . . .
We don’t, do we?
Usually because we’re too busy.
We just don’t have the time.
A while back, Forbes Magazine featured a special edition on a single topic that it called "the biggest issue of our age – time."
The editors wrote, "We've beaten, or at least stymied, most of humanity's monsters:
disease, climate, geography, and memory.
But time still defeats us.
Lately its victories seem more complete than ever. Those timesaving inventions of the last half-century have somehow turned on us.
We now hold cell phone meetings in traffic jams, and 24-7 has become the most terrifying phrase in modern life."
While many of us experience time as a source of distress, the Bible clearly presents time as a gift.
It is, in fact, the only means by which we can receive the grace of God.
Time and space are God's chosen media for self-revelation – as evidenced by the arrival of Jesus at a real moment in history at a real place on this planet – and they are the only media through which God may be encountered this side of heaven.
But most folks today experience time as a crushing burden.
After all, by definition, time is limited,
and chronically busy Americans chafe at such an unyielding limitation.
We may discern inequalities in certain gifts that God has given to us –
financial resources and Spirit-given empowerments come to mind –
but time is different.
With regard to time, we are all truly equal.
Each one of us, no matter who we are, no matter our circumstance,
each one of us is charged with managing exactly sixty minutes over the next hour.
In a culture that seems increasingly panicked about such a basic responsibility, what is the call of God?
It seems to me that summertime forces us to slow down and step back and begin to see time in accordance with God's perspective.
From God's perspective:
time is not our enemy.
We may complain that we don't have enough time or that our time is going too fast.
But, God's perspective is that we already have at our disposal exactly the number of hours we need
to do what God wants us to do –
and never to feel rushed.
The call of God is simply to slow down,
to be present at each moment as it arrives.
Time is a gift to be opened one minute at a time – and no faster.
And, today, our summertime lesson regarding our faith is another thing that Jesus did often and suggested that we do as well, just relax and let it be.
Or, as one preacher said, Chill.
Jesus chilled.
Jesus wants us to chill as well.
Relax and let it be.
Slow down and smell the roses.
Our stories of Jesus contain many that refer to Jesus taking time to chill out – to slow down and smell the roses.
The early Christian community seemed to remember that Jesus valued his time of rest.
Times of rest and recreation and relaxation became times of rejuvenation and restoration and re-creation.
Time and time again when Jesus had been through a very demanding time, he took time to shut down. Nobody had to tell Him to shut down – like we do here in Drexel Hill in the summertime.
Jesus knew when He was emotionally worn out. He knew when He was dangerously depleted.
The passage we read today comes right after the story of the feeding of the five thousand.
Jesus had just dealt with this immense problem of all those hungry people who wouldn’t go home until they got something to eat, and He had come up
with an answer.
He had taken a measly five loaves and a paltry two fish,
had blessed them, and had made them go
around.
Now you might think that miracle working was just a part of Jesus’ thing, no big deal.
Maybe so.
But my imagination runs wild at the picture of Jesus having to organize this mess, you know? The Bible says that He told His disciples to make
everybody sit down in groups of hundreds and fifties.
Let me tell you, getting the attention of five thousand people or five hundred or even five to get them settled is no mean task.
Nobody takes orders, especially from the preacher. And let me tell you something else, even getting the twelve disciples to follow instructions was no picnic.
Can’t you just imagine it?
“No, Peter, you just deal with one hundred like everybody else. You’re not pope yet.”
“James and John, get out there.
You can’t just sit up here at my right hand and my left hand; get moving.”
“Simon the Zealot, no, man, just get them to sit
down; no marches, no sit-ins against the Romans, not now.”
“Okay, Thomas, so you doubt this will work. Can you trust me, just this once?”
Not easy to get this thing organized.
And then – think about it – at the end they had all the scraps to clean up.
Now that is tough too.
Have you ever noticed that everybody is ready to come to a party,
and some are ready to fix it and serve it,
but nobody – I mean nobody – wants to stay around and clean up?!
“Great fish, Jesus; got to get your recipe – but I have to go now”.
“Loved your pita bread – let’s do lunch again sometime. Bye!”
So Jesus had to organize the cleanup crew.
I would think that Jesus was tired – and emotionally drained!
And He knew it!
It says, “Immediately he made his disciples get into the boat and go on ahead to the other side.”
He was so out of there!
And why not?
Jesus knew, and we are reminded every summer, when we don’t take time to relax, to rejuvenate,
to recuperate, everything is at risk:
our health,
our mission,
our faith.
The story goes that God created the world and all there is in six days.
And when that task was done, God rested.
I don’t usually anthropomorphize God, but here I have an image of God just sitting down under one of those shade trees and taking a break.
Well, the early Hebrew people knew that not only was this a story about God, but if we knew what was good for us, we would emulate that behavior and spend regular time just resting.
How we chill is almost as important as knowing that we should.
I suppose each of us has cultivated certain behaviors we use to chill and to rest and to relax.
What you do is not something that I may find relaxing. And vice-versa.
Suzanne finds counted cross stitching relaxing.
She will spend hours in a chair with fabric in her lap placing a needle laced with colored thread through a certain hole that she has identified was the correct one that will eventually make a picture whole.
I can’t watch her.
It is so unnerving for me.
I have no patience for that.
I listen to music, or turn on the tv, or read the funnies, or do a crossword puzzle, or figure a sudoku.
What do you do to get away?
What can you do to replenish yourself?
When we look at Jesus chilling we discover another way.
We are told that Jesus chilled by going to His private place of prayer and lingering there with God.
Jesus chilled by sending everybody else home –
He put the disciples out in the boat and sent all
the people home,
and went up on the mountain to pray.
And when He did, it filled Him.
It re-created Him.
It gave Him a new sense of His world.
When Jesus chilled, He prayed,
but His prayer did not make Him a stained-glass window zombie.
It energized Him,
it gave Him perspective,
it gave Him the freedom to deal with others in the right way.
We are reminded that Jesus chilled out because He knew it would equip Him to be that steady, calm, certain, healing presence in the midst of others’ pain.
When the little boat with Jesus and His disciples crossed over to the other side of the lake, people began to rush around.
They brought in everybody with a sickness,
everybody with a problem,
everybody who needed help.
It was such a crush of people that some of them just asked if they could so much as touch the hem of his garment.
You know how it goes, when the telemarketer says, “I will only take two minutes of your time”.
People always need more than they let on.
People need more than the hem of the garment, but they are afraid to ask for it.
They don’t want to be rejected.
We send them hostile messages.
Ah, but this Jesus.
This chilling Jesus.
This rested, prayed-up, replenished, complete Jesus.
With perfect calm; with total self-control;
with a wonderful sense of who He is,
all who touched Him were healed.
This Jesus, this chilled-out Jesus, this together Jesus knows exactly why He is here,
knows thoroughly what His life purpose is,
knows who His God is.
Jesus knows.
Knows Himself,
knows His purpose,
knows His God.
And Jesus chilling, equips Himself for God’s purpose.
Summertime reminds us to relax and just let it be.
It is in periods of rest that we discover, as Jesus did,
why we are here.
It is in periods of rest that we figure out,
as He did, what God wants us to do
and what God wants us not to do.
It is in periods of rest that we get rejuvenated and
recuperated, and refreshed and re-created to have the energy and the ability to do what we are called to do.
If we would follow Jesus, we need to be like Jesus chilling.
Jesus chilled.
You and I need to chill.
Remember the words of that old song?
“O Sabbath rest by Galilee,
o calm of hills above;
where Jesus knelt to share with Thee
the silence of eternity
interpreted by love.
Drop thy still dews of quietness,
Till all our strivings cease;
Take from our souls the strain and stress,
and let our ordered lives confess
The beauty of thy peace.”
That seems to target what happens when we chill in the summertime.
And why we need to pay attention to the messages we receive about the faith we profess.
It is through these times of rest and relaxation and prayer and that we receive what we need to live as it is intended for us to live.
Glorifying God and
Helping others.
Amen.
A sermon heard by the congregation of Christ Presbyterian Church in Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania, USA, August 22, 2010
Saturday, August 28, 2010
Thursday, August 26, 2010
What Summertime Teaches Us About Our Faith:
All Moments Are Precious
This day is filled with precious moments.
This very moment is precious.
This moment belongs to God.
That's why it counts forever.
You don’t have to look very deep to realize that one of the persistent themes of our Bible is that all moments are precious.
For some 40 years or so, Precious Moments has been copy-writed[?] to refer to super-cute drawings of children with big tear-drop eyes in various poses to evoke a feeling of cute togetherness.
Throughout the years these drawings have been produced in a line of dolls that illustrate the theme.
And they even became the theme for a theme park in Missouri.
But, for me, this is another way important expressions of faith are highjacked of any original intrinsic meaning.
You don’t have to look very deep to realize that one of the persistent themes of our Bible is that all moments are precious.
If I were to ask, I do believe that everyone in this room could come up with a list of a least ten moments in time that you remember and recall as “precious moments”.
Many will identify a birth of a child as a recognized “precious” moment.
And there a lot of experiences that are common to many people that are thought of as “precious” moments.
But, each of us have a few memories of unique moments that made an impact on us – and we just knew them to be precious moments.
Suzanne’s nephew and his young family came to see us this week. They were on their way back home to Montreal after the three week family vacation that included a visit to Florida.
He recounted that after driving all night on the way down there, they arrived in Daytona Beach early in the morning – before sunrise.
He and his wife carried their two sleeping children into the room and placed them on beds, and as he was unloading some needed baggage from the car he became aware that it was getting lighter fairly rapidly. And as circumstance would have it, the room to which they were assigned faced the east and sun began to pop up way over the horizon of the sea. He described it as a sign that said slow down, this is a precious moment, this time of your life is sacred time.
Nason Clark remembers to this day of a bike ride he and a friend took years and years ago where they ended up in a field somewhere over where Lawrence Park now is. And when he and his friend came upon this field of spectacular wildflowers, they became aware of swarms of butterflies – butterflies by the millions fluttering over the field. Describing it still takes his breath away – as it did on that day so long ago. Truly a precious moment.
No, you can’t copyright precious moments.
In fact, our faith tells us that our life is better when we are able to see and to recognize that all our moments are precious.
The call of God is to be present at each moment as it arrives.
Psalm 90 informs us that God is uniquely able to experience a "telescoping" of time – that for God a thousand years are like a day,
but even more intriguing, that a day is as rich and meaningful as a thousand years.
Quite literally every moment matters eternally – which means that this present moment counts forever.
One of the great human obsessions of the modern age is to make time jump through more hoops –
to force time to be more productive.
That's why so many of us are suckers for the next generation of computers, date books, blackberries, and smart phones.
Even ESPN has endeavored to fit more than one hour of sports highlights into a one-hour show.
That's why NFL kickoffs that are returned for a touchdown (without doubt one of the most dramatic moments in football) are now being replayed as if the fast-forward button is stuck.
Instead of presenting the play at normal speed, which consumes all of twelve or fourteen seconds, the action is frequently speeded up –
now consuming just six or seven seconds –
so viewers can quickly move on to see another highlight, and then another, and then another.
First-time visitors to London frequently conclude that they may have only one chance to explore such an historic city.
Therefore they sign on for one of those everything-included-hurry-up-and-keep-moving tours.
"Now here's The Tower of London, there's Big Ben, and just over your right shoulder is Buckingham Palace."
You know the drill.
Hurry.
Stand over there and let me get your picture in front of the lions at Trafalgar Square.
Wow, there sure are a lot of pigeons.
Hey, look at the time. Let's go.
That is all too often an out-of-towner's only exposure to the city of London.
By contrast, Americans who move to London have a completely different encounter with the city.
They don't rush from place to place as tourists. They are residents.
Experienced Londoners know that years are required simply to begin to comprehend what this place has meant to human history.
A tourist cannot possibly appreciate that perspective in a four-hour sweep across town.
With all of our hearts, we must resist the temptation to become tourists in our own lives.
"I'd like to take the four-hour highlight tour of parenting, please."
"Come on, kids, it's time to do third grade.
Stand right there and let me get your picture.
Okay, on to the next stage in your life."
We must refuse to buy tickets for the quick walk-through of the Museum of Religious Experiences.
God calls us not to rush through the time that has been given to us, but to be fully alive to God and to each other –
actually to become residents within these moments we've been provided.
Why?
Because, every one of these moments counts forever.
So, we need to embrace God’s perspective on time.
And, we need to embrace God's shape to time.
You see, there is a God-ordained shape to human life.
This shape is what gives our lives a meaningful rhythm.
Mornings and evenings, mornings and evenings – it's like a tide.
When we rebel against that rhythm, there are consequences.
What time is it any more?
The boundaries and shape of daily life are rapidly becoming blurred.
One can now shop on-line any hour of the day.
Maybe you’ve seen that television commercial where a group of stunned consumers are standing in the middle of the night outside a conventional store at a mall.
No lights are on.
The customers are puzzled:
"It's closed. Man, that is so weird."
We are taught to expect that everything should be available every hour of every day.
What season is it any more?
We no longer have to wait for summer to get strawberries and watermelons.
We can find ripe peaches year-round.
Contemporary culture clearly wants to remove the boundaries customarily imposed by the more classic shapes and rhythms of time.
In an act that is flagrantly counter-cultural, the guides of certain spiritual retreats demand that weekend participants give up their watches.
Giving up one's watch is tantamount to giving up control – which is precisely the act of faith God asks of us moment by moment when it comes to time.
Our call is to trust God and to pay attention to three important rhythms connected to our experience of time.
The God-given shape of time, first, invites us to Divert Daily.
That means that we must stop every day for rest.
A key component of the management of time requires us to get the sleep our bodies need.
For some of us (who seemingly have taxi meters for brains and are always counting the cost of every squandered minute) the very idea that we sleep away one third of our lives seems like an incalculable waste.
But we are told that it is during those sleeping hours that our bodies carry out something like eighty percent of the biological processes required to maintain basic health.
At many junctures, God's Word challenges us to commit a portion of each day to the experience of simply being in the presence of God.
The goal of that quiet time is not to be productive. We are simply called to be.
The shape of time that God has provided, second, also invites us to Withdraw Weekly.
This speaks to the notion of the Sabbath.
You know the drill: God worked for six days at the beginning of creation – then God rested.
For us to devote one day out of seven to do no work is to be like God.
God doesn't suggest a Sabbath.
It is mandated as one of the original Ten Commandments.
Our Sabbath doesn't have to be on Sunday nor even on a weekend.
But one-seventh of our time during each week should be reserved to pray and to play.
God's design for time also invites us, third, to Abandon Annually.
In Old Testament times there were prescribed festivals for God's people.
Whole families were compelled to walk all the way to Jerusalem three times each year.
These became annual opportunities to enjoy life and to enjoy each other.
Essentially these festivals amounted to divinely ordained vacations.
To believe that we should not take a break each year –
to assert or to act as if our work is far too important to slow down –
is to take ourselves far too seriously
and to violate the rhythm and shape of time as God has provided it.
As the fractured proverb puts it, Better to have loafed and lost than never to have loafed at all.
Now, here’s the thing:
This moment may seem like an ordinary moment, but it is the gift of an extraordinary God.
This moment counts – forever.
If we were asked the question,
"Do you want to do something today that will be eternally significant?"
our tendency is to sigh, "You know, my day is so full. I really don't have time."
To that Paul thunders in 2 Corinthinians:
"See, now is the acceptable time;
see, now is the day of salvation!"
Perhaps we are waiting for the crush of time to pass.
Then we will turn our attention fully to spiritual questions – when we're not so busy.
Perhaps we are waiting for the right circumstances to arrive, or for a hardship to vanish.
We're waiting for more money or more education or more insight or more data.
First let's have the baby,
or wait for the children to get into school,
or wait until summer vacation,
or wait until the nest is empty.
Then we'll have time.
Paul couldn't agree less. In his second letter to the Corinthians there isn't the faintest evidence that a hardship-free life is just over the horizon.
It will never be the "right time" to act.
Therefore God calls us to act now.
The wise heart is the one that grasps that this moment has become a world-changing moment when we let it fully belong to God.
"As we work together with him, we urge you also not to accept the grace of God in vain."
Will we capture the richness of this moment through an act of spiritual submission –
or do we miss this opportunity altogether?
You may or may not remember the name Henry Stanley.
Henry Stanley is the American journalist who, in 1871, having walked into a jungle clearing in central Africa, spotted a pale-skinned man and said,
"Dr. Livingstone, I presume?"
In his own right, however, he was also an explorer of uncharted territory in Africa.
Historians believe that until Henry Stanley's expedition five years later,
no one – either inside or outside Africa –
had ever been all the way down the treacherous Congo River, with its canyons, gorges, and cannibals.
In 1876 led an expedition down the Congo River.
His trip took 999 days and was filled with unimaginable hardships.
One night proved to be so fraught with difficulties and doubts that Henry Stanley realized he had to make a choice – either to keep going forward into the unknown, or to head back toward security.
That night he approached his friend and helper Frank Pocock.
"Now, Frank, my son, sit down.
I am about to have a long and serious chat with you.
Life and death – yours and mine – hang on the decision I make tonight."
What should they do?
Frank Pocock and Henry Stanley decided to flip a coin – an Indian rupee.
Heads they would go forward;
tails they would go home.
The coin came up tails – go home.
They quickly decided to make it two out of three. They flipped again.
Tails again – turn around and go home.
"How about three out of five?"
Once again it was tails.
Six times in a row they flipped and flipped,
six times in a row the coin turned up tails – turn around, go home.
That’s when the two men decided to draw straws – long straw to go forward, short straw to go back.
Time and time again, they picked the short straw.
Henry Stanley and Frank Pocock suddenly realized that they had already made their decision.
No matter what the coins or the straws "told them," in their hearts all they wanted to do was head down the Congo River into the Great Unknown.
That is precisely what they did, making history in the process.
Their most significant opportunity for adventure didn't come and go in vain.
This day you and I don't need to flip coins or draw straws to know what is on God's heart.
God calls us to receive grace –
to embrace God's perspective and shape of time. We aren't called to wait for the next moment.
This day is filled with precious moments.
This very moment is precious.
This moment belongs to God.
That's why it counts forever.
To God’s eyes,
and through faith’s eyes,
every moment is precious.
May you see and know this day as being filled with precious moments –
as tomorrow will be,
and the day after that,
and the day after that.
When we see them,
when we recognize them,
our lives are richer,
and we are closer to living as though the kingdom of God is near.
Amen.
A sermon heard by the congregation of Christ Presbyterian Church in Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania, USA, August 8, 2010
This day is filled with precious moments.
This very moment is precious.
This moment belongs to God.
That's why it counts forever.
You don’t have to look very deep to realize that one of the persistent themes of our Bible is that all moments are precious.
For some 40 years or so, Precious Moments has been copy-writed[?] to refer to super-cute drawings of children with big tear-drop eyes in various poses to evoke a feeling of cute togetherness.
Throughout the years these drawings have been produced in a line of dolls that illustrate the theme.
And they even became the theme for a theme park in Missouri.
But, for me, this is another way important expressions of faith are highjacked of any original intrinsic meaning.
You don’t have to look very deep to realize that one of the persistent themes of our Bible is that all moments are precious.
If I were to ask, I do believe that everyone in this room could come up with a list of a least ten moments in time that you remember and recall as “precious moments”.
Many will identify a birth of a child as a recognized “precious” moment.
And there a lot of experiences that are common to many people that are thought of as “precious” moments.
But, each of us have a few memories of unique moments that made an impact on us – and we just knew them to be precious moments.
Suzanne’s nephew and his young family came to see us this week. They were on their way back home to Montreal after the three week family vacation that included a visit to Florida.
He recounted that after driving all night on the way down there, they arrived in Daytona Beach early in the morning – before sunrise.
He and his wife carried their two sleeping children into the room and placed them on beds, and as he was unloading some needed baggage from the car he became aware that it was getting lighter fairly rapidly. And as circumstance would have it, the room to which they were assigned faced the east and sun began to pop up way over the horizon of the sea. He described it as a sign that said slow down, this is a precious moment, this time of your life is sacred time.
Nason Clark remembers to this day of a bike ride he and a friend took years and years ago where they ended up in a field somewhere over where Lawrence Park now is. And when he and his friend came upon this field of spectacular wildflowers, they became aware of swarms of butterflies – butterflies by the millions fluttering over the field. Describing it still takes his breath away – as it did on that day so long ago. Truly a precious moment.
No, you can’t copyright precious moments.
In fact, our faith tells us that our life is better when we are able to see and to recognize that all our moments are precious.
The call of God is to be present at each moment as it arrives.
Psalm 90 informs us that God is uniquely able to experience a "telescoping" of time – that for God a thousand years are like a day,
but even more intriguing, that a day is as rich and meaningful as a thousand years.
Quite literally every moment matters eternally – which means that this present moment counts forever.
One of the great human obsessions of the modern age is to make time jump through more hoops –
to force time to be more productive.
That's why so many of us are suckers for the next generation of computers, date books, blackberries, and smart phones.
Even ESPN has endeavored to fit more than one hour of sports highlights into a one-hour show.
That's why NFL kickoffs that are returned for a touchdown (without doubt one of the most dramatic moments in football) are now being replayed as if the fast-forward button is stuck.
Instead of presenting the play at normal speed, which consumes all of twelve or fourteen seconds, the action is frequently speeded up –
now consuming just six or seven seconds –
so viewers can quickly move on to see another highlight, and then another, and then another.
First-time visitors to London frequently conclude that they may have only one chance to explore such an historic city.
Therefore they sign on for one of those everything-included-hurry-up-and-keep-moving tours.
"Now here's The Tower of London, there's Big Ben, and just over your right shoulder is Buckingham Palace."
You know the drill.
Hurry.
Stand over there and let me get your picture in front of the lions at Trafalgar Square.
Wow, there sure are a lot of pigeons.
Hey, look at the time. Let's go.
That is all too often an out-of-towner's only exposure to the city of London.
By contrast, Americans who move to London have a completely different encounter with the city.
They don't rush from place to place as tourists. They are residents.
Experienced Londoners know that years are required simply to begin to comprehend what this place has meant to human history.
A tourist cannot possibly appreciate that perspective in a four-hour sweep across town.
With all of our hearts, we must resist the temptation to become tourists in our own lives.
"I'd like to take the four-hour highlight tour of parenting, please."
"Come on, kids, it's time to do third grade.
Stand right there and let me get your picture.
Okay, on to the next stage in your life."
We must refuse to buy tickets for the quick walk-through of the Museum of Religious Experiences.
God calls us not to rush through the time that has been given to us, but to be fully alive to God and to each other –
actually to become residents within these moments we've been provided.
Why?
Because, every one of these moments counts forever.
So, we need to embrace God’s perspective on time.
And, we need to embrace God's shape to time.
You see, there is a God-ordained shape to human life.
This shape is what gives our lives a meaningful rhythm.
Mornings and evenings, mornings and evenings – it's like a tide.
When we rebel against that rhythm, there are consequences.
What time is it any more?
The boundaries and shape of daily life are rapidly becoming blurred.
One can now shop on-line any hour of the day.
Maybe you’ve seen that television commercial where a group of stunned consumers are standing in the middle of the night outside a conventional store at a mall.
No lights are on.
The customers are puzzled:
"It's closed. Man, that is so weird."
We are taught to expect that everything should be available every hour of every day.
What season is it any more?
We no longer have to wait for summer to get strawberries and watermelons.
We can find ripe peaches year-round.
Contemporary culture clearly wants to remove the boundaries customarily imposed by the more classic shapes and rhythms of time.
In an act that is flagrantly counter-cultural, the guides of certain spiritual retreats demand that weekend participants give up their watches.
Giving up one's watch is tantamount to giving up control – which is precisely the act of faith God asks of us moment by moment when it comes to time.
Our call is to trust God and to pay attention to three important rhythms connected to our experience of time.
The God-given shape of time, first, invites us to Divert Daily.
That means that we must stop every day for rest.
A key component of the management of time requires us to get the sleep our bodies need.
For some of us (who seemingly have taxi meters for brains and are always counting the cost of every squandered minute) the very idea that we sleep away one third of our lives seems like an incalculable waste.
But we are told that it is during those sleeping hours that our bodies carry out something like eighty percent of the biological processes required to maintain basic health.
At many junctures, God's Word challenges us to commit a portion of each day to the experience of simply being in the presence of God.
The goal of that quiet time is not to be productive. We are simply called to be.
The shape of time that God has provided, second, also invites us to Withdraw Weekly.
This speaks to the notion of the Sabbath.
You know the drill: God worked for six days at the beginning of creation – then God rested.
For us to devote one day out of seven to do no work is to be like God.
God doesn't suggest a Sabbath.
It is mandated as one of the original Ten Commandments.
Our Sabbath doesn't have to be on Sunday nor even on a weekend.
But one-seventh of our time during each week should be reserved to pray and to play.
God's design for time also invites us, third, to Abandon Annually.
In Old Testament times there were prescribed festivals for God's people.
Whole families were compelled to walk all the way to Jerusalem three times each year.
These became annual opportunities to enjoy life and to enjoy each other.
Essentially these festivals amounted to divinely ordained vacations.
To believe that we should not take a break each year –
to assert or to act as if our work is far too important to slow down –
is to take ourselves far too seriously
and to violate the rhythm and shape of time as God has provided it.
As the fractured proverb puts it, Better to have loafed and lost than never to have loafed at all.
Now, here’s the thing:
This moment may seem like an ordinary moment, but it is the gift of an extraordinary God.
This moment counts – forever.
If we were asked the question,
"Do you want to do something today that will be eternally significant?"
our tendency is to sigh, "You know, my day is so full. I really don't have time."
To that Paul thunders in 2 Corinthinians:
"See, now is the acceptable time;
see, now is the day of salvation!"
Perhaps we are waiting for the crush of time to pass.
Then we will turn our attention fully to spiritual questions – when we're not so busy.
Perhaps we are waiting for the right circumstances to arrive, or for a hardship to vanish.
We're waiting for more money or more education or more insight or more data.
First let's have the baby,
or wait for the children to get into school,
or wait until summer vacation,
or wait until the nest is empty.
Then we'll have time.
Paul couldn't agree less. In his second letter to the Corinthians there isn't the faintest evidence that a hardship-free life is just over the horizon.
It will never be the "right time" to act.
Therefore God calls us to act now.
The wise heart is the one that grasps that this moment has become a world-changing moment when we let it fully belong to God.
"As we work together with him, we urge you also not to accept the grace of God in vain."
Will we capture the richness of this moment through an act of spiritual submission –
or do we miss this opportunity altogether?
You may or may not remember the name Henry Stanley.
Henry Stanley is the American journalist who, in 1871, having walked into a jungle clearing in central Africa, spotted a pale-skinned man and said,
"Dr. Livingstone, I presume?"
In his own right, however, he was also an explorer of uncharted territory in Africa.
Historians believe that until Henry Stanley's expedition five years later,
no one – either inside or outside Africa –
had ever been all the way down the treacherous Congo River, with its canyons, gorges, and cannibals.
In 1876 led an expedition down the Congo River.
His trip took 999 days and was filled with unimaginable hardships.
One night proved to be so fraught with difficulties and doubts that Henry Stanley realized he had to make a choice – either to keep going forward into the unknown, or to head back toward security.
That night he approached his friend and helper Frank Pocock.
"Now, Frank, my son, sit down.
I am about to have a long and serious chat with you.
Life and death – yours and mine – hang on the decision I make tonight."
What should they do?
Frank Pocock and Henry Stanley decided to flip a coin – an Indian rupee.
Heads they would go forward;
tails they would go home.
The coin came up tails – go home.
They quickly decided to make it two out of three. They flipped again.
Tails again – turn around and go home.
"How about three out of five?"
Once again it was tails.
Six times in a row they flipped and flipped,
six times in a row the coin turned up tails – turn around, go home.
That’s when the two men decided to draw straws – long straw to go forward, short straw to go back.
Time and time again, they picked the short straw.
Henry Stanley and Frank Pocock suddenly realized that they had already made their decision.
No matter what the coins or the straws "told them," in their hearts all they wanted to do was head down the Congo River into the Great Unknown.
That is precisely what they did, making history in the process.
Their most significant opportunity for adventure didn't come and go in vain.
This day you and I don't need to flip coins or draw straws to know what is on God's heart.
God calls us to receive grace –
to embrace God's perspective and shape of time. We aren't called to wait for the next moment.
This day is filled with precious moments.
This very moment is precious.
This moment belongs to God.
That's why it counts forever.
To God’s eyes,
and through faith’s eyes,
every moment is precious.
May you see and know this day as being filled with precious moments –
as tomorrow will be,
and the day after that,
and the day after that.
When we see them,
when we recognize them,
our lives are richer,
and we are closer to living as though the kingdom of God is near.
Amen.
A sermon heard by the congregation of Christ Presbyterian Church in Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania, USA, August 8, 2010
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