The disciples who were following Jesus had three main daily concerns. They were obviously hungry, thirsty and they needed to find the nearest mall to buy clothes. Well perhaps the clothing concern wasn’t that big of a deal. Typical clothing concern was about cleaning this outfit they wore all the time or tears in the garment. What about food? They didn’t have fast food so they had to trust that they would be provided for. This of course isn’t our problem as we have plenty of choices, preservatives and shelves of food. There are hungry people in our community and around the world but we don’t suffer from hunger for very long. What about waters? We have clean water, bottled water and an abundance of beverage choices. Yet in the time of Christ they always depended on the wells in the community and for someone to help bail them out.
So Jesus told them not to worry! Now this isn’t about Bob Marley and the song, “don’t worry be happy” “Landlord say the rent is late, he may have to litigate so don’t worry, be happy.” There is a normal concern for these things. Yet Americans spend 3-4 times more time shopping each year than Europeans.[1] We just never have enough. Our worry and anxiety are so great not because we don’t have enough of these things. We have food worries; drinking worries; body worries and clothing worries. Birds don’t worry – they are provided for and the lilies of the field are clothed. “Worry is essentially a sign of distrust.”[2] We are called to trust God so that we take time to Sabbath, a 24 hour period where we rest and relax. We gather for worship, for a time with family and friends.There is always more work to do.
Jesus said, in Matthew 6:27, “And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life?” Well next Sunday we are going to lose an hour of our time. Are you worried about it? Well save your worry until the fall when you do get your hour added to your span of life. What about this past February 29th! We had a whole day added to our calendar because the earth actually revolves around the sun about 365.24 days a year. This extra day was something that was added. You must have been bored to death! What, we had to still work. In the 1950’s experts said we would have more free time with automation[3]. We don’t have free time. We believe that time is money![4] You don’t waste your money and you don’t want to waste time doing nothing.
The poor have too much time but not enough money and the rich often have too much money but not enough time. We value being busy. When we don’t have anything to do or we are doing nothing, it seems like we are wasting time, therefore we are wasting money. There were three main words in the Greek for the word time in the New Testament.
The first word is kronos, we get the word in English, chronology. Here is a clock, it ticks, it just keeps on slippin, slippin, slippin, into the future. This is clock time and boy does time fly (toss in air). On the clock there are big hands and there are little hands and then there is the seconds hand. There is time that just ticks away, you can hear it ticking away again and again. What were you doing on this day in time? It is this time that we get worried about because we know it is finite; that is what anxiety is about. Paul Tillich described anxiety as “Finitude made aware of itself”. We do worry and we do plan for the future. This passage isn’t about carelessness, a don’t worry be happy attitude. The clock is running, nothing we can do about it. It should lead us toward being aware of an end time. Our lives are literally ticking away.
On this scout Sunday, we remember Walter Hart who earned 23 merit badges, two more than needed to qualify for his Eagle Scout badge. Only 5 percent of all boy scouts achieve this rank.[5] It takes a lot of time to earn that award. Walter Hart joined the Cub Scouts in 1928 in Massachusetts and was set to receive it when World War II broke out. At age 88, he was going through some memorabilia when he found the documents and realized he had never claimed his badge. Scout officials said last summer that he may be the oldest person to be awarded the Eagle Scout ranking. "It means a lot to me," said Hart, who lives in a retirement center in Florida. "I've been looking forward to this for a long time." His life was almost up before he received the metal. The end time of his life perhaps was near.
That is the second Greek word for time, telos, the end time; we wait for the tellos for the day our “ticker” will stop. It is then we place our small hands in God’s big hands. That is the moment! That is the third understanding of time in Greek, the Chairos. We are living in the chronos, waiting for the telos, hoping for the Chairos[6]. Chairos is the Greek word for God’s time or the perfect time or moment in time. It is in the chairos when we see God breaking into our time; we know the one who holds all time; do you remember when we received a glimpse of God’s time. We seek that moment so that we can be reminded to trust God enough to take time now with family, in worship, to renew and rekindle.
Sabbath rest opens up our Chronos to the in-breaking of God’s time. God will give us the chronos time to see how the CHAIROS time will break into our lives. Even when we don’t keep the Sabbath and make the time, God breaks into our time with God’s big hands and places this gift in the little hands of these children who are receiving their First Communion. This will be the day that you will always remember that your little hands were embraced in a mysterious way by the hands of God.
Let us pray: Gracious God, you entrust to us many gifts and talents that we may work and serve you. Our hands have been busy all week serving others. Provide for us that we may rest on Sabbath time, holding our little hands. in Jesus name we pray, Amen! ><> Michael E. Thomas
[1] Wayne Muller, Sabbath
[2] Barclay commentary on Matthew, volume 1
[3] Wayne Muller, Sabbath
[4] Wayne Muller, Sabbath
Posts
