Orchard Ridge United Church of Christ

Preached by Winton Boyd on Sunday, November 15th, 2009

When my wife Tammy and I first met, she taught me a cute phrase for spontaneous, unplanned activities. She and her college friends called this a ‘pink bunny.’ A midnight pizza run while studying, an out of the blue phone call to a friend to go to a movie, an early morning breakfast at Perkins. Pink Bunnies were special not because of what was done but because you chose to break your routine for some spontaneous fun with a friend. I’ll be the first to admit that over time pink bunnies became less and less frequent due to the demands of children, increased work loads in our jobs, and a generally more scheduled life. The fact that pink bunnies were almost never taken for a period of several years indicates how captive we were, and are, to demands of our lives on our time.

I don’t think we are alone. Many of us live with crisis of time in our lives. We don’t have enough of it, certainly not enough time for the things we want to do. In fact, we often feel like we even don’t control our time.

• We are controlled by our work – how many use handheld email devices to answer email when you’re not at work? How many of us work on the weekends in an attempt to stay on top of our job when we are technically “off?” How many of us don’t or can’t use all of our vacation because of our overwhelming workload or the hassle it would cause upon our return?
• We are controlled by the demands of children, parenting – Who sets the schedules for soccer, hockey, swimming? Who defines your family weekend schedule? Who sets the timetable for your summer or winter vacations? How often do your children play freely in their own yard or home compared to the time they are in organized activities established by someone else?

One of the first words I learned in seminary had to do with time, Kairos. Karios is an ancient Greek word meaning the right or opportune moment . The ancient Greeks had two words for time, chronos and kairos. Chronos refers to chronological or sequential time; Kairos signifies a time in between, a moment of undetermined period of time in which the world stops, God’s spirit appears, some kind of unique, powerful and mysterious connection is made. Kairos time doesn’t have to involve grand events, but it is a time when something special happens. While chronos is quantitative, kairos has a qualitative nature.

A couple of weeks ago, I was generously offered a ticket to see President Obama speak at Wright Middle School. I know several of you were there. When I got the offer, I really only mulled it for a few minutes before declining. However, I did text my three children saying, “Should I give up a whole day for the opportunity to see Obama today?”(to be honest, I wanted them to know I was “connected” enough to be offered a ticket – taking any chance I can to impress them with my connections) Even the way I phrased the question suggested for me this was a decision in chronos time terms. Should I give up most of the working day to going through security, sitting in a school gym, waiting for Obama to be late as all presidents usually are? Having seen President Clinton on two occasions, I had a sense of the real time cost of such an event. To a child, my three young adult children said, “Duh? Of course.” They were seeing this in terms of Kairos time. A once in a lifetime opportunity, an event with incredible energy, a day they would never forget. Same event, two ways of seeing and experiencing it. It’s not a question of right or wrong, but kairos and chronos perspectives.

The birth of a child, for example, happens in chronos time but for most parents is a “kairos” moment. It is as though chronological time stops still. It hangs suspended for a moment of eternity as we come face to face with the miracle of life.

All of us have kairos moments, and they vary in nature. Raking leaves on Saturday last weekend involved most of my family’s day – and in the midst there were a few “kairos” moments – of smelling, really smelling the fall leaves; of catching the sun just right; of laughing with neighbors in ways that helped us feel connected to something larger than ourselves. Today’s paper had a paragraph about the all the seniors on the Badger football team standing in the locker room, all by themselves, before the game yesterday. A moment of recognition of friendship, hardwork, amazing opportunities. A moment that defined so much of their life but would never happen again

The choir sang about kairos time: There is a time beyond our time which only God can see. There is a time not of this world, God’s time. God sees all time in unity, the future, present and past.

In our story from the gospels, the town harlot, who clearly dealt in chronological time in her day to day life, seized a kairos moment. We do not know how she knew Jesus was in town, or how she developed her impression of him and what he might be able to do for her life. Amidst great pressure and facing the possibility of enormous humiliation, she falls to her knees, wiping his feet with her tears and her expensive perfume.

For her, to be in this moment, to engage in this act of gratitude, worship and self-emptying was more important that the cost of either the perfume or her reputation. She acts without any knowledge or confidence that Jesus would even receive her intentions. Certainly, the Pharisee was not the only one taken aback by her actions, by her “interruption” of the event. He simply spoke out what others were also thinking. Jesus’ response seems to be a reminder not to let circumstances of chronos time get in the way of seizing Kairos moments or a kairos life.

In all of our pilgrim living, in all of our journey through life – there are of course “seasons” of busyness that demand more from us than other times. And yet, we are so often enslaved to the chronos time, the chronological clock, that we are not able to see or witness kairos moments right in front of us. In fact, our use of time is often a sign of a deeper spiritual dryness. While we use language of time to indicate purpose and fulfillment, in reality our lives are often anything but fulfilling.

Is the fact that “I am so busy” a sign of a productive life or the sign of letting others determine our schedule? Is it a sign that we are doing work that we believe in and value, or a sign that while we are working our tails off we aren’t sure any of it makes a difference? Rather than voicing our despair, we simply voice our busyness.

Is the need to keep ourselves and our children hyper busy an enjoyment at life’s opportunities, or a fear that if they, or we, stop doing so much we may not like what we see in ourselves, may have forgotten how to use our creativity?

Is our love of technology and being “connected” a way to build community or a anxiety about ourselves? Does allowing others full time access to us reveal an integrated life or a life that worries that others will forget us, or not need us?

For the ancient Hebrews, Sabbath was a practical idea, pointing to the idea of spaciousness in life. Pastor and Psychologist Gerald May, in an essay titled, Entering the Emptiness, wrote that spaciousness comes to us in three ways – physical, geographic spaces like the wide openness of fields; spaciousness of time; and spaciousness of soul – the inner emptiness, the room inside our hearts.

Most of us in the modern world, he suggests, are ambivalent about all kinds of spaciousness. On the one hand, we yearn for spaciousness; on the other hand, we are liable to become very uncomfortable when spaces do open up. Sabbath talk in Scriptures, he suggests, was an invitation to spaciousness, holy spaciousness. It was not seen as a restriction or confinement, but an invitation.

In truth, it is an addiction, a seductive addiction from an over frenzied culture, that suggests we must be constantly filling up our spaces. It is one of our most pressing spiritual issues – this need for holy spaciousness, for kairos time. The prophetic voice and action of the town harlot is no less demanding today than it was in this biblical story. What we see in the harlot is boldness, courage, audacity, and a healthy disregard for the culture around her. Being attentive to the time stopping, kairos moment with Jesus was not the act of laziness or sloth. It was claiming her life and the life of the spirit.

The truth is, we do know how to do this, even if we don’t very often. A huge snowstorm comes, we abandon superfluous stuff and shovel the walk of our elderly neighbor. A relative has an accident, and we let committee meetings, work deadlines and unanswered email fend for themselves as we sit hours on end to be a compassionate presence to our loved one. A friend in need calls, needing a listening ear, and the pressing demands are able to wait.

In our day to day life, we must be practical in our efforts to reclaim time

We need community – each other. I don’t know if you are like me, but there are certain people in my life that no matter what I am doing, how busy I am, how stressed I feel – being in their presence not only opens up spaciousness in me, but I feel less pressure to be busy. In the presence of such people, we feel our priorities coming into view – allowing us, even for a moment, to recenter our lives. We need these people. We seek them out through conversation, email and activities. I think it is important to acknowledge that many of these people are the older adults in our midst – in this room and in our lives. It is, I think one of your great ministries to younger people. Not to lament about the good old days, but to invite deeper reflection about what matters.

We need ritual – Making space in our lives for worship with a community of other people seeking holy spaciousness in life is a ritual. Retreats, like the ½ Advent retreat coming up in December, or the family retreat in January, are attempts to help one another carve out time to live into a more intentional spaciousness. Many of us find the ritual of making music – in the choir, by singing, as we listen – to create spaciousness of spirit. We have a friend that has begun a ritual with her college-aged children that whenever they are all having dinner together, they put their cell phones in a basket (turned off) in the center of the table. A reminder that connectivity is a choice, family time is a choice, and that in choosing we create sacred space for one another.

We need prayer and patience. Author and priest Henri Nouwen reminds us that reclaiming time can be slow and arduous, even if it is empowering. We make small steps, remembering that it took a long time for us to get as busy as we are, and that we can’t change overnight. We return to God in prayer – inviting spaciousness of soul, spaciousness of grace, wisdom in making choices, gratitude for all that is ours to behold.

One such prayer is: Slow me down, still my restless mind, quell my fears, quench my thirsty soul, fill me with your love God of love.

May others experience us, and may we experience ourselves, not as overly busy, harried and frantic – but as people with an eye for time between time and a spaciousness of soul. People aware of and grateful for the Spirit’s work in our lives.  Amen