Sermon, "Whole-Life Stewardship: Treasure," Luke 12:13-21, 32-34

Sermon 11/18/18

Luke 12:13-21, 32-34

Whole-Life Stewardship: Treasure

We’ve had a small group of folks participating in a book study using Adam Hamilton’s book Enough: Discovering Joy Through Simplicity and Generosity. Hamilton’s study first came out nearly ten years ago, but it’s been updated and re-released. Last Sunday night, as we watched the video for the session, which includes segments of Hamilton’s original sermons that created the book, we were surprised at the way things unfold: Hamilton was talking about wildfires that were ravaging California. It certainly made our ears perk up to listen with extra attention to his message.  Hamilton said,

“Large areas of California were ravaged by wildfires. Dozens of people were killed, and tens of thousands were evacuated from their homes. As I watched the tragedy unfold via television news coverage, it struck me that this was a moment in which so many people were being forced to think about their relationship to material possessions. So many people had very little notice that the fires were coming their direction. Thousands had just minutes to grab everything they could take from their homes and flee. Time magazine's online edition asked people who had been moved to emergency shelters: “What did you save from the fire?” Andrew saved his pillow. Shervi saved her family pictures and books. Angel saved the saxophone he had been learning to play. Karen saved her two cats and important documents. Michelle saved her Bible, purse, shoes, diploma, and cell phone. What would you save? Imagine a wildfire is headed toward your home and you have 10 minutes to grab what you can and flee. What will you take with you? Natural disasters remind us that everything in this world is temporary. If our stuff is taken away by bankruptcy or plundered by thieves or blown away by a tornado or burned in a wildfire, we must remember that material things are only temporary. When I'm gone, most of my stuff will be outdated, worn-out, or simply of no value to anyone else - either hawked in a garage sale or thrown in the trash. This is why I can say with Jesus, “[My] life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.” I believe that ... But there is a problem. Everywhere I turn, the world is telling me that it's not true. The world continually tells me that my life does consist in the abundance of my possessions. I am bombarded with messages such as, If you had a little bit more, you'd be happier. If you had this thing that you currently do not have, you'd find more satisfaction in life. If you had a bigger house or a nicer car or more fashionable clothes, you'd be happy - at least happier than you are right now.” (64-65) You may have heard me share before that I read somewhere of a study that revealed that people are convinced they would be happy with just a little more. Not tons more - we’re not greedy, right? But if we could have just 20% more than we do now, we’re sure we’d be quite happy. Then we’d really have enough. The trouble is, it’s always 20% more. When we get 20% more, we start feeling like we just need 20% more than that. We always want just a little more. What we have is never enough. Just a little more, and we’re sure we’ll finally be happy.

I shared with the study group that when I don’t feel like journaling, but I still want to journal, want to have done some journaling, I used a little checklist of one-word prompts. There are about a dozen categories. “Today I’m... Watching, Reading, Thinking, Feeling” and so on, and then I just have to fill in the blank - either with a lot of detail, or a few words, depending on my mood. Two categories on this list are “Wanting” and “Needing.” What did I want? What did I need? I found that while I often had things to list under the “want” category, I often would just write, “Nothing, really,” in the “need” category. I could think of lots of things I wanted. But I didn’t usually need any of them. Writing this down in my journal regularly has helped me, both in realizing how often I am caught up in the rhetoric of more, of consuming, of being discontented with what I have, and how truly I have everything I really need. Hamilton calls our propensity to always want, and always want more “Restless Heart Syndrome.” He says, “Perhaps you've heard of Restless Leg Syndrome (RLS), a condition in which one has twitches and contractions in the legs. A condition I called Restless Heart Syndrome (RHS) works in a similar way, but in the heart - or soul. Its primary symptom is discontent. We find that we are never satisfied with anything. The moment we acquire something, we scarcely take time to enjoy it before we want something else. We are perennially discontent. This is the nature of RHS, and it is a syndrome that, if left unchecked, can destroy us.” (66) Do you have Restless Heart Syndrome?

Our gospel lesson today comes from Luke 12. Remember, two weeks ago we talked about how we use our gift of time and we heard Jesus talking about worry, striving for God’s reign on earth, and being ready for God to be at work in the world. Our text for today takes place just before Jesus’ words about worry, and we conclude again today with words we shared then: Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. In today’s passage - which I think I’ve told you holds a special place in my heart since it was the first I ever preached on - someone in the crowd asks Jesus to tell this person’s brother to divide the family inheritance with him. We don’t know any more details - was the person a rightful heir? Were they asking for a bigger cut, or just their fair share? Most of all, we don’t get the answer to this question: Why on earth would someone think this was the question they most wanted to ask Jesus? What had they seen of Jesus that would make them think he would answer such a dispute? Indeed, Jesus seems to agree, as he says, “Friend, who set me as a judge or arbitrator over you?” Instead, Jesus tells a parable, and perhaps the questioner gets more than they bargained for. Jesus says, “Take care! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.” He then tells a parable. A rich man has lands that are producing an abundance of grain, such that he doesn’t know where to store all that he’s accumulating. So, he decides to build bigger barns. And he reflects to himself, “Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.” But then God says to the man, “You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?” Jesus wraps up his parable saying, “So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich towards God.”

I got to hear theologian Walter Brueggemann preach on this text when I went to the Festival of Homiletics, the preaching conference, in May. His name probably sounds familiar to you as someone I frequently quote, and I soaked up every minute of hearing him preaching in person. Brueggemann said, “The man had extra grain. He could have shared it. Let the land lie fallow. But instead he stores it up. He wants more. He doesn't have enough yet. He congratulates himself. And then he died. He was about to do good. About to share. About to be generous. But he died. He could not fend off the holy reckoning in the night." Neither can we, friends. What are you about to do, when you get enough? Brueggemann says that Jesus tells us: "Get out of the anxiety system [Brueggemann’s label for our culture of never enough], because it will kill you. You will pursue the goal of more until you die because more is an illusion. It is a system meant to keep us frightened that someone will get yours. It keeps us dissatisfied, keeps us busy, because if you are busy, you won’t think any dangerous thoughts."

Thoughts like: “One’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions … these things you have prepared, whose will they be?” These words have been ringing in my ears and tugging at my heart over the last year as I have served as the executor for my Aunt Joyce’s estate, and as I have continued to sort through her things. As I make an accounting of every cent that she had, and every possession that she owned, as I find myself in the role of determining what is treasure and what will be thrown away, I’m mindful that someday someone will make an accounting of the things of my life too. What does my life consist of? What are “the things I have prepared” that make up my life? Jesus warns us against “all kinds of greed” - a phrase that stuck with me in this passage. It’s easy to dismiss this parable as not about of us if we’re sure we’re not greedy for bigger barns. But I think Jesus asks us to look deeper, to question places of discontent in our lives, any areas where we just want more of whatever it is, any areas that are keeping our hearts restless, somehow dissatisfied with our lots in life.

  In the scriptures, we find an example of contentment, of a heart settled in Christ in the apostle Paul. He wrote the letter to the Philippians during one of his many imprisonments. And while there in prison, he shared these words: “For I have learned to be content with whatever I have. I know what it is to have little, and I know what it is to have plenty. In any and all circumstances I have learned the secret of being well-fed and of going hungry, of having plenty and of being in need. I can do all things through [Christ] who strengthens me.”

Have we learned that secret - of being content with whatever we have? Adam Hamilton suggests some strategies, practical and spiritual, that we can use to actively, intentionally cultivate contentment. For example, when we’re collecting more of something - more money, more stuff, bigger barns, ask yourself, “how long will this make me happy?” (72) “So often,” Hamilton writes, “we buy something, thinking it will make us happy, only to find that the happiness lasts about as long as it takes to open the box.” We can develop a grateful heart. (74) Remember the journaling list I told you about? One of the categories is “thanking,” and each day I complete the prompt I make sure I can list at least five things for which I’m thankful. When we feel discontent, we can ask ourselves what we can do to serve someone else. This is something I’ve tried to start focusing on on Thanksgiving and Christmas, when all the pressure to have a perfect holiday, and all the focus on consuming, whether food or things, can leave us feeling empty. What acts of kindness can I do? Maybe I can write a note. Or maybe I can be one to clear the plates off the table. Or I can pick up the wrapping paper. Or call someone I know is feeling down and alone and let them know they have a friend in me. I can cultivate that behavior until it is my default. We can ask ourselves: “Where do our souls find true satisfaction?” (75) Deep contentment comes from deep trust in God, which in turn we experience when we commit our lives and our hearts, our time, our talent, and our treasure to God as servants of Jesus Christ.

I’m really thankful for the folks who shared their testimonies this morning, sharing their wisdom and insights about generosity and giving, using their treasure to serve God. They’ve helped us to reflect and prepare, as next week we have opportunity to offer an estimate of our giving to the church for the year ahead. It’s one way we express our gratitude and thanksgiving among many, one expression of generosity, among many ways that you demonstrate that you are a thankful people. I had the advantage of hearing Annetje’s words ahead of time, as I transcribed them for her. One part particularly touched me, when she said, “We overthink our [estimate of giving] and there are things that might happen [in the future] and before we know it we have so many negatives on our “might happen” list that [we’re convinced] there is nothing we can spare, we give so little.” But “everything we have belongs to God” and “generous people are willing to look with brutal honesty at what they have to spare … They will not hold back” but be “joyfully generous.” Deep contentment comes when we say “we will not hold back” from God and one another - we will not hold back our hearts, our gifts, our generosity, our love, or our joy, but instead offer it all to God.

Jesus said that it is where our treasure is that our hearts dwell. We have to make sure then, that what we’re accumulating on earth, what we’re storing up, what we’re spending our lives gathering is eternal, not temporary. That’s what we want to spend our lives on - treasures that last, not things we can’t take with us anyway. Your life consists of so much more than we keep building bigger barns to store. We do want to be rich - rich towards God. Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. Amen.

Review: Mornings with Bonhoeffer - 100 Reflections on the Christian Life by Donald K. McKim

I received a copy of Mornings with Bonhoeffer: 100 Reflections on the Christian Life by Donald K. McKim to review. I've previously used Ron Klug's 40-Day Journey with Dietrich Bonhoeffer as a devotional and really enjoyed it, so I was definitely intrigued by this resource. 

McKim's book is divided into two sections: Believing as a Christian and Living as a Christian, and further divided into categories like "Christian Beliefs" "Church," and "Living in the World." 

I haven't read the whole thing yet, but I read at least a few entries in every section to get a good feel. 

As opposed to 40-Day Journey, which included a significant  the excerpts from Bonhoeffer's writing (collected from his complete works) are very short. Sometimes only one or two sentences of his writing is included, so you often can't really get a full picture of what he's saying. The "meat" of the content here is from McKim, not Bonhoeffer. After the Bonhoeffer excerpt, McKim includes a brief reflection on or explanation of Bonhoeffer's words. I found it frustrating that the entire excerpt from Bonhoeffer's writing is included again within McKim's brief reflection. This redundancy seems to leave very little room for McKim to expand on what's just been stated. His reflections are insightful, but they are so short when reiterating Bonhoeffer's just-printed words that most of the entries left me wanting more.  

The structure, rhythm, and depth reminded me of The Upper Room daily devotionals, and indeed, I think readers of that style of devotion might be a perfect audience for this work. I envision this is an excellent introduction to newcomers to Bonhoeffer's writings. This is a very accessible book of reflections, and most of my parishioners would find Bonhoeffer's depth more manageable in this format. In fact, I shared with my church secretary one devotion on being interrupted by God, which she immediately turned into a poster for her office and used as the centering time at a church meeting later that month. 

I enjoyed McKim's work, and I feel like getting this resource into the right hands - new-to-Bonhoeffer readers who want to add something accessible to their daily devotional life - is a worthwhile effort. 

Sermon, "Whole-Life Stewardship: Talent," Luke 9:10-17

Sermon 11/11/18

Luke 9:10-17

Whole-Life Stewardship: Talent

Are you talented? What comes to mind when you hear that word - talent? Maybe the TV show America’s Got Talent springs to mind, the game show where contestants come with all sorts of performing talents - singing, dancing, acrobatics, magic tricks and more - and go before a panel of judges, hoping to make it through several rounds of cuts before taking home the big prize. Have you ever been in a talent show? I think my first appearance in a talent show was in third or fourth grade, when my friend Sharon and I did a whole miming act for the elementary school talent show. We were still just young enough not to be teased mercilessly by our friends. I was in a few more talent shows - at camp, for girl scouts once, and even once in college. But for the most part, I started to get more and more self-conscious about putting myself out there in such a way. Being in plays felt different to me - a director had to think you were good enough to cast you. But being in a talent show was usually something you just got to sign yourself up for. You had to think you had talent, and be bold enough to let others know you thought you had talent. And that was something I couldn’t do. Somewhere in elementary school I started to equate feeling like I had any talents with bragging. I knew bragging was wrong, and I really didn’t like it when I felt like other people were bragging. I was always a good student though. I was almost always getting one of the best grades in class. But I would never tell my classmates my score unless they asked me directly. But then, once I did tell them, they were mad at me anyway! In my head, I think bragging and putting yourself out there and acting like you were talented all started to roll together in my mind. I didn’t want to be arrogant, and I wasn’t really so great anyway. Better just to fade into the background if I could.

Over my years of ministry, I’ve never had such a hard time getting folks to respond to questions as when I’ve posed some variation of this question: What are your talents? What skills do you have? What are your gifts? What are you good at? I can get folks to tell me almost anything about themselves. People are amazingly ready to share with someone who wants to listen. But when I ask people to say positive things about themselves, when I ask people to tell me that there is something they’re good at, a skill they’ve acquired, that they are talented, that God has given them gifts and they know it and claim it, people clam up. What do I make of this reticence? Partly, I know we’ve been conditioned to be wary of boasting, bragging, and arrogance. But I think it goes beyond that. We seem unable to look at ourselves and see what others see, much less what God sees. We never feel like we’re enough. When we count up what we have to offer to ourselves, to our families, to the world, and to God, we total up what we have, and we feel we’ve come up short. Are we talented? Maybe some of us believe it. But many of us would answer with a resounding, “no.”

Today, in this second week of our series on Whole-Life Stewardship, as we continue to think about how we’re called to be caretakers of all that God has given to us, we’re reflecting on what it means to be good stewards of the talents God gives us. You might think that the parable of the talents would have been an obvious scripture choice for today. Talents are the name for a unit of money in biblical times, and remember, there’s a parable where the master gives his servants 5, 2, and 1 of his talents to watch over while he’s away. The servants who received 5 and 2 talents double what they’ve been given, but the one who received only a single talent just buries his in the ground. There are a lot of metaphors ripe in the text for thinking about how we make use of what God gives us. But I think we’ve so come to associate using our talents for God with that parable that we stop really digging deep, both into what more the parable might mean, and into the reasons why we’re prone to be reluctant to use recognize and use the talents we have.  

Instead, we’re looking at a miracle story, one recorded in all four gospels - the feeding of the five thousand. We studied this miracle using Matthew’s gospel in the spring when we talked about strengthening our core with acts of service. Today, with Luke’s version, we’re taking a different look. Jesus and the disciples head to the city of Bethsaida. They mean to go privately, a retreat of sorts. But the crowds find out and follow Jesus and the disciples anyway. Jesus welcomes them, Luke says, he talks to them about the reign of God, and he heals those who need to be cured. As evening falls, the disciples urge Jesus to send the crowds away, so that they can find lodging and food in the surrounding towns and villages. “This is a deserted place,” they remind Jesus. But Jesus says to them, “You give them something to eat.” The disciples insist that all they have with them is five loaves and two fish, unless they go out and buy some food, which they clearly don’t want to do. Jesus doesn’t seem to care. He tells the disciples to get everyone seated and into manageable groups, and then he takes the five loaves and two fish, and he gives thanks to God, bless and breaks the bread, and instructs the disciples to share the food with the crowd. We don’t get any details on how it happens. But somehow, all ate and were filled, and then the leftovers - yes, the leftovers - are collected, there are twelves baskets of food still remaining. A miracle. But what is the miracle here?

I don’t know how Jesus multiplied the food - naturally or supernaturally gathering such abundance. But abundance and Jesus always goes hand in hand, so we shouldn’t be surprised. In John’s gospel, Jesus says, “I have come that they might have life, and have it abundantly.” God is a God of abundance, not scarcity. I feel like we should just repeat that statement over and over until it sinks into our souls, because we always act like this isn’t true, like we don’t know it. Listen: God is a God of abundance, not scarcity. God is a God of abundance, not scarcity. Say it with me even: God is a God of abundance, not scarcity.

I think maybe we’re practically wired to not believe this. Maybe it’s part of our biology, our hunter/gatherer, survival of the fittest, survive-at-any-cost mentality. Maybe there won’t be enough some day, so we better make sure to secure what we can now. It reminds me of my first church, whenever we’d have a potluck meal. They always brought so much food. When I mentioned it, they told me that years ago - maybe decades ago - they had a church dinner where they ran out of food. And they were terrified that it would happen again, so they always made too much in the future. They could not dispel the moment of scarcity from their memories.

As I read this familiar text, though, trusting, at least as much as I can, that God is a God of abundance, not scarcity, I’m particularly interested in the reaction of the disciples. The crowds are bystanders in this scene - we don’t hear anything from them. But the disciples are the ones who want the crowds to go away. They don’t think that they, even with Jesus, can provide enough sustenance for five-thousand people. And surely, that’s a huge group of people. But, what’s important to note is that the reason they were about to head out on a private retreat with Jesus is because they’d just returned from being sent out by Jesus to heal, to cast out unclean spirits, and to preach the good news of God’s reign. When Jesus sent them out, he gave them these explicit instructions, “Take nothing for your journey, no staff, nor bag, nor bread, nor money—not even an extra tunic.” He sent them out with nothing - and yet, they thrived. They shared God’s message. They demonstrated that as students of Jesus, they too could preach and heal with God’s power. They could do miraculous things in God’s service, starting with very little. They’ve just returned from a trip that demonstrated God’s abundance, God’s generosity, God’s ability to do the impossible. And already, they’re back to thinking that their resources are too scarce to figure out dinner for the crowds.

When do we start believing in God’s abundance? What has you too afraid to trust in God’s abundance? What is it that keeps you from sharing what you are, who you are, what you have, what you’ve been given? It’s that set of questions that we have to get answers to if we want to be good stewards of our talents, if we want to trust in God’s abundance, if we want to demonstrate true thankfulness for God’s gifts to us. What’s keeping us from sharing what we are and what we have? What kept the disciples from offering up the food they did have before Jesus asked them for it directly, and despite the amazing things they’d just finished doing with hardly any resources except their faith? We’re afraid of running out - sure that any talent we do detect in ourselves is a limited quantity item. We’re afraid, I think that God will ask too much of us. It seems like God always wants more of us, doesn’t it? We give God a corner in our lives, and God just takes over the whole place. I can’t deny that this is true. I can only encourage you to trust that God is always with you, even when what God asks you to do seems like too much. I think sometimes we’re waiting for someone else to do it, to offer their gifts and talents and resources. We might have a loaf of bread, but we’re pretty sure the other person has three loaves, better than our one, and so instead of giving up our one loaf, we wait for them to lead with three, and what we end up offering out of four total loaves is zero.

Fortunately, we don’t have to do the miracle. Jesus does do that part. God will transform what we offer into something beyond what we give on our own. But notice that Jesus didn’t just feed the crowd out of thin air. However he did what he did, he didn’t create food out of nothing. Jesus multiplied what was offered, what the disciples already had with them. He took what they would give, and he made it into abundance. God takes care of the abundance, but we have to take care of offering our gifts and talents to God. I once read about a Canadian man named Kyle MacDonald who decided to see what he could end up with if he took a seemingly worthless thing he had and kept trading it for something better. He started with a red paperclip. And he ended up with a two-story house. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_red_paperclip) The gifts God has given you - the talents with which God has created you - they amount to more than a paperclip! If an ordinary person can get a house from a paperclip, then Jesus can get food for five thousand with five loaves and two fish, and through you, with you, in you, God can do anything. But you have to offer God your paperclip. You have to take who you are, your skills, your talents, what you’re good at - whether you are an expert musician or athlete, or whether you are a skilled listener, or whether you are great at organizing, or whether you have the willingness to clean up messes, or whether you bake an excellent chocolate chip cookie, or whether you are always on time, or whether you are a great driver with room in your car for people and things, or whether you are willing to say hello to strangers, or, or, or - if you will offer that talent, small as it seems to you, to God, without reservation, God will do amazing, life-changing things because of you.

You all know how much I enjoy singing. But I didn’t always realize I could sing, at least not well. I was always in chorus in elementary school because everyone was. It wasn’t optional. But I was never singled out. But the summer between sixth and seventh grade, I went to Creative Arts Camp at Aldersgate, where we prepared and put on a little musical at the end of the week.  You could audition for solos and duets and trios, and my friend Sarah convinced me to audition for a duet with her. I was scared, but I didn’t mind singing as long as someone else was singing with me. But after we auditioned, the director of the camp, Bobbi, pulled us aside and asked if we’d be willing to sing solos instead of a duet. She liked what she heard in our voices. I’d never been told I was a good singer before, except by my mother, but here’s a secret: she thinks I’m good at everything. Having Bobbi encourage me like that was nothing short of life-changing. She identified a gift in me that I didn’t realize I had. Bobbi had many talents, and one of them was encouraging the gifts she saw in others. It was maybe a small thing in her mind - picking out some soloists among 11, 12, and 13 year-old singers. But her willingness to serve God at camp had a big impact on me and others I’m sure. I’m so thankful for the role of music in my life and in my ministry today.  

What do you have? What do other people tell you they see in you? What talents do you see in others that they need help realizing? What skills and talents, big or small, has God blessed you with? How will you use them? Whether you have one loaf of bread to offer, or five, or maybe you even feel like you have just a slice, or crumbs - will you give them to God? Because, hear this: God is a God of abundance, not scarcity. That doesn’t mean that what God will create with what we offer to God is always, or even often what we expected or asked for. But God will take your heartfelt offering, your talent, your skill, what you’re good at - you and your life. If you’ll give that to God, God will make miracle of it.

“And taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven, and blessed and broke them … And all ate and were filled. What was left over was gathered up, twelve baskets.” Thanks be to God. Amen.

Sermon, "Whole-Life Stewardship: Time," Luke 12:22-40

Sermon 11/4/18

Luke 12:22-40

Whole-Life Stewardship: Time

Today we’re starting our November sermon series called Whole-Life Stewardship. Stewardship means the task and role of taking care of things on behalf of someone else. As Christians, we believe that the earth is the Lord’s and all that is in it. In other words, everything belongs to God, our Creator. We do, the universe does, our time does, our things do, the animals and the trees and the mountains and the air we breathe; it all belongs to God, really. We’re just the caretakers, the stewards of all that God has given us to watch over. We don’t act like this is true sometimes. We forget that we are stewards. We think that we are in charge. We think that we are the true owners of all that is. And so we need to remember. We’re doing that in a small group, as we read through Adam Hamilton’s book Enough. We do that when we gather for worship, when we sing praises to God and remember that God is God and we are not. We do that when we pray “Your kingdom come, Your will be done.” And we’re doing that in this sermon series. Every fall, we spend some time reflecting together and searching our hearts as we think about how we will support the ministries of this church through our financial gifts. But this year, we’re broadening our scope. We’re stewards of every aspect of our lives. It all belongs to God. How do we remind ourselves of that when we lose sight of the truth? Are we good stewards? How are we doing at managing the resources God has given to us? Each week for the next three weeks, we’ll look at an aspect of our lives as we assess our stewardship and our faith: our time, our talents, and our treasure. At the end of the month, we’ll celebrate the commitments we make with a time of thanksgiving, consecration, and fellowship around the table.

Today, we begin with time. God gives us time. How are we doing at being stewards of the time that we have? Honestly, I think being good stewards of our time is the most challenging thing. How are you using your time from God for God? I don’t know about you, but managing my time is a struggle. On the one hand, I feel like I can be obsessed with getting stuff done. I try to cram so much into my time. I want to feel productive, accomplished, and there never seems to be enough time to do all that I want to do, need to do, should do. And I know I waste too much time, filling hours with things I don’t really care about, or even with things I know I should actively avoid. Whenever United Methodist pastors are ordained, we’re asked what are called the “historic questions,” questions based on those John Wesley, founders of Methodism, asked of pastors, questions that we’ve been asking of our clergy for hundreds of years. One part of these “historic questions” reads like this: “Will you observe the following directions? a) Be diligent. Never be unemployed. Never be triflingly employed. Never trifle away time; neither spend any more time at any one place than is strictly necessary. b) Be punctual. Do everything exactly at the time.” Pastors have gamely answered “yes” to these questions for hundreds of years too, while secretly saying to ourselves: Never be triflingly employed? Never trifle away time? Do everything at exactly the right time? Seriously? Wesley’s directions sound like a formula for burnout. But he himself observed a rigid schedule of prayer, fasting, personal study, group study, serving the poor, and preaching the faith. How are you spending your time?

I’m not sure I even want to see an honest, factual breakdown of how I spend my time. For example, the latest software update to my cell phone came with a way to set time limits on any apps on my phone I want. If I want to, I could set it so that I can only be on my web browser for an hour a day, or only on facebook for thirty minutes. I could do that. But I haven’t yet. I want to, I think it would be wise. I think I use my phone too much. And yet, I’m not sure I’m really ready to confront my dependence on my phone, on the internet, on facebook, on distractions. Am I a good steward of my time?  

And yet, I also feel like we get so obsessed with productivity, with doing, with achieving, with checking things off our endless to-do lists that we don’t enjoy the time that we have. Our time is a gift from God, isn’t it? And yet, we don’t savor it very well. The scriptures speak of resting in God. Jesus took time away to be alone with God. “Be still and know that I am God,” the Psalms command. But it’s so hard to do! We’re so wired to be productive that when we finally get the rest that we crave we’re too stressed to enjoy it. I think of my most recent vacation, when I visited Lake Placid for a few days. My intent was to just relax. I wanted very much to have a vacation where I just didn’t do anything. I booked a room with a beautiful balcony view of the Lake and a fireplace and a tub with jacuzzi jets. And then, I started to think that I wasn’t really making the most of my vacation unless I was taking in all the sights of Lake Placid. Shouldn’t I hit all the shops? See the Olympic landmarks? Go hiking? Visit the wildlife refuge? Hit all the vegan restaurants? I had planned on driving up Whiteface, but it was so foggy during the timeblock I scheduled it, I thought it would be kind of a silly trip. But I was stressing about not checking it off my list. Tina had to remind me that it’s just a couple hours away, and I could go back whenever I wanted. The most relaxing day of vacation was the day that I felt sick. I was dizzy all day and I had to just lay around if I didn’t want to feel like the room was spinning. It was the most relaxing day of vacation I had, but a part of my brain felt guilty for wasting my time.

In the midst of this muddle, this tug of war about how I spend my time, a refrain from the country band Alabama runs through my head (yes, I had a country music phase in high school): “I’m in a hurry to get things done. Oh I rush and rush until life’s no fun. All I really gotta do is live and die but I’m in a hurry and don’t know why.” Our time is a gift. God asks us to be good stewards of our time. And somehow I feel unproductive, exhausted, and like I spend too much time doing nothing worthwhile all at once. I’m guessing that relationship with time feels familiar to many of you, too.

I think our scripture passage today reflects some of this same tension. Usually, when we hear this passage of Jesus’s teaching that we usually classify as “about worry,” we read it from the Gospel of Matthew, where it is part of what we call The Sermon on the Mount, Jesus’ long chunk of teaching to the crowds gathered on the mountainside. But it also appears here in Luke, a little later in the gospel, not part of Luke’s Sermon the Plain to the crowds, but instead a teaching given just to the disciples. Luke’s version is just enough different than the one that I know so well from Matthew that I was able to listen to it a little more carefully. My attention caught on this: “Can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life?” Both gospels include this verse. And Luke adds, “If you are not able to do so small a thing as that, why do you worry about the rest?” If anything, all we manage is worrying so much that stress steals hours of our time.  

We talked about striving last week, our endless quest for success. Here, Jesus says that it’s the nations, or in other words, people other than God’s people who spend their time striving for more food and more drink and more clothes and more stuff and even more time. If we’re going to strive, Luke says, strive for God’s kingdom, God’s reign on earth. Luke says that it is God’s “good pleasure,” a phrase with extra emphasis - it is God’s deep joy to draw us into God’s reign. So, Jesus says, let go of your stuff. Give with a generous heart. Try to accumulate eternal treasure instead of earthly treasure, because wherever we accumulate treasure is where our heart will finally dwell, and we want our hearts in God’s eternal home.  

But then, in the last several verses of our reading for today, Jesus shifts gears. God’s people should be people of action, dressed and ready, lamps lit, alert and waiting for God’s arrival. Jesus uses imagery of slaves in a household who are blessed if they are always ready for a Master’s return home, even an unexpected return. “You must be ready,” Jesus concludes, “for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour.” It sounds a little contradictory. How can we be both free from worry about how much time we have, and ready all the time, without even a chance to sleep lest God catch us unawares?

I’ve talked to you before about the theological concepts of time we find throughout the scriptures - chronos time and kairos time. Remember, chronos is the Greek word for our regular, ordinary, everyday time. Our human time. The seconds, the minutes, the hours, the days moving just as they do. But kairos – kairos is time in a different way. Kairos is God’s time – specifically, “God’s right time for action.” Usually the word “chronos” is used in Greek texts to talk about time. But in the gospels, for example, this “kairos” – God’s right time for action – is used more often than chronos – regular time. And that makes sense, because the scriptures are full of stories about God’s right time for things to happen. “In the fullness of time.” Kairos. God’s right time for action. It’s not that God isn’t in chronos time. All time is God’s time. But our lives are this strange mix of ordinary days and spectacular moments, days that blur together, and seconds that stretch out and feel like each moment contains an eternity. And all of these days, these years, these seconds - they’re all God’s time, and all of it is a gift for us.

We live in the tension. God is both in the ordinary of our daily routines, and breaking in in unexpected ways. God transcends time. And I believe that God wants us to be mindful of God at work both in our daily routines and in the grand moments. God wants us to both use our time well to serve God and neighbor, to put to use our gifts and talents to share the love of God, and to rest easy in God’s arms, not trying to earn God’s love with our relentless busyness, not trying to drown out our spiritual emptiness by filling our hours with meaningless distractions. God wants all of our time - our purpose-filled hours of work, our quiet hours of rest and renewal, our hours of devotion and prayer, our hours spent together with God’s other precious creations, enjoying God in the everyday moments, and ready for a God who also acts at just the right times too.  

How are you using your time? How will you spend your days? Today is All Saints Sunday, a day when we are remembering those we have loved so dearly. I’m guessing that as we remember, most of us are not thinking that we wished they were more successful or productive. We’re just wishing we had more time. And that’s why I treasure this day so very much, when we remind ourselves that we are a part of the communion of saints. The “communion of saints” means the whole of God’s people, past, present, and future. And in the way that God works in chronos time and kairos time, the communion of saints means that time is flattened. We are all living in God right now, which is also always. The saints are alive to God always, and so they are alive to us and we are alive to them. We celebrate that in particular when we share in Holy Communion - we’re together with all who have gone before and all who will come after us at the table of grace, which is always kairos time, always God’s right time to act. We miss them so, but we are also together with them. We live in the tension.    

How are you using your time? How will you spend your days? God has made a gift of time to you. What gift will you make of your time to God? Whether you are working or sleeping, busy or resting, praising or mourning, rushing ahead or falling behind, longing or remembering, your every moment is a gift that God is ready to receive. Amen.