It's Time! A Lectionary Meditation
It’s Time!
Time flies and you can’t get it back
once it’s gone. It’s fleeting, so don’t
waste it. I’m skittish about such
adages, because we live in an age of instant gratification. We want results now, and won’t stand for any
delay. At the same time, we can have a
lack of urgency about important matters.
Climate change, for instance, is one of those issues that is hard to get
excited about. We hear reports that the
sea might rise an inch or so a year, as the earth warms. It doesn’t seem like much, but it doesn’t
take long for it to add up. Oh, it may
be a few decades, but time flies by quicker than we think.
Many of our churches are living on borrowed time – the members
are getting older and frailer. The possibility
of passing on the torch to the next generation becomes ever more difficult, as
we kick the can down the road.
We are creatures of instant gratification, but do we have a
true sense of urgency about what God is up to in the world? Will we get to matters of God’s realm now or
will we postpone to a more convenient time?
My own inclinations, at times, lead me to embrace the latter
option.
As I read this set of lectionary texts, all of which are
rather brief in scope, I get a sense of urgency. The time is short. Don’t waste another moment. There isn’t time to have a proper farewell
with one’s parents. Get up and go, for
the time is here. The realm of God is at
the door. This is the message we hear in
Jonah, in Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, and in the Gospel of Mark (it
being the briefest of all the gospels).
Jonah heard the call of God, but he wasn’t interested in
heeding it. Going to Nineveh didn’t
sound like a very profitable opportunity.
They were oppressors of Jonah’s people.
They were renowned for the viciousness.
What good can come of such a venture?
If God wished to judge the city, then let him do it and get it over
with. That would benefit everybody. Nuke them!
That’s what they deserve, so give it to them. But God was unrelenting. God had a message for the people, a message
of some urgency. Get up and go, Yahweh
told Jonah. Declare my judgment against
this great city, a city so large that it took three days to walk across its
expanse. It wasn’t his desire to do so,
but Jonah went anyway, and he proclaimed the message: “Just forty days more and Nineveh will be
overthrown!” The people heard the
message and they responded by proclaiming a fast and by putting on mourning
clothes.” Even the king joined with
them. There’s a little break between
these verses and the closing verse of the lection, where the king gives
instructions in response to the word of judgment. The word of judgment had been uttered, and it
was heard. Not only did they hear, but
the acted with urgency. And God saw what
they were doing and God decided to stay the execution. God saw that the evil behavior had
ended. And when God saw this, God
decided to not destroy the city.
If you read on you discover that Jonah was not at all pleased
with this turn of events. There is
urgency to get the message out and to respond to it, for repentance and grace are
the messages of the day.
Paul’s apocalyptic side gets exposed in this passage. The time is short, so don’t be consumed by
worldly things – like marriage and family, joy and even mourning. Be focused.
It’s a word that is not easily heard or a way of life that’s easily
sustained. There’s little family values
focus here – if you have a wife (or a husband), live as if you’re single and
celibate. Not because family is bad, but
because there’s no time for it. The same
goes for those who are sad – there’s no time for mourning. It only distracts you from your calling, but
the same is true of those of you who are joyful. Don’t live a normal life. Don’t be preoccupied with the things of this
world, “because this world in its present form is passing away.”
This Pauline word has a harshness to it that may be
off-putting. It may seem unrealistic as
well. But think of the context. Think of the sense of urgency present
here. Do we have the same sense of
urgency about God’s calling on our lives?
Or, are we too distracted with our “things” whether they are our smart
phone, our computers, our golf clubs – whatever it is that draws our attention
away from the work of God? We all have
them, those things that keep us from seeing things as they are.
And so we come to Mark.
His is the shortest gospel. He
gets to the point. It’s action
oriented. John has been arrested, and so
it’s time for Jesus to take up the mantle.
He’s been baptized and he’s been to the desert. His focus is clear and he sees urgency. “Now is the time! Here comes God’s Kingdom! Change your hearts and lives and trust his
good news!” (Mk 1:14-15). Repent, turn around, live a life of
trust.
As Jesus goes across Galilee, preaching this “Good News” he
encounters two brothers – Andrew and Simon – they’re hard at work casting their
nets into the lake. They were, after
all, fishermen. It wasn’t as if they were
wasting time checking their Facebook pages (as I often find myself doing!) But, Jesus has something else for them to do –
something with more urgency – they would join him in his work of spreading the
Good News of God’s realm. Instead of
trying to catch fish in the lake, they would catch people. And
when the call went out, they left their nets “right away.” Not tomorrow or next week, or when they
retired, but “right away.” They dropped
the nets and followed. The call came
with a sense of urgency and they responded with the same sense of urgency.
But Jesus’ wasn’t finished.
As Andrew and Simon walk along the lake with Jesus, he sees another set
of brothers – James and John. They’re
sitting in their boat, busy fixing their nets.
Maybe they’d returned from a long day of successful fishing, and now it
was time to prepare the nets for the next day.
They too were busy, doing “normal work.”
But, “at that very moment he called them. They followed him leaving their father
Zebedee in the boat with the hired workers.”
No long goodbyes, no waiting for replacements. They just get up and follow. Would you?
Could you? I don’t know. I did pick up and head off for seminary, with
nothing but $500, a broken down car, and no place to live when I finished my nearly
eight hundred mile journey from Klamath Falls to Pasadena.
Is there a sense urgency about our faith? Do we concern ourselves with the Reign of
God? Are we like Jonah, who goes to
Nineveh -- a place of power and prestige, a place that likely would not heed
the warning (and if they did, would he like the outcome?) – but does so reluctantly
and after running away the first time?
Do we find ourselves preoccupied with the things of this world? Are we willing to drop our nets and follow
Jesus, fishing for people? Jesus
says – Now is the time. Not
tomorrow. Not next year. Now, for there is no time to waste!
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