My newspaper carrier can never deliver my newspaper on time. It’s always late. It’s supposed to be delivered by 6:00 AM, but usually it doesn’t arrive until 6:45 AM at the earliest. On most days, I don’t mind, since I usually don’t leave the house before 7, but on the days when I leave earlier, I find it really annoying. It makes me angry. There – I’ve confessed my anger. I feel better.
So, here’s yesterday’s front page from the Globe and Mail (which didn’t arrive on time, but I didn’t mind since I woke up later) – note that there are several items related to time:
“What would you do with a free Bulgari watch?” Apparently, this has to do with a few politicians who didn’t declare some gifts of expensive watches. Hmm.
“The Stampede at 100”
“Perdita Felicien – Time is running out to break the Olympic jinx”
And an advertisement from CIBC – “…limited time offer”
We measure almost all of our activities by chronological time. Think about all the aspects our life where chronological time is important. We judge people by chronological age, wishing them happy birthday. We acknowledge anniversaries, particularly those with years ending in 5 or 10 (as if those are somehow more significant than the one’s and three’s). Oh – happy birthday to Canada, 145 years old today, by the way. We measure success in many sporting events by how quickly a race is completed – I know this from personal experience watching my kids swim in competition. We set alarm clocks to wake us at certain times, we leave the house at specific times to get to work, and children’s days at school are regimented by time with the starting and ending times announced by bells. Ask any suburban commuter taking GO Trains or GO Buses, and they’ll know down to the minute what time their trains or buses leave from their stations, and frequently our spouses know it too. “Hi honey, I’m on the 4:53 train” “Oh great, you’ll be home early today”. So much of what we do is guided by how much time we have or how much we’re willing to allot to it. We rely on this chronological time to make our lives work. In fact, so much so, that for some, if there isn’t a schedule they’re at a loss. “We’ll have supper when we’re hungry” just doesn’t cut it – “we have to eat at such and such a time or we’ll be late for… or miss…”
For many a true vacation is one where one schedules very little; it’s called “down time”, as if the machine in us is turned off and we’re just not functioning at our normal capacity. We long for this “down time” but then we frequently find we’re just as tired after the vacation as before it started. Do we know how to practice proper leisure time, or do we just find another way of filling it with activities (scheduling them, even), perhaps for fear of being bored or feeling unfulfilled? So when, then, do we take the time to think about what we are doing with our lives. In other words, when do we think about questions such as “Is this what God is calling me to do for myself, for my children, for my community, for my church? How do I know what the church needs from me? When do I even spend time thinking about the church?”
Those kinds of questions, though, don’t come on a schedule. Frequently those questions that challenge our lives pop up at times when we think we’re least prepared, through life events that challenge us, or at random moments, when, to our way of thinking, it’s the least opportune. As, in “Really, NOW this is happening? I don’t have the time for this?” “Now, God, really?”
It’s striking that the writer of Ecclesiastes seems to write with such confidence about moments and events in life and the writer does a good job of recognizing them and cataloguing them in chapter 3, even if the context of the book seems to be a writer who is questioning everything as being vanity…
Excerpts from Ecclesiastes 3:1-8
That’s nice, Ecclesiastes, but how do I know what time it’s supposed to be? A time to break down, and a time to build up, a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to throw away stones, and a time to gather stones…OK, good to know, but, uh, what time is it now? So tell me, do I throw away the stones now, or should I go and gather them now. What time is it anyway?
The first instinct of many when faced with questions like this is to study, analyze information, look for patterns or facts that might help us determine the right course of action. Let’s just study the problem, get as much information about it as we can, and maybe we can determine what the right answer is. Easier said than done, especially now. Here’s an example.
Growing up, if something came up in conversation where we doubted what was said, or didn’t know the answer, one of us would go running for the dictionary or the encyclopedia and find out the real answer. Nowadays, we just pull out the laptop or smart phone and Google the answer. The problem now, is that instead of just having one dictionary or encyclopedia providing the answer, you end up with 16,000 hits in Google. So which one is right?
You’ve heard it said we live in the information age. We now have access to information from every source imaginable at the touch of a button. How do we sift through it all? I once heard someone say that information is the oil of the 21st century. When the H1N1 virus was flying around the earth, Google, that great aggregator of information, was able to track the virus’ progress faster than the World Health Organization could. Why? Because based on the number and concentration of people making searches for flu symptoms on their search engine, combined with local media reports and other anecdotal information they gathered, they knew what the progress of the virus was, faster than the W.H.O. could get reports from medical authorities globally. Another example – Malcolm Gladwell, a writer with interesting insights about our world and human behaviour, stated during a keynote address at a conference that I was attending that the problem for the U.S. government about the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 was not that the government didn’t have the information; they actually did have all the information about when and where things were going to happen. The problem was that they had so much information that they didn’t know which of it was the most important, and therefore on which information they should act. They simply didn’t know what signs were the right ones to indicate action was necessary. The key, then, isn’t just having the information you need, but to know what to look for; knowing the right signs, and then you’ll know what time it is, right? You’ll know where and when to act, if you just can get the right signs. So, this brings us to the Gospel of Matthew –
The Pharisees and Sadducees wanted a sign too. How do we know for sure that you are the One? Show us a sign from heaven. And Jesus responds…
Matthew 16:1-4
Jesus talks about how people could read what the weather was going to be based on looking at the sky, but then states that although they can predict the weather they can’t read the signs of the times. Interesting note about the weather reference here – you know that saying, red sky at night, sailor’s delight, red sky at morning, sailor’s take warning? Well – here it is in verse 2. I thought that saying was far younger than the 2000 years it appears to be now. In any case, Jesus says that they can’t read
the signs of the times. What were those signs of the times? According to some commentators, these were actually the signs of healing that are described in the previous chapter. The Pharisees and Sadducees would clearly have been aware of these things, and yet they still wanted a sign for themselves. One just for them. Here Jesus calls them an “evil and adulterous generation”. This is the same language that was used by the Old Testament prophets whenever Israel was seen to be turning away from the one true God. So why do the name-calling here? What was the difference? The difference was faith. The people that came to Jesus to be healed already believed that Jesus could do it – they already had faith that what they were doing by going to Jesus was going to be sufficient, whereas for the Pharisees, this just wasn’t enough. They didn’t believe that that was sufficient. They wanted some external sign. They had become so removed from the reign of God, that they were now observers, without having a deep faith that God was already at work. So, for you, Jesus says, what you get to witness, what you’ll simply observe, will be what happens after three days/two nights – the sign of Jonas. Jonah spent two nights/three days in a fish and then came out again, just as Jesus would die and be raised again after three days. So that’s what you’re going to get – I’m going to die and be raised again. Of course, this went right over the heads of the Pharisees and Sadducees.
Now before we get cocky and think that well, “at least we have faith, so we’re not losers like the Pharisees who were observers and not participants”, the disciples don’t score much better here. Jesus gets into the boat with the disciples, and he tells them beware of the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees and what do they say – they say, “Oh, he’s talking about yeast because we forgot the bread.” I can just imagine the conversation among them “Did you bring the bread? No. Did you? No, I thought you were going to bring it. Ach, we forgot the bread, now we’re going to get it…” And Jesus says, “Really – that’s what you got out of what I just said? Don’t you get it? You’re with me when I do all these things, including feeding 5000 from a few loaves and fishes, and you’re worried about forgetting the bread? Do you still not get what I, what God is doing?” Only then do they realize that it was the teaching of the Pharisees and the Sadducees that was the problem. In other words, look at what you’ve already seen and heard me teach. That’s what’s important. It’s not the bread you need most. You already are participating in God’s plan. I’m simply warning you not to become simple observers of it like some others.
So – we should be paying attention to what God is already doing. We’re a part of the continuum of God’s activity, so the signs are actually already there. Determining what time it is isn’t based on our own analysis of signs that we have to seek. The signs of God’s work are already there. The message is already there for us. It’s after Jesus’s exchange about the bread and Pharisees that Jesus discusses with the disciples about who people believe Jesus to be, and who the disciples believe Jesus is.
Matthew 16:13-15
It’s once they’re responded that they believe him to be the Messiah that he invites them deeper into his story – he then tells them what’s going to happen. So here it is – you believe I’m from God, so here’s what God is doing and is going to do… and he tells them about his suffering and death. He brings the disciples into the story in a deeper, more intimate way, because now that they’re participants in it, they’re more likely to understand it.
The signs of the times – we already have the tools to read them, because we’re a part of the story – not only are we observers, but we’re participants in God’s story. By being participants, we have the right filters for the information, but only if we allow ourselves to use them. We can’t be so proud as to believe that we have all the answers just through sheer determination to find them. There is a reliance on faith, and a faith as part of God’s community that gives us the ways to act. We need to immerse ourselves in the story of God’s people in order to understand our place in it. Only when we put ourselves into the story, when we dedicate our lives to living within the narrative that is God’s ongoing revelation, then we can understand the signs of the times. You don’t need to schedule God; church isn’t just yet another thing to do. God and God’s church are the reason for what we are doing. So what does that mean for how we are to live, to determine where we fit into the story of God? Last week, Marilyn invited us to stop and listen –a time to keep silence. This isn’t simply a moment of silent meditation – it was the silence of listening for the story of God in our lives and in the lives of God’s creation. It’s the profound living that comes from a connection to God. That’s a lot deeper than a 90 second meditation. That’s a life-long quest; a call and response; an ongoing part of the journey of our lives. It reminds me of the story of one of the mystic fathers I studied at CMBC, Brother Lawrence.
Nicolas Herman was born around 1614 in Herimenil in the region of Lorraine, modern day eastern France. As a young man, due to poverty, he was forced to join the army which at least guaranteed him food and a little money (which, by the way, army enrolment usually surges during economic downturns). It was while he was in the army, that Herman had one of those aha moments that changed his life. It wasn’t a supernatural vision; it was just a moment of clarity. During the winter, Herman look at a barren tree – no leaves, no fruit, and he realized that the tree was “waiting” with a sure hope of a springtime revival and growth during the summer. Looking at the tree he realizes that God’s grace was immeasurable. Like the tree, Herman felt dead, but he had hope that God had life waiting for him. At that moment, the leafless tree “first flashed in upon my soul the fact of God”, and realized there was a love for and from God that was eternal. When an injury forced his retirement from the army, and a short stint as a footman, he entered a Carmelite monastery in Paris as Brother Lawrence.
He then lived his life simply, working in the kitchen. In his view, everything he did was an expression of love in God. Common business could be a medium of God’s love. It was the motivation behind the task that mattered, not the importance or sacredness of the task itself “Nor is it needful that we should have great things to do…We can do little things for God; I turn the cake that is frying on the pan for love of him…It is enough for me to pick up but a straw from the ground for the love of God.” What a simple way of expressing what it is we are called to do to understand the reign of God? We will always know what time it is because we are living in God’s time. We are not called to be like the Pharisees and Sadducees who were observers, but not really participants in God’s time. They wanted a special sign just for them since they were different from others and supposedly knew what time it already was. And we can learn from the disciples that the mundane is not the primary calling for us; that we shouldn’t be so wrapped up in our own concerns that we miss the important calling from God. Everything we do in faith is in response to the story of which we are already a part. By living that faith daily, whether in quiet prayer or speech, whether we are sowing or reaping, taking the train, doing homework, running or swimming in a race, cooking for our families; when we do all those things with the love of God, we are at work in God’s kingdom. The times that the writer of Ecclesiastes discusses are not times to seek; they are times that we experience when we liv
e fully to the people that God calls us to be – faithful followers of God. God’s already part of our schedules. We need to listen, to speak and to respond to this call of God by sharing by being both observers AND participants in that story. We can BE part of the signs of the times. We will BE in those times – and then we’ll know what time it really is.