"Not a hair of your head will perish"-Sermon for In-Gathering Sunday, Luke 21:5-19
Our gospel lesson today got me thinking about time. Time, and more specifically time’s end, seems to be what is motivating the conversation between Jesus and his disciples that we get to overhear this morning. It is as if the disciples are intuiting, maybe even subconsciously, that Jesus’ life and ministry…and more specifically his conflict with his own religious leadership…is, soon and very soon, coming to some sort of dramatic conclusion…and, if so, indeed, they are correct. For the end of Jesus’ time on earth, physically speaking, is drawing near. They are now, if you will, living in the shadow of the cross. Our gospel reading today is from Luke chapter 21, and Jesus’ passion, indeed, begins in Luke chapter 22…the clock is ticking. Further, Jesus’ own comments about the coming destruction of the temple in Jerusalem, the great sign and symbol of God’s on-going presence and life among God’s people, is likely only exasperating the disciple’s sense, maybe even anxiety, that time is running out…their time…the world’s time…all coming to some sort of cosmic and violent conclusion. And I would suggest, further, that all this collapsing of time…this sense that time is finite and moving like an unstoppable train…a sense that the end is near…an end that will only exacerbate suffering and snuff out joy…an end that all too painfully reminds them that their time on earth with those they love is entirely too short and includes loss and the grief that surely follows…all of these time-ending musing are likely not exactly comforting to them…to Jesus’ friends and followers. And how could it be? How could they do anything other than simply fall apart?
Even just overhearing this conversation that includes talk of wars and earthquakes and famine and plagues and dreadful portents in the heavens and persecution and arrest and imprisonment…should indeed fill, even the casual listener, with a sense of fear and foreboding. Thus the disciples cry out…when…“Teacher, when will this be, and what will be the sign that this is about to take place?” For, if they know when the end will come…when time will run out…maybe they can do something about it…and if not…maybe they can choose to use the time left well…eat, drink and be merry…like soldiers at a great feast on the eve of battle against an army they cannot defeat. Or, perhaps, less dramatically, just tell their loved ones like a thousand times that they love them…or seek to relieve some sort of suffering in another person’s life that they might live more fully in the time they have left. When…when will our time end…when will time end…seems a reasonable question for those like the disciples, and, really, those like us, whose lives seem so tied to time. For as the poet William Carlos Williams writes, “Time is a storm in which we are all lost.”
Now, I apologize for whipping up our collective anxiety, but, if honest, I don’t think our experience of time is all that different form our spiritual ancestors, those first followers of Jesus. We live in a time when science has made us very aware of our fragility in the universe. The airwaves are full of stories about super volcanoes and giant asteroids and the devastating consequences of climate change…all of which, most especially the last, are worth our attention. Disease and the unexpected loss of loved ones, for those walking through either, are constant reminders of how short our time together really is. With each passing day, we age and fret over the loss of our physical and mental abilities. Thus, our world has never been more obsessed with health, diet and exercise…and that is mainly all to the good…and not primarily because of what it means for our future…but because of the quality of life we hope to experience with those we love in the present moment. I wrote this sermon at my dining room table…and my house is full of clocks…I love time pieces and trains…don’t’ know why…I just do…but I could literally hear all the clocks around me ticking…another second past and gone. We often say time is fleeting…that time flies…that we are here today and gone tomorrow…like grass withering in the summer sun. Jim Morrison, the lead singer of “The Doors”, muses, “The future is uncertain but the end is always near.” And, perhaps, with a child’s experience of a summer day full of fun flying by in mind, Dr. Seuss writes, “How did it get so late so soon? It’s night before it’s afternoon. December is here before it’s June. My goodness how the time has flewn. How did it get so late so soon?”
When on sabbatical in the summer of 2017, I tried my hand at being an amateur poet myself. And, when thinking very specifically about how the gift of time for rest and renewal seems to be over before it even begins, I wrote the following two-part poem called “Time Flow” and it is subtitled “Two Thoughts”. And, it reads:
I was reminded recently,
Chronos ate his children
Indeed, I know my grandfathers’ names
They are Wiley and Miles
But their fathers’ names ring no bells
Lost to time
At least the stream I swim in
There are the genes of course
But no memories
Time moving in one direction
Like an unstoppable train
The armored variety
Cutting in half everything in its path
An amoral and non-sentient seemingly omnipotent being
That make no mistake
Claims victory in the end
It seems in such a terrible hurry to get to where it is going
A universe expanding
Till anything touches nothing
Torn apart with no semblance of meaning
I will stop here for a moment…the poem is not over…just thought one…in this two-part poem. And, this first thought, or part, reminds me of the great hymn of the church, “O God our Help in Ages Past”, by Issac Watts, that reads, “Time, like an ever-rolling stream, bears all our years away; they fly, forgotten, as a dream dies at the opening day.” This is verse five of the hymn…but it is a hymn with six verses…so it is not the last word. And, the sixth verse reads this, “O God, our help in ages past, our hope for years to come, be thou our guide while life shall last, and our eternal home.” And if I jump back to verse two Watts writes, “Under the shadow of thy throne they saints have dwelt secure; sufficient is thine arm alone, and our defense is sure.” And these two verses, remind me of the second thought in my poem…or the second part…which reads:
Then there is also the most-simple blessedness of tomorrow
A new day
The sun rising in the east with blinding light
The orientation in which we set our altars
Welcoming the new day
Beckoning the sun to come
A looking forward with hope
Reveille played in the church dome
It’s time to wake up, it’s time to wake up
In the morning
For our vision is future looking
Our best days lie ahead
Ten dimensions to explore
Earth to be worked with hands in dirt
Seed, sun, nutrients and, yes, time
From which life springs, afresh
A deep breath in the present moment
Reveling in what is now and what surely will be
Oh, time where is you victory
Oh, time where is your sting
You see, even time belongs to God, along with everything and everyone contained within it. Time is no god, and time is not God. The God that is love and is everlasting, the God revealed, not only at the cross but at the empty tomb, is Lord even over time itself. Time with God has no beginning and no end. Time is actually, as God created it, more circle than straight line. As verse 3 in Isaac Watt’s hymn reads, “Before the hills in order stood, or earth received her frame, from everlasting thou art God, to end-less years the same.” In today’s gospel lesson, Jesus and his disciples are, indeed, standing in the shadow the cross, as they think together about the great suffering, an experience we all share, that, indeed, stands in between the present moment and the fullness of time when God will be all in all…that time when every tear will be wiped away and we will sigh no more. But, even as they stand in the shadow of the cross, at the very same moment, they are also standing in the light of the resurrection…the empty tomb…that follows just a short time later…Jesus’ empty tomb that represents all of our tombs…that, indeed, stand open for all time and forever. In the conversation between Jesus and his disciples, it would be easy to lose or forget how Jesus actually ends the conversation…what he says very last…at the very end of this time-oriented, anxiety-filled exchange…for he ends with these words, “But not a hair of your head will perish. By your endurance you will gain your souls."
As one day comes to its end, we are indeed a day older…that time in a sense is gone. But then there is tomorrow…as the sun/son rises once again…a new day with its own endless potential…an opportunity to begin again…to grow…to thrive…to love more deeply…to appreciate everything more fully…to become more completely the very person who God has created us to be…a new day to make peace with the past and learn from it…so that we may become more fully alive in the present. Time always remains…to embrace our never-ending future…over which time has no power…for life never ends…only changes…thanks be to God. Thus, time is a straw man…nothing to be feared…perhaps motivation to live each day to its fullest…but nothing more.
Which brings me to this time, to today, to our In-Gathering Service. Our choice to participate in God’s work in and through this part of Christ’s living and time-less body we call St. Julian’s is our opportunity to say, from a place even beyond words, “O, God, our time is in your hands.” Which is just way to say, our life and all it contains and has produced…is in your hands…our past, our present and our never-ending future…is in your hands…our work, our meaning and our purpose…is in your hands. Thus, we lay at your altar…all if it…that in time and out time…you may be our all in all…our beginning and our end…with all those we love and serve…from everlasting to everlasting. Amen.