Sermon for April 3rd (Stewardship of Time)

(Pause 15 ten seconds) That’s the power of time. That was fifteen seconds of silence (at least from my end). Fifteen seconds. What did you imagine was going on? That I had forgotten my sermon? That I was in some kind of religious trance? That I was having some type of a mild seizure? What a powerful thing time can be.
Do you ever feel that your life is out of control? Much of the pressure, stress and fear we experience in our lives is affected by how we manage our time. We don’t know how much time we are each given in this life, but God wants us to make the most of it. However, sometimes, I think we are confused by what “making the most of time” actually means.

There are two words that are translated as “time” from Greek into English. The first is the Greek word kronos meaning chronological time. This refers to time moving ever and ever onward. It’s quantitative in nature. No matter how much I want to say today, I realize that if I don’t pay attention to the kronos, how much time is passing, someone will eventually notice and try to stop me. On the other hand, there is the Greek word kairos referring to what you might call the “right” time or the “perfect” time. When is corn ready to be harvested? Is it after a particular number of days? Well, we might count on that to an extent. But, depending on how much sun and moisture there has been, corn is ready when IT’S ready, not when we are necessarily ready. When is a baby due? We know that humans have a forty week gestational period—that’s kronos time. But when does a baby actually come? Well, at the right time for the baby—that’s kairos time.

One of the struggles we have as human beings with managing our time is differentiating between kairos time and kronos time. Most Americans understand kronos time. We work by the clock. We meet our expectations. We show up on time and stay until the final bell rings. We compartmentalize our lives so that we have exactly one hour for lunch and six and a half hours of sleep. We are efficient. If we can’t work more hours, we can at least multi-task! But we don’t always know when the “right” time is to do things or why, despite our long hours of work, we are never able to do the things we want to do.

Why is this? For a lot of reasons. We value people who “do” things in society. Just ask one of the stay-at-home moms in the room how much fun it is to answer the question, “What do you do?” We also value doing things ourselves. I can imagine that the only thing harder than having to answer that question as a mother is to answer it for themselves. After a day of fighting with kids, doing dishes, doing laundry, changing diapers, answering the phone and cooking, you look at your messy house, dirty laundry, and pile of dishes next to the huge to-do list and ask, “Did I accomplish ANYTHING today?” Sometimes, the hardest work is the work that is never finished.

Furthermore, we understand that in order to HAVE things, we need to BUY things and, in today’s society, you can’t buy as much with one income as you can with two. And you can’t buy as much with two incomes as you can with two overtime incomes. Finally, we start to believe that, as Christians, our church and even God most likely wants us to work harder, work longer and do it all with a smile. In fact, this attitude is defined as the “Protestant Work Ethic”.

But what does God say? In the book of Ecclesiastes we read, “There is a time for everything.” Do you believe that? Is there time for everything in YOUR life? Why not? The book of Ecclesiastes says “there is a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot, a time to kill and a time to heal.” This isn’t a to-do list. This is saying there is a “right” time, a kairos time, to do everything in life. By definition then, there is also a “not quite right” time to do these things as well. When managing your time, it’s important to notice what you are doing and whether it’s the right time to do it.

How about an example. When is suppertime in your house? What do you do during suppertime? Eat, right. Is that all? Probably not. What else are you doing while you are eating? Families used to sit around the dinner table and take that time to talk, to laugh, to communicate and even, believe it or not, would sometimes begin or end with a prayer or devotions. But now? Well, IF we eat together, we are watching TV at the same time, or searching for something on the internet, or working on the finishing touches of a project or driving. God says, “There is a time—a perfect time—for everything. “ Perhaps part of the problem is that there is never enough time to eat, because you are working, and there is never enough time to work, because you are eating.

One of the first steps in managing your time as God intends is to distinguish between spending time doing things and taking time to do things when the time is right to do them. You’ve heard stay-at-home parents say this very thing, “I want to be home while my children are still little.” What they are saying, in essense, is that this is the kairos time, the perfect time, to stay at home instead of working outside of the house. Other parents discover that, for them, when their children are little it is the perfect time to be able to go to work.

If you feel like your life is overwhelmed and that there is no time for anything, I challenge you for a week, a day or even a morning, to give each activity you do not just a certain amount of time, but the “right” amount of time to do it. If you are talking with your child, listen to them until they are done talking. Finish the conversation. That way you won’t have to take other time later to try and remember what it was they talked about. Pray for peace in the morning before your day becomes so hectic and unpeaceful that you don’t have time to pray. When you come home at night, give your spouse a hug until they are ready to let go. Then, maybe, you won’t be staying up later arguing about never paying attention to one another.

A second step to good stewardship of time deals with prioritizing. Are you spending your time doing the things that you want to spend time doing? In the book of Acts, the twelve disciples noticed that the widows in their church “were being overlooked in the daily distribution of food” it says. In other words, widows were not being fed because they disciples had too much to do and not enough time to do it all! So, what did they do? Work a few more hours, work a little bit more efficiently, and try harder? No. “The Twelve gathered all the disciples together and said, “It would not be right for us to neglect the ministry of the word of God in order to wait on tables. Brothers and sisters, choose seven men from among you who are known to be full of the Spirit and wisdom. We will turn this responsibility over to them and will give our attention to prayer and the ministry of the word.” They didn’t work more. They shared the work with someone else. What was the effect of doing this? “So the word of God spread. The number of disciples in Jerusalem increased rapidly, and a large number of priests became obedient to the faith.” How we use our time can affect God’s kingdom either positively or negatively, but doing more isn’t always the most Godly thing to do.

In the book, Time For All That’s Important by Tamyra Horst, she encourages people to try this exercise: 1. Write down what the most important things are in your life—your top priorities. 2. Write out your schedule for the week listing everything you do and plan to do even things like cleaning the house, fixing meals, playing and quiet time. 3. Write your priorities on a piece of paper in columns and list your activities in their respective category. 4. Reflect on how you are spending your time now and how you would like that to change.

Finally, Jesus has taught us a lot about how to manage our time. Remember, his ministry only lasted three years. He didn’t start until the “right” time, the kairos time, when he was around 30 years old. But his short ministry changed the whole course of history. We might assume that he spent every waking moment serving, healing, preaching and doing something knowing that time was so short, but our gospel lesson today gives us a different view of what was important to Jesus, “The apostles gathered around Jesus and reported to him all they had done and taught. Then, because so many people were coming and going that they did not even have a chance to eat, Jesus said to them . . . “Great job fellas! That’s the spirit! We’ve got a lot of work to do again today, lots of needs to address, I’m sure you can eat later but, for now, the church NEEDS you.” No! That’s not what Jesus said. The apostles were impressed by how much they got done. And yes, there were a ton of people whose needs were still important, but Jesus actually said this, “Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest. So they went away by themselves in a boat to a solitary place.”

In Jesus’ mind, there was a time to work, a time to minister, and a time to rest and be quiet. Your life may be so impossible and out of control NOT because you don’t prioritize or give activities their needed attention, but because all you do is work-work-work. Even in your rest time, you work silently in your head. You are talking while you drive and texting while you eat. God does not want you to do this! Of all the things to write down about what Jesus did on this earth, isn’t it interesting that this episode is one of them? Why? Because it is important to rest, to recuperate, to be quiet and to sleep. Saying “Yes” to everything doesn’t make you more holy and Christian. Sometimes saying, “No” is the most Christian thing you can do. Sometimes saying “NO” and taking time to rest is what God intends for you to do even if it looks selfish to those on the outside.

God intends on you to have time to rest in your life. Have you ever wondered why the Bible tells us there were seven days of creation even though God only worked for six? I mean, it would have been more impressive to make the world is six days than seven, right? And yet, God knew that we needed to see how important rest was in our lives. The third commandment calls us to remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy. We are to take time out of our week to rest, to be quiet and to worship God. To stop speaking and to listen instead. To stop doing and just be still and know that God is God and we are not.

At the end of the story in the gospel of Mark, Jesus showed us what happens when we rest. The text says that even though Jesus and his disciples left to be alone, the crowd ran on foot from all the towns and got there ahead of them. Sometimes saying, “No” to people doesn’t mean they won’t still try and make you help them and use up your time!. The needs are still there. But it is only by trusting in the miraculous power of God that the disciples actually do what God is calling them to do. They have to just sit there, wait, be quiet and listen while God feeds these five thousand people miraculously. What can we learn from this? We don’t accomplish everything through our work. In fact, we don’t need to accomplish everything. Part of the Christian life is to wait for God to do HIS work on HIS schedule in his perfect kairos time and then worship Him for what He has done.

Time is powerful. How you use your time not only affects you, it affects others, it affects your relationship with God and it even affects God’s kingdom. So, perhaps today is the right time, the perfect time, the kairos time to start managing your time as God intended. Don’t just spend time doing things, do things at the right time, do things according to the priorities and values you hold dear and then, finally, take time to rest and trust God to work powerfully in your life in His time. Amen.