It's About Time

Sermon from the Third Sunday after Epiphany + Pr. Craig Mueller + January 21, 2024

This sermon is about time. It seems like we are living in troubling times. Jesus says, “the time is fulfilled. The kingdom of God has come near.” Paul declares the present form of this world is passing away.

On New Year’s Eve, as one year was passing over into another, there was a full ad-like page in the New York Times that caught my attention.

It read: “What will you do with your life? What will you do with your time? Live to the average age of 79, and you’ll spend about 28 years sleeping, four years eating and drinking, 15 years working and almost two commuting to thus said job. You may be somewhat surprised (perhaps occasionally horrified) to realize you might spend about 11 years watching TV, 115 days laughing, 30 days crying, weeks scratching something and months trying to decide what to wear.

If you got a phone when you were ten, you could be on track to spend approximately nine years of your life . . . on that phone. No wonder you wake up one day and ask yourself, where did the time go? The thing is you get to decide. Every day you’re presented with hundreds of choices about what to do with that day. You can give it to family. Friends. Bosses. Causes. You can succumb to the distractions of the pings and pops on your wrist. In your pocket. And because time is what you’re made of, and all you really have is time…it’s prudent to pay attention to where and how you spend it.

The choices that you make, within the moments, hours, months and years you’re given, become the answer to the question. What will you do in your lifetime? 

As Jesus commences his public ministry, he begins with an urgent, timely message. The time has come. The Greek word suggests a critical juncture, a divine appointment or intervention. Different from the everyday “clock time” by which most of us measure our days.

Jesus’ call is so charged that Simon and Andrew leave behind their former lives. They leave behind their nets and follow Jesus on a risky adventure they can barely comprehend.

We may not leave our jobs and families behind to become a pastor or missionary. Yet our baptismal call is to serve God wherever. Whatever our vocation, our job, our context, our calling. Whether it seems “religious” or not. And if you think you are still trying to figure what you are called to do with your life, you’re not alone. It takes a lifetime as we move through each stage of life. Whether a student, parent, spouse, worker, or retiree.

Consider this memorable line in one of Mary Oliver’s poems:

Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?

It’s tempting to scroll through life, not really thinking about it. Not reflecting on how we use our time. Failing to examine what makes us thrive and become fully alive. Neglecting to discern how we might best use our abilities, make the world a better place, and thus, serve God.

One author suggests that money, title, and status are vanity metrics. Purpose, meaning, and satisfaction and true wealth metrics.

Which brings me to a movie recommendation for you: Rustin, streaming on Netflix. Bayard Rustin was one of the influential leaders of the civil rights movement in the 1960s. In 1963 he organized the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom where Dr. King gave his famous “I have a dream” speech.

Yet Rustin’s impact is often overlooked. He faced obstacles in following his dream, as many of us do. In Rustin’s case, one reason was that he was gay and it was a very different time.

When Rustin proposes the idea of a gathering on the mall to prove that Black Americans would come from all over the country to stand up for their rights and gain the attention of the Kennedy Administration, other civil rights leaders are skeptical. But Rustin perseveres. Though it seems a stretch for 100,000 people to show up at the march, some 250,000 actually attend!

Rustin once said: “My activism did not spring from my being gay, or, for that matter, from my being Black. Rather, it is rooted fundamentally in my Quaker upbringing and the values that were instilled in me by my grandparents who reared me. Those values are based on the concept of a single human family and the belief that all members of that family are equal.”

In addition to the movie, Rustin is featured in a children’s book called Holy Troublemakers. It is about people of diverse faiths who read the signs of the time, and who rocked the religious boat on behalf of love and justice. Figures like Rumi, Thich Nhat Hanh, St. Francis, Harriet Tubman, Mr. Rogers. Friends of God who sensed the urgency of the time and sometimes risked all for the sake of their faith and a greater good.

It’s about time. The time is now. The time is fulfilled. Repent, which means turn around and make a new beginning. Believe the good news. This world is passing away as we strain toward God’s dream for us and this beautiful earth. 

Maybe one reason we come together each Sunday is to learn a different way of telling time. Not with a stopwatch, an Apple watch, or any of clock, really. But we learn God’s time—a time rich with purpose, a time rich with possibility, a time rich with meaning, a time rich with hope.

In this eucharist, time stops, in a way. Christ enters our time, enters our space. We are joined to the past and the future. And the present moment shines with the presence of God. Here. Now.

What will you with your one wild and precious life? I’ve got good news for you! You’re not on your own. This faith community journeys with you. The saints and holy troublemakers who have before, encourage you. Feel the urgency, but also relax. It will take a lifetime. We are always discerning our calling.

It's about time! Let us leave behind all that hinders us. Follow Christ. And maybe, little by little, begin to risk everything. For in the words of the hymn that follows, “faith begins by letting go.”