An Unexpected Time

sermon by Carrie Eikler
Advent 2
Isaiah 64:1-9, 2 Peter 3:8-15

I want you to think about time. Mainly, I want you to think about the word time. Now, think of a song that you know that has time in the title, or in the lyrics. What are some? Just call them out…[As Time Goes By, Time in a Bottle, etc. etc…]

When I thought of this, the first song that came to mind didn’t have time in the title, but is in the lyrics. It’s a Simon and Garfunkel song called Hazy Shade of Winter: “Time, time, time, look what’s become of me/ as I look around for my possibility/ I was so hard to please...” I asked Torin and he immediately said the line, “a simple prop to occupy my time” from the song This One Goes Out to the One I Love by REM. And then of course, since we were talking about REM, our mind went to the classic of our generation, “It’s the end of the world as we know it” which we realize didn’t have the word “ time” in it, but was certainly about time…then end of time.

Aside from love, it seems like time is the focus of many songs. It doesn’t need to have the word “time” in it, but there is something about time in most songs. That experience of getting through a specific time, waiting for some time when we will get what we want, often love. Not wanting to waste time, generally…with the one we love. Remembering a different time. Wishing for another time. Waiting for time to pass...

It might not be expressed explicitly, but the topic of time seems implicit when we sing, or speak about our lives. Unfortunately, it often seems like time is a faceless adversary, doesn’t it? Our invisible nemesis, something we have to contend with, to manage, to patiently deal with, to make the most out of it, to kill it yet somehow, not waste it. To get somewhere in the nick of it. As the sculptor and poet Henry Van Dyke explains: Time is/ Too slow for those who Wait/Too swift for those who Fear/ Too long for those who grieve/ Too short for those who Rejoice.”

Time is kind of like air, if you think about it. It surrounds us and yet we can’t see it. We can only see the movement of its passing: through greying hair, growing children, falling leaves, birthing, and dying.

That time was passing was a problem for Christians who were receiving this letter of Peter, our scripture for today. It wasn’t simply bemoaning how joints were aching, or how there was too few hours in a day, or how quickly it all passes. You see, many early Christians were just a bit peeved that, essentially, they were still here…on earth. Too much time had passed because they were believing, as the scripture we read last week Mark 13 vv. 24-37, implied “…this generation will not pass away until all these things have taken place.” And you will remember, these things they were talking about: the sun darkening, the stars falling, the Son of Man coming in clouds with glory and power. The end of the world as they knew it.

All of this was supposed to happen. Christ was supposed to have returned by now. That generation Mark spoke of had probably been dead for a decade or two and these early Christians were starting to lose hope. Think…May 22, 2011. The day after Harold Camping said Christ would return. Think…the people who dissolved their 401(Ks), quit their jobs, withdrew from their families, prepared to be raptured. That kind of May 22nd disappointment…expect ongoing, day in and day out. Each sunset, another day Christ didn’t return.

The person writing this letter in the name of Peter—likely not the Simon Peter the disciple of Christ, as originally thought—is writing a letter of encouragement. We can assume these people were convicted of their righteousness in the face of judgment, because they seem to want it so badly—which honestly, is why I feel I would not be so eager of this to come, but that doesn’t seem to be a problem for these folks. It’s the end of the world as they know it and they feel fine. At least…if it ever comes.

And the author of the letter says,don’t fear, it will happen. Maybe not in our time, but in God’s time. God works in a different time than we experience-- so when it doesn’t happen according to our clock and understanding, it doesn’t mean it won’t happen. Rest assured.

Which, if I’m honest, initially seems like a huge cop out to me. Like Harold Camping backpedaling and saying his calculations were wrong and that it will be another time, later in October. But unlike Harold Camping, the author of 2 Peter doesn’t give a solid date or time, or even predictions for what will pass before it comes. And in fact, he kind of takes away the focus on time, of the end of it all. He says it will happen when it will happen. What is important now is that you live as if it will happen any moment…

As most of you know, for close to a year now I have been running a small business: Mountain Baby Diapers, a cloth diaper service. Most people don’t understand why I would want to not only wash my own children’s diapers, but other people’s, and that’s a conversation for another time [not over a meal, where it always seems to come up]. But one thing I love about it is that it easily fits into my schedule, and is fairly flexible.

I pick up diapers from my clients homes on Wednesdays. Most Wednesdays I have the alarm on our cell phone set for 5:15 so I can be out the door by 5:30, cup of coffee in my hand, car filled with clean diapers, BBC on the radio. I see those early mornings as “my time.” I’m in a comfy little bubble as I drive around town, as far out as unpaved roads off Snake Hill Road on lanes that evoke prayer from me every time I take our little Focus wagon on them. I remember the morning by what news report is on at each client’s house. It’s a joyful, meaningful time for me, as the sun starts to rise on the new day and I’m home in time for our 7:30 breakfast of eggs and toast, kiss Sebastian off to the school bus and begin my day of washing, drying, parenting, and pastoring.

And while I’m usually up and out by 5:30, my clients know there is a 12 hour window when I might come: 5am-5pm. I did this so if—as they say—“life happens”, and I’m not there when I normally try to be-- a kids is sick, weather is bad--I can make it up later in the day. It gives me flexibility.

Which is what happened this Wednesday. On Tuesday night I was looking for the cord for our cell phone because it was low on batteries. I like to use the cell phone because it has a less jarring alarm that our digital alarm clock, but because we couldn’t find the cord to charge it—did we leave it at my parent’s? Did we leave it at the Olive Garden in Columbus?—I decided to set the alarm on our digital clock, which I don’t think I’ve ever done. AND I decided to go to bed listening to classical music, setting the clock to the sleep mode, so the radio would turn off after an hour.

We’ll I’m convinced the more I finagle with things, the less likely it is that it’s all going to work, so as you can guess, the next morning I wake up at it’s 6:30. An hour later than I hope. This is not how it is supposed to happen. Bounding out of bed I told Torin the alarm didn’t go off (as if it was the alarm’s fault), push on the coffeemaker, throw on my clothes, pour the coffee before it’s done, making a mess, worrying if I will get home in time for Sebastian to get to the bus and as I pull onto Willowdale Road the other unexpected complication—traffic. Traffic just started. There was no way my routine was going to happen like normal.

So I made the decision to alter my route. I would do some of the pickups before 7:30, go home and finish after breakfast. That way I could see Sebastian off to school, because as I realized in that moment, what seemed to be most distressing to me was that I might miss kissing him goodbye, and that I wouldn’t see him until he returned in the afternoon.

And as often happens, eating started grounding me back into clearer perspective. With the first bite of toast I was still fuming in my head: this all happened because my organized plan was disrupted. Someone lost the cord to the cell phone which meant I had to trust something else to wake me up, something other than what has always worked for me. When it comes down to it, when I’m in control, it all goes fine.

And after the first forkful of eggs I was working it out with Torin that what was really irking me was now my schedule was disrupted. I’d have to go out to Snake Hill Road—out in the boonies—when I wanted to spend the morning reading and studying in preparation for this sermon—and now my whole plan was all out of whack.

And during the first sip of coffee, Torin says “Well, I’m glad you give yourself a window of time so you don’t have to stress about when you pick up the diapers.” --I don’t know if he intended it or not, but I heard the irony in his comment. And the hard truth.

Because by the time I had finished my breakfast, and I was hugging Sebastian at the door, I realized I wasn’t freaking out about my schedule being messed up, or that I’d have to make a ten mile drive. I was angry that my attempt to control time had been thwarted.

I had been thinking that if everything went according to my plan, if I had been in charge of that phone cord, if I didn’t have to rely on an alarm clock to get me up, if things just happened the way I wanted and , let’s face it, knew best, things would be fine.

But isn’t that one of the ultimate illusions. Not that we have control over time—the first Christian communities, as we see today, were becoming painfully aware of that fact. But really, that we have control at all of anything in life. In her book Learning to Let Go Melanie Beattie reassures us that when we trade in a life that we try to control “we receive in return something better—a life that is manageable.”

Manageable, and yet more. In Greek there are at least two words for time: chronos and kairos. Chronos is clocks, deadlines, watches, calendars, agendas, planners. Chronos is where the word chonology comes from which gives the illusion of an ordered progression of time. Chronos is ticking of the clock, counting of shopping days until Christmas, wondering why Christ hasn’t come yet because time has passed on the calendar…at least, by the living and dying of a generation. Chronos makes us angry at our bodies when they don’t heal as fast as we think they should. Chronos makes us anxious about our self worth when our hopes and dreams haven’t been accomplished by the age we thought they would.

And then there is the other word for time: kairos. Kairos is the time when you are lost in the beauty of a piece of music or the reverie of poetry. Kairos is the moment you hold someone in their pain and when you’ve laughed so hard for so long your side hurts. Kairos comes in moments of meditation of watching sleeping children, of falling in love. Kairos means “opportune moment” and is used when referring to a different type of time, a time that doesn’t pass, but a time that is filled. …a time that doesn’t pass, but a time that is filled. A time that doesn’t pass, but a time that is filled with Spirit

Kairos… gives the soul a space to deepen when the body slowly heals. [pause]
When our minds were set on certain lists of accomplishments that we thought we could control,
Kairos presents us space to explore new possibilities . [pause]
Kairos replaces counting down till Christmas with the patient waiting of Advent. [pause]
And we can’t control it.
No alarm clock will alert us to it, even when we end up finding the cord for the cell phone in our purses…like I did.

And in the midst of today’s scripture of end time hopes that we can’t quite seem to connect with, the author of Peter is calling us out of chronos and into Kairos. Out of the world’s time and into God’s time. Where living is not about what is to come on the clock and what we can control, but what is at work in our hearts and what we leave to the movement of Spirit.
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And that’s probably what a lot of the songs about time have to say, too. While we want to control time, the painful reality is that we can’t. And if the author of 2 Peter was a country singer, he’d probably couldn’t say it better than Emmylou Harris who sings: “When we’re gone, long gone…the only thing that will have mattered, is the love that we shared, and the way that we cared. When we’re gone. Long gone.”
An