"Time Is Full of Its Own Emptiness"

Time – it’s like money – we spend it on what matters.

Time – The stop watch is running – new records are being set.

The Biblical perspective on time is a bit different.

The most familiar scriptural words regarding time are found in Ecclesiastes – “For everything there is a time and a season… 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 break down, and a time to build up, and a time to weep, and a time to laugh….”

But there are less familiar, shorter passages that speak to us. In Isaiah 61 the scriptural concept of time speaks in terms of “the year of the Lord,” and in the New Testament with the words of Jesus in Luke’s gospel, “Today, this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing,” (Luke 4:21)

The fulfillment is good time, a favorable time when the poor hear good news and captives of various kinds are liberated. Indeed, this liberation is brought to life with the birth of Christ, and we sing about it with many of our Christmas carols. And when we stop to think, the birth of Christ actually is a continental divide in time. History is labeled either BCE or AD time.

Today, time is no longer described in Biblical terms. Time has even become separated from the normal seasons of the year – spring, summer, winter, and fall. In fact, I find it hard to keep track of the seasons here in Arizona where it’s either warm or warmer. Mostly, we’ve come to rely on just two seasons of time, daylight savings time and standard time.

Much of our time is filled with impatience and a sense of urgency. (That’s my wife’s way of reframing my own impatience.) Meredyth simply says to folks that “Larry has a sense of urgency about him.” But then, it was that sense of urgency that helped get this church off the ground 18 years ago and moving along our brief life together in north Scottsdale.

At another level instant gratification compels us to want rewards and life fulfilled immediately, in the moment. Children, youth, and adults want “fast food service” in much of life. “Quick, let’s get it, and get out of here.” Or other comments like, “I don’t want to waste time standing in line!”

At Menninger’s Hospital, the Mayo Clinic of mental health treatment, on the adolescent unit each student has plants in their room for which they are responsible. They learn in not so subtle ways that it takes time for a plant to grow from a seedling in a little clay pot to a larger mature plant that is filled with beautiful flowers. They learn to water and fertilize the plants, and to care for them over an extended period of time – all for the purpose of coming to terms with our desire for instant gratification.

So much of our time has emptiness to it that we fill with work. It is not uncommon for management level employees to be working 60 hour weeks. The presence of cell phones, black berries and other high tech devices enable us are literally to work 24 hours seven days a week. In Senator John Danforth’s book, Faith and Politics, he describes how the work day has changed so radically for our elected officials. Years ago it was common that Republican and Democratic Senators or Congressmen would oppose one another all day, but then share a drink or dinner together at the end of the afternoon. Now, they are at work well into the night, and if they do have dinner with one another, it’s with other members of their own party, not across party lines. This in itself has helped to break down a sense of cohesiveness and fuels the polarization of the two parties.

Work has evolved into a means of self–actualization and self–identity. We are what we do, and how we spend our time. Our sense of work–related time has enormous impact on sense of one’s self. Don’t you frequently use or hear such phrases as:

“I don’t have time.”

“Let me see if I can make time.”

And soon, there is no time, life has passed us by.

Recently, I had an opportunity to sit on a beach in Hawaii. After trying to organize the waves and the clouds after sitting for a few moments I realized:

That I was not waiting for anything to happen.

I was not hurrying to get anywhere.

I was not in conversation with anyone thinking about what has to be done next and not focused on that person with whom I was in dialogue.

I watched the birds swoop and dive into the water. I watched youngsters wait for the perfect wave to catch a ride on their boogey board. I listened to the rhythm of the waves.

The time was ample

  uncrowded,

    spacious,

      and free of anxiety.

It was a time to breathe,

  To be,

    A time full of emptiness, to borrow a phrase from Wendy Wright in an article in Weavings years ago. (Weavings, Jan. 1999)

Have you ever had that experience? I hope you do.

Yet it is not sufficient. In reflecting on much of our life we have allowed our time to be consumed by work, competition, busyness and darting movements back and forth like a rabbit trying to escape the barking chase dog. We treat moments of rest like a pit stop at the Indy 500, and the pit crew are the masseuse, the personal trainer, manicurist, and coach. They push us harder and faster to the point that our recreation time has become as frantic and competitive as our work. There surely must be another way in God’s time.

God’s time is both kronos time and kairos time. Kronos time is the Greek word from which we get “chronology.” Kronos time is linear time to be filled, and measured, and watched like the clock.

Kairos time is more inclusive. Kairos time confronts our denial of the rhythms of life which God gives us – – day and night, work and rest, eating and digesting, the very rhythms that govern the basic processes of life…our bodies, our psyches, and the earth on which we reside. We need those rhythms to live fully.

Kairos time is time secure in God’s hands. It acknowledges the deeper moments of life:

To delight in what is given us.

To breathe in life; to breathe in beauty.

To heal wounds;

To forgive and regenerate.

To restore the world to its basic patterns

To anticipate a new world, and to allow peace to flourish.

All of these impact our life. And are summed up in the imperatives of the Ephesians passage today:

“Be careful then how you live, not as unwise people, but as wise….giving thanks to God the Father at all times and for everything in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

These are good words to remember as we fill the emptiness of time we are given. Ecclesiastes has divided and labeled time. The New Testament encourages us to use the time God gives us carefully and wisely….to the glory of God. Amen.