My first watch was a Timex, given to me on my 13 th birthday. I remember it well, a pretty little watch with a pink leather strap. To me it stood for growing up, I was an official teenager. I would check and re-set the watch to make sure it was accurate, so that I would never be late for anything. It had a second hand, so I timed lots of things – including how long the pastor preached. Some of you do that. It’s okay, I understand. I grew up among people whose relationship with time was to ignore it. So I grew up hearing “It’s about time!” when we arrived. I’m sure that’s why I’m time conscious today. One of the reasons I enlisted in the Navy was because of its regimentation. One of the reasons I’m United Methodist is because I need the rules, the time frames. Last week I enjoyed participating in Vacation Bible School, with the precision of our children’s classes moving from one activity to another throughout the building. Structure and order is good for our children and our church. How about you? Does time play a major or minor role in ordering your lives? I thought about this as Courtney and Colin Long’s baby seemed a bit reluctant to join our church family. Do you have enough time to do all of the things you want and need to do? Are you enjoying a summer break from school? Is your pace at work slower or faster? The calendar says it’s officially summertime, do longer days mean vacation or travel, change from your normal routine? That’s good, but let’s not forget to spend time with God and the church. Let’s turn our attention to The Book of Ecclesiastes, chapter 3. The author was a Teacher of students and a Preacher in synagogues or congregations. He was a very wise Jewish man, who lived in Judea about 300 years before Christ. The Teacher says there is a specific time for everything that happens. God rules over time, even when things are chaotic or seem dangerously random, God is in control. Every person has a place in time to be conceived, to be born, to live and to die. When God created us, he built in an internal clock to make us aware of the past, present and future. This awareness is grace that prompts us to be explorers, and it challenges us to search for God. Those whose hearts are open, discover that God is our Creator and we love and worship him alone. Our search for meaning is complete in him. For those who reject God’s grace, their search is an unending journey through philosophy, religion, materialism, drugs, fame, sex, money and power. Our society’s obsession with physical perfection through plastic surgery is just one more example of human beings desperately seeking to fill emptiness that can only be filled by the Holy Spirit. We are a part of God’s great and mysterious plan. We long to be the center of that plan. But just as God brought life and order to the universe, in his own time, not ours, but on his watch, everything will be completed. And it will be good. In Genesis, the book on creation, Adam & Eve wanted to know everything that God knows so they could be like God. The Teacher reminds us that God chooses not to reveal himself fully, right now. But when Jesus comes for us, time as we know it, will cease. We can throw away our watches, alarm clocks, hourglasses and grandfather clocks. 24-hour days, which are human constructs, will cease to exist. The Teacher was pondering time and the meaning of life when he wrote in Ecclesiastes: “Vanity of vanities.” That was his way of saying, “life is meaningless and absurd.” He uses the Hebrew word ha o’ lam, which is “to be able to sense the passage of time and eternity.” The Teacher was worldly, thoughtful and wise. He concluded that life does not and will not make sense until we accept God’s authority over us and everything that has ever been and ever will be. Only the Eternal One can understand life and control time, because God made life and lives outside of time. The Teacher’s lesson for us is: Nothing we plan or do or say will have meaning until we turn over our will, our whole selves to the Eternal God. God has made every person for a designated time. And we are so aware of the passage of time. How can we not be? We’re born, we grow and age and despite our best efforts – proper diet, exercise, medical advances, extreme makeovers – all that we really know is that we are born and we will die. God put that limited knowledge in us for a reason, so we will seek his outstretched arms. God loves us so much; he just wants to be loved in return. The best we can do is to accept God’s extravagant generosity that allows us to eat, drink and enjoy simple pleasures; to obey the commandments, follow Jesus and lead others to him. It’s difficult for us to live on God’s time. We never know when God’s going to do anything because he’s not bound by our 24- hour clock and 7 days a week calendar. 2 Peter 3:8 explains it this way: “A thousand years are as one day to God.” We lose patience easily but the Book of Psalms repeats, “God’s mercy endures forever.” I don’t know about you but when I pray, I want God to stop whatever he’s doing and tend to me right then! It’s a blessing that God has more patience with us than we have with him, or else we’d be in big trouble. In Jeremiah 29:11 God says, “I know the plans I have for you. Plans for your future, filled with hope.” And Philippians 1:6 says that “He who began a good work in us is faithful to complete it.” Two years ago this week, I moved here from Kansas City. I’ve been getting to know you by eating with you, visiting you in hospitals and homes, baptizing, serving the Lord’s Supper, conducting weddings and funerals, traveling and praying and worshiping with you, socializing and studying the scriptures and growing spiritually as disciples with you, and did I mention eating with you? You are great cooks. We’ve gone through a lot of changes together – mostly good, but some pain as well. I thank you for allowing me to be your pastor. Our greatest change will occur this week as we welcome Associate Pastor Bill O’Neal and his family into our family. This week let us pray for God to continue to lead and guide us into the future he has for us, as we Reach Up, Reach In and Reach Out through the ministries and mission of Jesus Christ. Amen. |