1/2/05

The Time Is Now

Ecclesiastes 1:2-9, 15-18
Galatians 4:4-7
John 1:10-18

2005! A new year filled with possibilities, hopes, and dreams. But also one that begins with the aftereffects of one of the most horrific natural disasters in modern history. It is now estimated that the death toll from the Asian tsunamis will easily exceed 150,000 - perhaps considerably more. And this includes thousands of children swept out to sea, with grieving parents left behind, and vice versa; entire villages wiped off the face of the earth. I don't know about you, but all this boggles my mind. Not included in the numbers are the millions of people injured, made homeless, many left without any form of livelihood. For sure, let us pray, and let us dig as deeply as we can to help provide financial assistance. The needs are overwhelming, and it is our Christian calling to respond.

Add to this unbelievable disaster, the war that is still grinding on in Iraq, the deaths and injuries, not only of our own service men and women, but also of the tens of thousands of native Iraqis caught in the cross fire, the destruction there and in neighboring Afghanistan, unrest still in the Israel-Palestine area, devastating hunger in many parts of Africa, folks within our own country who do not have adequate food or housing or medical care. ... In spite of the new year dawning, it would not take much for us to become pretty depressed or despondent. It is hard to be hopeful in the darkness of despair. It is hard for some even to believe in God, or to believe that God really loves us. No wonder some people become fatalists, or feel that life is meaningless. Even with faith it's hard to understand a lot of what is going on in the world or in our lives.

With this as a backdrop, we take a look at Ecclesiastes, probably the most negative book in the Bible. Usually biblical texts are chosen to teach us a way to go, a path to follow, a truth to adopt. But our Hebrew Bible lesson today does just the opposite. Don't assume that the attitude expressed by Ecclesiastes is the gospel truth; don't succumb to the futility, the meaninglessness, the rigidity declared. For this ancient author, birth and death set the bounds within which people kill and heal, weep and laugh, seek and lose, love and hate - there is a time for each, to quote a more familiar chapter in the book. Half of our activities are filled with sorrows and death is continually casting a shadow upon life. Most frustrating is our inability to really change anything.(i) All is vanity, futility, and hopelessness. For Ecclesiastes and all who ascribe to his philosophy, time and life itself become an unsolvable mystery, a pessimistic trap, an exercise in emptiness, a meaningless going-around-in-circles.

It is into this quagmire of time and life devoid of hope and meaning that God comes to us with good news. It is into the darkness and nothingness described by Ecclesiastes, and within which we often find ourselves, that Christ comes as light and fulfillment. As we say good-bye to an old year and look expectantly toward a new one, we need to hear again the assertion of faith: that God in Christ supplies the missing meaning of time, and gives significance and purpose to life itself.

But in the sweep of the terrible tragedies we've mentioned, how does God do this? More important, does a loving God even exist? Yes, God does exist, and God does what God does through us - through people of faith and even through people of no faith. The vitality of God is arising all over the world as people are mobilized by a basic human instinct - to help those in need. Hearts are filled with a God-friendly impulse to reach out to those who are suffering. Prayers are being offered, help is being volunteered, pocketbooks are being opened.(ii) God's time is now.

In the present crisis in Southeast Asia, our hands are becoming the hands of God, our feet, the feet of God, our words, the words of God. As someone has put it, this is a time for the church to be the church, remembering that when Jesus told us to love our neighbors, he had a really big neighborhood in mind! (iii) And the church is being the church. The United Church of Christ, and I'm sure every denomination, is gearing up and already providing relief and aid. Church-related doctors, nurses, truck drivers, mechanics, carpenters, missionaries, etc. are on their way or already on the scene. To put this another way, people of faith are responding to the tsunami with a faith tsunami of our own - a tidal wave of love and compassion. (iv) The time is now.

On a more personal level, our God has designed life to be a thing of beauty, to be enjoyed by us, and by each of God's children. God intends that the time we live in right now will be fulfilled time, redeemed time, liberated time. This means that as we begin the new year, we can begin again in our lives. We are freed from the past - past, failures, sorrows. We are freed to look at our lives and how we spend our lives in new and creative ways. The time is now.

Someone has wisely noted - and this appeals to the old banker in me - that yesterday is a cancelled check, tomorrow, a promissory note, but today is the only cash we have - so we should spend it wisely.(v) The time is now. Today is the future we dreamed about yesterday, and tomorrow does not have to be as fearful as current events might indicate. Indeed, if people of faith are willing to take the risks of faith in the year ahead, then it can become for us and for all humanity, a good year.

By God's grace we can overcome our personal obsession with time that drives us into craving and worrying - craving those things that only satisfy our egos, worrying about those things that only confirm our lack of faith. By God's grace we can do something about some of the problems of the world - starting with the tsunami disaster, the aftermath of which is the responsibility of all people everywhere. And we can tackle other on-going problems as well: hunger, over-population, poverty, human rights abuses, animosity, violence, and war among nations, housing for refugees, unemployment and economic inequities ... the list could go on and on. By God's grace our church community will be willing to not only dig deep into our pockets financially, but also be willing to continue taking risks of faith as we reach out with new ways of serving others within our walls and beyond our walls into the larger community.

We're soberly reminded that in our own community, including within our church family, there are smaller-scale disasters that can be personally devastating, and these occur every day. People are figuratively swept out to sea, hit by tsunamis they never saw coming. Many are floundering emotionally, spiritually, even financially. Lives have been shredded to ribbons, relationships tattered.(vi) People are hurting and needing. By God's grace, our church will be the church to these folks also.

I came across a newspaper clipping some years ago, author unknown, that spoke to me, and may also speak to you as we begin the new year before us. "This is the beginning of a new day [substitute new year, if you wish]. God has given me this new day to use as I see fit. I can waste it, or grow in its light and be of service to others. But what I do with this day is important, because I have exchanged a day of my life for it. When tomorrow comes, today will be gone forever. I hope I do not regret the price I paid for it." The good news of the gospel of Christ is that we have been redeemed, we have been freed from all that has kept us in bondage, and we have been adopted as God's sons and daughters. The negative message in Ecclesiastes has been overshadowed by the positive message of the gospel. In the negative message, time circles in on itself, and folks find themselves going around in circles. In the positive message of the gospel, time runs in an ascending line from the beginning of life to God's goal for us, "power to become children of God." Stop and think about this. We are given the power to become - the power to become all that God intends for us, the power to become what God designed us for. Overnight? In an instant? Of course not. Growing toward the full stature of life in Christ only comes with the passage of time, but when we are in relationship with Christ, God helps us, not only to overcome the obstacles in our way, but also moves us toward that fulfilled life. The negative message in Ecclesiastes is wrong, dead wrong! All is not vanity, hopelessness, and futility. For in the fullness of time God sent the Son, Jesus Christ, who is light for our darkness, a light that nothing has overcome, or will ever overcome - in this life or in the next.

I'd say we have a lot to look forward to in 2005. For sure, there will be challenges - probably some failures, some pain or loss, suffering or sorrow - for this is the stuff of which life is made. But there will also be joy, love, kindness, goodness, gentleness, and all the other fruits of the Spirit for those who walk in the way of the Lord. I pray that each of us will feel the presence of God in Christ as we embark upon this new year, and that this presence will stay with us each and every day. If we trust in God, God's time can be our time. And God's time is now. Amen.

The Pilgrim Church of Duxbury
Rev. Kenneth C. Landall

i Word & Witness, 1/1/84.
ii Timothy Merrill, Homiletics email, 12/30/04.
iii Stan Purdum, quoted by Merrill, ibid.
iv Merrill, op. cit.
v Kay Lyons, in Peter's Quotations, p. 550.
vi Merrill, op. cit.