Dear sisters and brothers,
This Saturday night/Sunday morning we will once again engage in our semi-annual practice of adjusting our clocks. Let me see, it's "spring forward" and "fall back." Or is it, spring back in fear, and fall forward, as in flat on my face. One way or the other, I will get it correct this weekend so that I can get to Muir's Chapel UMC at the right time on Sunday morning. I have been thinking about "time" recently, not just because of this ritual that involves almost the whole country, but also because I have just finished reading Will Willimon's book Undone by Easter in which he reflects on time and the art and practice of sermon preparation and proclamation. I recommend it.
For the most part we have all come to accept this little ritual and along the way we have been informed about why we engage in this practice of adjusting our clocks. Or course, it actually has nothing to do with how much daylight can be "saved" on any given day. We have just decided that in certain times of the year we would like more daylight at the end of a normal work day than at the beginning. Perhaps all of this has something to do with our psyche; or perhaps it is just another sign of our desire to control things and live with the illusion that we can order the course of time. Our very language betrays us. We speak of "taking" time or of "making" time, as if we were in total control; as if we were the center of everything and master of all.
God's time is another matter. We are challenged to recognize the time in which we live. It is a time that is ripe with God's presence, if we pause long enough to see it, knowing that this is not something we can add to our already crowded calendars, whether paper or electronic. We have a tendency to fill up those spaces with activities that do little more than carve up the day or fill up our time or waste time. Jesus says we need to invest more of ourselves and our time in recognizing and living in God's time. In Luke 12:54-56 Jesus notes that most of know how to interpret the coming of a storm, or of an impending heat wave. But, he then says: "how is it that you don't know how to interpret the present time?" The present time is God's time; a time that is ripe with a vision of God's future that shapes our NOW!
In Romans 13, the Apostle Paul continues that same line of thinking. Paul has been reflecting on the nature of love as the fulfillment of the law. Then he adds that we are to love our neighbor accordingly, but especially we are to do this "understanding the present time. The hour has come for you to wake up from your slumber, because our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed."
The reality is that we all live in God's time, whatever our clocks may say at any given season. It is in God's time that we are called to serve, witness, worship, and love, about which there are no schedules or time frames. Living in God's time means that we must constantly be open to the movement of God in our lives and in our world. Living in God's time means that we are daily living in the presence of God and allowing God to be our constant source of guidance, strength and encouragement.
Larry M. Goodpaster