Proper: Epiphany 3B
Last weekend I attended two interfaith events celebrating the legacy of The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., one at Temple Beth Israel, and one at Vancouver Ave. First Baptist Church, the site of the only speech Martin Luther King made in Oregon. At both events, I heard a portion of one of his speeches, in which he said: “We are now faced with the fact that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history, there is such a thing as being too late.”
Last weekend I attended two interfaith events celebrating the legacy of The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., one at Temple Beth Israel, and one at Vancouver Ave. First Baptist Church, the site of the only speech Martin Luther King made in Oregon. At both events, I heard a portion of one of his speeches, in which he said: “We are now faced with the fact that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history, there is such a thing as being too late.”
“The fierce urgency of now.” This
echoed in my mind all week as I considered today’s texts, which are full of
imminence, and immediacy, and urgency.
The words spoken by Jesus in today’s
passage are Jesus’s first in Mark’s Gospel---and Mark being the oldest Gospel—they
are Jesus’s first words in the entire Bible! The words are, “the time is
fulfilled.” The four fishermen recognize the urgency in them. They hear the
call to repent and respond.
Now. Immediately.
Our reading from Corinthians reflects
the belief at that time that Christ would return at any moment. Paul tells
them, “the appointed time has grown short.” Get your priorities in order, he is
saying. The Corinthians are called to respond.
Now. Immediately.
“For the present form of this world,” Paul says, “is passing away.”
“For the present form of this world,” Paul says, “is passing away.”
Mark
uses the word “immediately” 27 times in his Gospel. His Gospel is the one that really cuts to the chase. As Mark sees it, God has a plan for God’s people. God has sent Jesus, the Word incarnate, because the time is fulfilled. The time is now.
And our
response is required.
The Greek
word for “time” as used here is kairos.
Kairos is not about chronological fact. When Jesus says “the time is
fulfilled,” he hasn’t just looked at his watch and said, “Yikes it’s 8:20!! The
bus leaves in 5 minutes.” He is talking about an important moment in time. Kairos
shares a root with the word for head, as in: Things are coming to a head. Time in this sense means
opportunity. Now is the time, Jesus says, for change. He calls us to to
repent—to change direction, to help close the narrowing gap between this world
and the kingdom.
We’re
still being called to that repentance. We’re still being asked to respond by doing
kingdom work here on earth. And there is still no time like the present.
Boy
that’s easy for me to preach. It’s easy to grasp, too—in our minds. So what makes it so hard for us? I think it’s partly because God’s time and our time can be two
competing forces. We are caught up in the timetables of our lives, of our family’s
lives, of the world’s institutions. Or we are caught up in our personal
ambitions and goals--we are dancing to our own drummer.
God’s call to us, then, can be really inconvenient. Really disruptive.
Imagine how the families of those fishermen felt!
God’s call to us, then, can be really inconvenient. Really disruptive.
Imagine how the families of those fishermen felt!
“Has
anyone seen Andrew?”
“I
thought he was fishing.”
“Well,
I found his net over there…”
“Great,
there goes dinner...”
So
we may hear God calling, but our fear of disruption or change is like—we see God’s
number on our cell phone…and we send it to voicemail.
“I hear you God. But not now.”
And
we spend a lot of cycles in psychological time. That’s what Eckhard Tolle, who
wrote The Power of Now, calls our
mind’s activity whenever we are NOT focused on the present. We’re in
psychological time when we’re stewing over the past: nurturing a past slight, or regretting
something done or not done.
We
can spend a lot of our “now” in the past.
We're in psychological time when we're worried about the future: we’re going over scenarios for what might
happen. We’re marshaling our response. We’re trying to predict what will
happen, so we can have maximum control over it.
We
can spend a lot of our “now” in the future.
Of
course we need to face our past, and we need to look toward the future, but only
insofar as there are meaningful implications for us in the present. To dwell on
the past, or live in daydreams (or nightmares) about the future, is to forfeit our
present opportunity to respond “now.” We have only now—to use our past to
propel us into a new way of thinking, a new direction, so that we may help
bring about a different future. So
psychological time can keep us stuck.
Another
reason we don’t hear the urgency of God’s call is that we don’t always like the
work God calls us to do. And this is where we meet ourselves in Jonah.
Oh, how I love the book of Jonah. It’s way more interesting to take in the whole story than just the little snippets in our lectionary. This book is less about prophecy, and more about the prophet. The prophet who did not want to answer God’s call.
Oh, how I love the book of Jonah. It’s way more interesting to take in the whole story than just the little snippets in our lectionary. This book is less about prophecy, and more about the prophet. The prophet who did not want to answer God’s call.
Notice
that our reading today says, “the word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time…” Let me recap the story (I
boned up by watching it on Veggie Tales). The story begins with God’s first call
to Jonah to prophesy in Nineveh, and Jonah’s response is to hop a boat
for Tarshish – as far in the other direction as he could go. And, short story
shorter, God gets Jonah back to Nineveh by way of a big fish, which swallows
him up and vomits him back on the shore—right by Nineveh--after three days in
that fish’s belly.
No,
Jonah did NOT want to prophesy to Nineveh.
You
see, he forgot that he was God’s prophet. And this was God’s agenda. And God
had judged that this was Nineveh’s time—its kairos. When God first called
Jonah, he said: “Go AT ONCE to Nineveh…and cry
out against it.”
Go at once, God said. Immediately.
"La la, la," said Jonah, his hands over his ears.
Go at once, God said. Immediately.
"La la, la," said Jonah, his hands over his ears.
 |
| Jonah is bummed that the Ninevites are not smitten. (from VeggieTales) |
Oh, he agreed with God that the Ninevites were evil. You see, Nineveh was the capital of Assyria, an enemy of Israel. The Assyrians were not only brutal; they were really sinful. Jonah didn’t want to warn them—he just wanted God to wipe them out. So yeah, he prophesied, but really, really reluctantly.
And
darned if they didn’t repent. And as Jonah feared, God was merciful! God gave
Nineveh a second chance! Boy, did Jonah hate that.
I
would never be like Jonah!!! Never.
Today’s
texts move quickly. Jonah’s prophecy is all of eight words, and the Ninevites go from
sin to repentance in one paragraph. The fishermen don’t even ask Jesus any
questions—they just go. So these
fast-paced texts, presented to me during the week of the first anniversary of
my ordination, had me reflecting on how I responded to God’s call. Did I hear
that call truly with “the fierce urgency of now”? Did I respond “immediately”--
like the fishermen?
Nope.
More than once, I struggled against the interference of God’s call with my other
plans, and at times, like Jonah, I wanted to run the other way.
Thank
goodness God didn’t send a fish for me. But I got here.
So I
have learned that most of us are
not so nimble. Sometimes when we hear God’s message, and begin to change
direction, we are so weighed down by life’s complications that we turn more
like an ocean liner than a sports car. The changes may be gradual. We don’t
always set off in exactly the right direction. In fact, sometimes we can’t even
see where we’re going. And that’s ok. Sometimes our experience acts as a course
corrector along the way. Sometimes, the journey teaches us where to go
next.
So
our first step may be to confront where we are. To get ourselves ready. Maybe to
begin by letting something go. What is important is that we turn, that we move.
Because God’s agenda is urgent. We are invited to participate with God in bringing
the kingdom closer, and each moment matters.
Response
begins with one step in a new direction—feeling, turned into action. If you're
frustrated with the political situation, vote. Speak out. If you’re harboring a
grudge, extend forgiveness. If you’re feeling burdened or heartsick, ask for
prayers. Just turn, and begin.
In that same speech, Dr. King said (paraphrase): “Our sisters and
brothers wait eagerly for our response. Will our message be that the forces of our
American life simply work against their arrival as full citizens, and send our
deepest regrets? Or will there be another message, of our shared longing, of hope,
of solidarity, of commitment to their cause, whatever the cost? The choice is
ours, and though—like our friend Jonah--we might prefer it otherwise, we must
choose.”
King preached that in 1967. A lot of present moments have passed since then. A lot left undone.
The
time is fulfilled. Kairos is here. The kingdom is at hand. We are given us the
precious gift of life, and every day unfold fresh opportunities of the present
moment.
God-given opportunities.
May we consider them mindfully. May we dedicate them to God. And may we respond with the fierce urgency of now.
Amen.
Preached at St Gabriel Episcopal Church, Portland, OR. Jan 21, 2018.
Lectionary Readings:
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