"No Time To Kill"
Ephesians 5:15-20
August 20, 2006
Saint Paul United Methodist Church of Little Rock
Rev. John A. Fleming
I know that I have shared this story in a memorial worship service or two, but I don't think that I have told it on a Sunday morning. It seems to be a perfect fit. When a family asks me to use the opening verses of the third chapter of Ecclesiastes to remember their loved ones, I tell this story. You may remember that the author of Ecclesiastes writes, "For everything there is a season and a time for every matter under heaven." The story also seems perfect when I read one of our scripture lessons for this morning. To the Ephesian church, Paul writes, "Be careful, then, how you live, not as unwise people but as wise, making the most of the time..." So if it is all right with you I would like to share this story that a few of you may have heard.
A few years ago, when I had a job in our Annual Conference as the Conference Youth Coordinator, I flew to Phoenix with three other Arkansans. We were attending a conference there with people who work with youth. The conference's theme was taken from the great line in the book of Ester, where the author asks, "Who knows? Perhaps you have come to royal dignity for just such a time as this." Everything, but especially the worship services, was built around the idea of this being the time of our calling.
The opening worship service was led by a preacher and pastor from Atlanta who talked about how his city prepared for the Olympic games that came there in the summer of 1996. He spoke of how the entire city prepared. An Olympic village was built where athletes and visitors from all over the world would gather. Not far from there, a stadium was built that would house the track and field events. A stadium that is now home to my beloved Atlanta Braves. Downtown streets were paved. Trees were planted. Landscaping was added. Buildings were washed, all in preparation for the world to arrive.
There was a logo for those games, as there are for all Olympic games. It resembled a column; the Olympic circles were under it. The number one hundred was below that. The Olympic flame was there. As it rose to the heavens, it became three stars. One was blue. Another was purple. A third was gold. You could find that logo everywhere in Atlanta. You could find it in the Olympic village. You could find it on t-shirts. The preacher told that even one of the skyscrapers had the logo placed high upon it. The owners of that building wanted the world to notice the logo. Their logo was different. Attached to the middle of the logo were the hands of a working clock. They were proud of it. They had done their part to welcome the world.
In Phoenix, the preacher for the opening worship service told about the clock. He said, "There was one problem with it. If you were standing on one of the streets in downtown Atlanta and looked up, you could see that the logo was there, but if you did not already know that it was also a clock, there is no way that you could notice that." "For sure" said the preacher, "you could not tell what time it was by looking at the logo clock." The preacher continued, "The only way you could see the hands of the clock was if you were across the street, in another skyscraper, several stories up." The preacher admitted that the clock was a great idea. It was a wonderful way to welcome the world. Then, with all of us listening for the punch line and the application, the preacher asked, "Do you know what time it is?" It was a perfect start to the sermon. "Do you know what time it is?" Several times, throughout the sermon, he repeated that question. How about us, do we know what time it is? Or, more importantly, do we realize the importance of time?
Paul is concerned with time in our scripture lesson for this morning. He joins the other biblical writers in that. Did you know that our Bibles have more than six hundred and fifty references to time? These references are scattered (literally) between Genesis and Revelation. When it comes time for us to baptize a baby, we follow the ritual in our United Methodist hymnals. The ritual reads, "In the fullness of time..." And I always add this line, "That is, when the time is exactly right, you sent Jesus." Paul's letters have more than sixty references to time. His time references almost always have to do with the day of salvation. In one place he writes, "Besides this, you know what time it is, how it is now the moment for you to wake from sleep." And in our lesson for this morning, he writes, "Be careful then how you live, not as unwise people but as wise, making the most of the time, because the days are evil."
The last few chapters of Paul's letter to the Ephesian church is concerned with behavior. Hopefully you remember last week's sermon. Last week Paul covered such topics as telling the truth, dealing with anger in a quick way, offering words that build up instead of tear down, and wrangling. Between that lesson and our's for today, Paul talks about behavior that is more appropriate for the light than for darkness. After that gloomy description, Paul says that we have to be careful how we live. He says that we must live as wise people instead of unwise ones.
Now what does that mean? I ran across a great quote that is attributed to Theodore Levitt of the Harvard Business School. He once said, "Experience comes from what we have done. Wisdom comes from what we have done badly." Okay. Experience tells me how to ride in a golf cart. I have done that before. Wisdom tells me to keep my foot inside the cart at all times. Experience tells me how to deal with problems in the church. I have done that, too. Wisdom tells me to not repeat certain behaviors. Often older people think they have wisdom because of the number of their years. That is not necessarily true. Wisdom doesn't always come with age. Webster's Dictionary defines wisdom as the ability to discern what is true, right, and lasting. Wisdom can help us with the difference between right and wrong, good and bad. Wisdom also helps us to live careful lives. Wise people make the most of every opportunity. Wise people try their best to please God. "Be careful how you live, says Paul, not as unwise people, but as wise ones."
Then Paul writes, "...making the most of the time, because the days are evil." Eugene Peterson's paraphrase of the Bible puts the verse this way, "Be careful with every chance you get. These are desperate times." Desperate times sounds a little better to me that evil days. Evil days seems heavy handed. Paul's counsel sounds outdated and out of touch. After all, most of us spend our days (at least starting in the morning) getting kids off to school, working at jobs, preparing meals, going to church, cleaning houses, traveling roads between here and there. None of that sounds inherently evil. On the surface, some of those things seems pleasant. But we go about these tasks, speaking the truth, offering words that build up, dealing with anger and disappointments. If we are not careful, a little evil does sneak in.
There is so much in this passage. Paul turns from evil days to ones filled with wine. Paul says to stay away from those days. Instead, he says, be filled with the Spirit. And to cap it off, Paul says that we must worship with spiritual songs and live thankful lives.
Now it is my job to pull all this together and to send us home with a message. The passage speaks on so many levels. Let me tell you where it spoke to me this week. For many reasons, I honed in on the idea of making the most of the time. Most of you know that most Saturday mornings, the Little Rock Flemings load up the car and to Conway to meet my parents for breakfast. It is something that we decided to do last Fall. We don't miss many Saturdays. We went yesterday. It is a good deal for my family. We get the fellowship. I have a sense of being home. My daughters get quality time with their grandparents and my father foots the bill. Last summer and fall, in August and September and October and November, we drove to Conway on Saturdays. I am trying to remember if it was more than once. Most Saturdays, we ate and then went home. My sister lived in that town. She was minutes away. We almost never spent any time with her on those days. Now, don't get me wrong, Emily and I had a great relationship. We saw each other often. We spoke on the phone more than that. But now that she is gone, I wish that I had spent more time with her.
In the Roller Funeral Home in Conway, where her casket was for more than a day, I sat in the room that had housed my sister, my favorite aunt, and my grandfather. When my aunt was there, I can remember saying to my mother, "Mother, I just want her to get up one more time. Just one more time. One more night of sleeping in her house. One more cold coke from her refrigerator. One more Christmas morning. One more conversation." I thought the same thing as I prayed over my sister.
I am a different pastor that I was eight months ago when Emily died. Before then I didn't understand as much the power of grief and how there are good days and how there are not so good days. And how there is a part of me that will always miss her. I am trying to be a better pastor these days. I am also trying to be a better person these days. Like my grief, I do better on some days than I do on other ones. You see, I am trying to redeem the time.
Maybe the great theologian and country music singer, Clint Black, is right when he sings, "There's no time to kill between the cradle and the grave, Father Time still takes a toll on every minute that you save....If we'd known ten years ago today would be ten years from now, would we spend tomorrow's yesterdays and make it last somehow?"
We all just want the chance to spend more time and to get this life right. We want to live wise lives. We want to make good decisions. Let me close with this. I don't know if you have seen the movie Groundhog Day starring Bill Murray. It is a great movie. In it, Bill Murray plays the part of Phil, an arrogant weather man who spends the night in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania. He is there to cover the appearance of the most famous groundhog. A blizzard keeps him from leaving (ironically) and when he wakes up the next day, he lives groundhog's day all over again. In fact, he lives several groundhog's days over again. When Phil finally gets things right in terms of a powerful relationship, he moves on to another day.
There is something about that movie that appeals to me. Wouldn't we all like to have one day to get it right? Wouldn't we all do well to have one day to discover who we really are? Wouldn't it be great to have one day to spend with someone we really love?
Make the most of the time, writes Paul. That's good advice. Let us pray.