Now is the time
13/01/24 01:41
You might not have come to my journal for a sermon, but after all, I am a preacher and beyond that I’m a retired preacher, which means that I have plenty of sermon ideas that come to me that I no longer get to deliver. After 42 years of preparing sermons on a regular basis and a couple more of being responsible for children’s moments in worship, I get more ideas than I get to express, so here is a sermon idea. Were I really having the opportunity to preach, I would discipline myself to following the lectionary so that I would be led by the scriptures and not just airing an opinion, but since it is Saturday and since a real sermon doesn’t fit this format, I am allowing myself to start with an idea that was prompted by a sermon Brook Berndt once delivered.
In the Gospel of Mark, the first words spoken by Jesus are: “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near, repent, and believe in the good news.” Those who have taken Bible Study classes with me have probably heard me go on and on about the problems posed by the translation of language. I have been known to lecture for a couple of hours on the topic, and I’ll spare you all of that in this format. Suffice it to be said that Jesus spoke Aramaic, what is often called the Old Testament, was originally the Hebrew Bible, the Gospels were originally written in Greek, and for a thousand years or so, the Christian Bible was heard in Latin, which influenced how the earliest English versions were translated. And one of the things that has suffered in all of that heritage of translation is the concept of time. Biblical Hebrew and Aramaic, which is related, don’t speak of time the way we understand it with past, present, and future. Ancient Hebrew has only two tenses that might be described as “action that is completed” and “action that is finished.” And Greek, the language of Mark’s Gospel has two quite different words that are both translated time in English versions.
So when we read, “The time is fulfilled,” as the first words of Jesus recorded in the Bible, we speed by those words and our minds rush to words that follow, like “kingdom,” “God,” “repent,” “believe,” and “good news.” The first hearers of those words, however, would have taken pause at the word, “time.” It wasn’t the Greek Word, “Chronos,” which means the time measured by the ticking clock. It was “Kairos,” a word for the quality of time. It is about the right action arriving at the right time.
We know that not all time is experienced in the same way. Time passed waiting in a waiting room at the hospital while a loved one is in surgery passes differently than time passed sharing a meal with friends. Time spent solving tough problems feels different than time spent playing with grandchildren. Time listening to a political speech feels different than time listening to words of love spoken by your mate.
In Jesus’s opening words in Mark’s Gospel what he is really saying is, “Hey! I’m just what you have been waiting for. I’m just what is needed in this moment.” What has been translated as “The time is fulfilled,” is about the importance of the present moment. The theologian Paul Tillich wrote about Kairos moments with enthusiasm and a bit of poetic flare,
The Jewish community that Jesus addressed was living in a time of crisis. The domination of the Roman empire over the everyday lives of common citizens was profound. Rome held all of the power and justice was difficult, if not impossible, for everyday people to obtain in first century Israel. It was difficult to find basic resources such as food. Their lives and the lives of their loved ones could be taken away without warning by the whim of soldiers and authorities of the Roman government. It wasn’t the first time Israel had suffered under the oppressive domination of a foreign power. Stories of the Exile in Babylon where a part of their scriptures. their lives echoed the words of the Psalms, “How long, O Lord? . . How long just I bear pain in my soul and have sorrow in my heart all day long?” (Psalm 13:1-2)
When they heard Jesus say, “Now is your time - the time to go in a new direction and believe the promise of God,” it was as if the people had been waiting for generations for that moment because they had been waiting for generation for relief from suffering and oppression.
Faithful people in every generation are called to see the present moment as a critical moment - a Kairos moment when specific actions match the needs of the current time. When we hear “Now is the time,” we are called to think of the call of the time in which we live. It was this urgency of time that led Christian leaders in South Africa to lead people to a truth and reconciliation process instead of revenge when the apartheid government was finally overturned in 1985. And, with Martin Luther King day coming on Monday, we can easily remember his sense of Kairos time when he spoke so eloquently about the time for racial justice in America. If we are listening with the ears of faith, we can easily hear young people telling us that now is the time to address climate justice in our world. The global effects of unrestrained greed and consumption are resulting in the suffering of others right now through more severe weather events, devastating fire, sea level rise, and species depletion. Poor people and people of color are disproportionately affected by the human-caused climate crisis. Scientists tell us that we must act now in order to avoid catastrophic acceleration of this process.
If we listen to the Gospel, we must take seriously the words, “Now is the time.” It is an invitation to Kairos time. May we have ears to listen.
In the Gospel of Mark, the first words spoken by Jesus are: “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near, repent, and believe in the good news.” Those who have taken Bible Study classes with me have probably heard me go on and on about the problems posed by the translation of language. I have been known to lecture for a couple of hours on the topic, and I’ll spare you all of that in this format. Suffice it to be said that Jesus spoke Aramaic, what is often called the Old Testament, was originally the Hebrew Bible, the Gospels were originally written in Greek, and for a thousand years or so, the Christian Bible was heard in Latin, which influenced how the earliest English versions were translated. And one of the things that has suffered in all of that heritage of translation is the concept of time. Biblical Hebrew and Aramaic, which is related, don’t speak of time the way we understand it with past, present, and future. Ancient Hebrew has only two tenses that might be described as “action that is completed” and “action that is finished.” And Greek, the language of Mark’s Gospel has two quite different words that are both translated time in English versions.
So when we read, “The time is fulfilled,” as the first words of Jesus recorded in the Bible, we speed by those words and our minds rush to words that follow, like “kingdom,” “God,” “repent,” “believe,” and “good news.” The first hearers of those words, however, would have taken pause at the word, “time.” It wasn’t the Greek Word, “Chronos,” which means the time measured by the ticking clock. It was “Kairos,” a word for the quality of time. It is about the right action arriving at the right time.
We know that not all time is experienced in the same way. Time passed waiting in a waiting room at the hospital while a loved one is in surgery passes differently than time passed sharing a meal with friends. Time spent solving tough problems feels different than time spent playing with grandchildren. Time listening to a political speech feels different than time listening to words of love spoken by your mate.
In Jesus’s opening words in Mark’s Gospel what he is really saying is, “Hey! I’m just what you have been waiting for. I’m just what is needed in this moment.” What has been translated as “The time is fulfilled,” is about the importance of the present moment. The theologian Paul Tillich wrote about Kairos moments with enthusiasm and a bit of poetic flare,
The Jewish community that Jesus addressed was living in a time of crisis. The domination of the Roman empire over the everyday lives of common citizens was profound. Rome held all of the power and justice was difficult, if not impossible, for everyday people to obtain in first century Israel. It was difficult to find basic resources such as food. Their lives and the lives of their loved ones could be taken away without warning by the whim of soldiers and authorities of the Roman government. It wasn’t the first time Israel had suffered under the oppressive domination of a foreign power. Stories of the Exile in Babylon where a part of their scriptures. their lives echoed the words of the Psalms, “How long, O Lord? . . How long just I bear pain in my soul and have sorrow in my heart all day long?” (Psalm 13:1-2)
When they heard Jesus say, “Now is your time - the time to go in a new direction and believe the promise of God,” it was as if the people had been waiting for generations for that moment because they had been waiting for generation for relief from suffering and oppression.
Faithful people in every generation are called to see the present moment as a critical moment - a Kairos moment when specific actions match the needs of the current time. When we hear “Now is the time,” we are called to think of the call of the time in which we live. It was this urgency of time that led Christian leaders in South Africa to lead people to a truth and reconciliation process instead of revenge when the apartheid government was finally overturned in 1985. And, with Martin Luther King day coming on Monday, we can easily remember his sense of Kairos time when he spoke so eloquently about the time for racial justice in America. If we are listening with the ears of faith, we can easily hear young people telling us that now is the time to address climate justice in our world. The global effects of unrestrained greed and consumption are resulting in the suffering of others right now through more severe weather events, devastating fire, sea level rise, and species depletion. Poor people and people of color are disproportionately affected by the human-caused climate crisis. Scientists tell us that we must act now in order to avoid catastrophic acceleration of this process.
If we listen to the Gospel, we must take seriously the words, “Now is the time.” It is an invitation to Kairos time. May we have ears to listen.
