So I had a debate with a fellow student in Seminary one time about how time might work in heaven. Might. We were convinced of our own faithful truthiness, but also grasping for humility. The image that sticks in my mind is that God "looks down" from heaven and can see the entire history of humanity as a long, temporal measuring tape, beginning to end, because God is outside of time (so no sacred timeline). I guess, if we wished to enter into the higher realms of nerdity, God might then fold time like a Mobius strip, or like the drug-addled space navigators fold "space" in "Dune".
Abstracting time is fun, appeals to the sci fi geek within me. Where it crosses over into my theology (How I Think About God) is where it appeals to attempting to define omnipotence-God the All-Powerful. We work with the crumbs that God has passed along from God's transcendent perfection.
But time is also the most precious, finite resource that we have. Each of us has a beginning and an end here on the earth. For us, Jesus worked within those parameters. We talk about Jesus experiencing everything we have, but without sin. He experienced a life that was cut off far too soon. Restored, yes, for us. But cut down in his prime.
Time is also a tool of healing. Yesterday's post, demanding "why" of the Almighty. In that moment, it feels to me like a weak response to invoke the cliche that "time heals all wounds". But there is truth there. Our growing edge may be to more effectively tell that truth in love??
Time is a resource to be organized, offered, measured, and spent. We are attempting "A Different" this week, introducing a calendar for the month of February, mechanized and not tracked by Karen's excellent penmanship.
As a measure, time can help us realize what our priorities are. What do we spend our time doing? How much is given to sleep? Too much OR too little can impact our health. How much time to we give to our employment? There is a bargain in place, so much time and talent for so much recompense. The age of the computer and internet and personal devices has ushered in the age of a desperate scramble to attract our attention and snag some of our time for an ever changing (yet oddly ever the same) menagerie of diversion.
Then there is our...Time...for Stewardship, about...Time. Last Sunday, we looked to Jesus' vision and mission priorities. This week, we come back to them, but then also to the expectations of what the people wanted Jesus to spend his time doing..."MIRACLE FOR US JESUS! LIKE IN CAPERNAUM!!" Jesus challenges us on the question of why some seem to get God's time and trouble while others do not.
The challenge question however, being Stewardship, is the one that asks how we, of the church and of the faith, will invest our time in Jesus. Is it an hour (okay, a little longer, sorry, preacher's bane...) on Sunday? On occasional Sundays? Is it so much more that it feels overwhelming (I see a faithful cadre of people in that space). How can we offer more? Is there a learning curve to giving time more fulfillingly? How does the Lord wish us to spend our time?
How indeed?
Peace,
Pastor Peter
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