"Now is the
Time"
a condensed version of the
sermon that would have been delivered by Rev.
Kirk Moore on Ash
Wednesday, February 6, 2008 at Union Congregational Church, United Church of
Christ, in Somonauk, Illinois. However, the service was cancelled because of a
severe snowstorm.
|
I love time travel movies, books and television shows. I remember being fascinated the first time I watched HG Wells’ "The Time Machine" on WGN’s Family Classics in the early 70’s. I loved the Back to the Future films and even Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure. I have read the more recently published "The Time Traveler’s Wife" (Soon to be major motion picture!) and loved television shows like Quantum Leap, Timecop (yup – it was a short-lived series too!) and the brand new Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. And just yesterday, I learned that a real, respected and current scientist, Ronald Mallett, is working on plans for a real time machine. He has a book called Time Traveler: A Scientist's Personal Mission to Make Time Travel a Reality.
Professor Mallett’s real quest, and all of the fictional films, books and television shows deal with time travel. And really -- we all travel in time – only in one direction, but we do travel in time. (Professor Mallett is planning to challenge that, but for now . . .)
The Greek word that describes time is Chronos – the kind of time it would be fascinating to travel forward and backward in but the time that simply passes.
That’s not the time that comes from tonight’s Bible reading, however. That time – the acceptable time – comes from a different Greek word – Kairos. And that time is equally, if not more fascinating as Chronos.
Kairos describes an urgency – as in "It’s high time we got this thing started!" and "There’s no time like the present." In tonight’s reading it describes the urgency of reconciliation to God.
Lent is a time for us to prepare for the reality that in Jesus – we are reconciled to God. No more obstacles. No excuses. No worries about it. The time is here and Jesus came to give us live and we have that life – NOW. There’s an urgency in that it has already happened and it is happening. Now is the time.
Yet we don’t live in Kairos time. We’re Chronos people. And our lives are a journey. We have good days and bad days. We are sometimes poor and sometimes rich. Sometimes we have the respect of others and sometimes not. Sometimes we feel like we’re really close to God and sometimes we feel apart.
Our Lenten journey and our life journey have similarities. For Lent, we’re beginning a somber journey of self-reflection. We may give up things to help us focus more on what God is doing instead of how much we can do. We can "give up" things that keep us from really experiencing the reality of God’s unconditional love. Listen to these suggestions I wrote about in this month’s Messenger, our newsletter:
God can and does give us the ability to do things just like that -- not only in our season of Lent, but all the time. Tonight’s reading calls us to focus on returning to God. God has never left – never been any nearer or closer than at any time before, but our return to God will help us to experience it more fully.
There’s another kind of reconciliation I think we can experience as we engage tonight’s Bible reading.
Reconciliation to one another.
On our faith journey – filled with the ups and the downs; On our life journey – filled with the ups and the downs, we have experience strained relationships with others.
During this Lenten season, it’s a great opportunity for us to journey toward reconciliation with the ones from whom we are estranged. I know that it is different than being reconciled to God – who loves us unconditionally and who has already made the reconciliation happen, but I think we can trust that God will guide us through the difficulties and the pain and the anger to help us journey toward reconciliation with others.
I can’t tell you exactly how that works – only that God can and does make it work. We can be ready for what God does. We can let the poetry run through our heads this whole Lenten season – the words from Psalm 51 that began our service – will be part of the imposition of ashes and how we will sing as we end our service.
Create in me a clean heart, O God,
Now is the time.
© 2008 Union Congregational Church, All Rights Reserved