RCL All Saints B
3 November 2024
Anglican Church of the Epiphany
Surrey BC
As I have grown older, I am becoming more and more aware of how precious the gift of time is for me. Perhaps this awareness became more apparent to me after my mother’s death at the end of March this year and after the celebration of my seventy-first birthday at the end of April. I realized that now, with both my parents dead, I was an orphan, an old self-sufficient orphan, but an orphan nevertheless.
If I live as long as my mother, then I have at least twenty years ahead of me. But, if I live only as long as my father, then I’m looking at fourteen years.
Let me say that I’m not trying to be morbid. I’m simply being realistic about how much more time I may have in my life. This means that I’m becoming more careful with how I use the time that I have now. It was with such care that I considered whether I would accept the invitation of the Bishop and of the Wardens to become the priest in charge of Epiphany. I’m here now because I came to the conclusion that this is a ‘good’ thing and worth giving a year or so of my life.
There are many ways to talk about the saints, about sainthood and about what makes a saint a saint. In recent days I’ve come to think that how a person lives in the mystery of time is one of the ways we can identify a saint, someone whose way of living points us in towards God.
For example, time can be experienced as a quantity. Just as I can compare my potential lifespan with that of my parents and grandparents and beyond, so can I limit my experience of time to checking off the days and the weeks on the calendar. How many days before Christmas? Fifty-two days from today until Christmas. How many days before New Years? Fifty-nine days from today until New Year’s Day. How many days before Easter? One hundred and sixty-eight days from today until Easter. How many days before my tax return is due? One hundred and seventy-eight days.
Looking at time solely as a quantity is not a very enlivening way of living. It’s like watching a large-screen timer counting down the seconds, the minutes, the hours, the days, the weeks, the months until something happens.
I think that this way of looking at time generates anxiety and fear. We can become paralyzed and unable to accomplish what we think we need to do before the due date comes crashing upon us. It’s the kind of anxiety and fear that makes Christmas, for example, not a happy time for many people. The pressures to get things done by such and such a date, to make sure that our lengthy to-do lists are cleared off, and to have something to show for all that we’ve tried to do, overwhelm many a good and thoughtful person.
But saints look at the quality of time. In the New Testament this way of looking at time is called kairos. It’s understanding that every moment of every day is filled with the possibility that it will be an experience of God’s presence. It’s understanding that every encounter with another person is a moment when a window into God’s love for us and for creation will open, even if only for a brief moment.
Saints know the difference between busyness and business. Busyness is a substitute for doing what needs to be done for our good and the good of all. Business is committing oneself to the good things that need to be done for the well-being of ourselves, our families and friends, and the people among whom we live and work.
For saints, waiting is not wasted time but precious time. Waiting for the celebration of the birth of Jesus through the weeks of Advent becomes an opportunity to experience the birth of Jesus in every moment of every day. Waiting for the coming of a new Rector becomes an opportunity to explore how our life together as a community strengthens us for ministry in this place in these times. Waiting for our hoped-for redevelopment becomes an opportunity for us as a Parish to dream of a future in which we serve our neighbours in new and exciting ways.
When we live into kairos, into an appreciation of the quality of each moment of every day, we leave anxiety and fear behind. Instead of being bound by our fears, we are freed so that we can become more fully alive. Did you notice in our reading from the prophet Isaiah how ‘waiting’ and ‘salvation’ are linked to freedom from fear?
And he will destroy on this mountain the shroud that is cast over all peoples, the covering that is spread over all nations; he will swallow up death forever. Then the Lord God will wipe away the tears from all faces, and the disgrace of his people he will take away from all the earth, for the Lord has spoken. It will be said on that day, “See, this is our God; we have waited for him, so that he might save us. This is the Lord for whom we have waited; let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation.” (Isaiah 25.7-9 NRSVue)
This is a description of a people who are living in kairos, a people who are living in expectation of lives free from the fear of death, whether that death is physical, spiritual or emotional.
When Jesus arrives at the home of Mary, Martha and Lazarus, he is confronted with the reality of the death of his friend and the implicit disappointment of Mary that he did not come earlier. But because Jesus is always alive in kairos, what we might call ‘God’s time’ or ‘kingdom time’, he acts to unbind not only Lazarus from the physical cloths that bind his hands and feet, but to unbind Mary and Martha and all who witness the raising of Lazarus from their bondage to time as a quantity. They are now free to witness to the unexpected ways God reveals God’s purposes in our times and places.
So, my friends, as we approach the end of this liturgical year and of the calendar year, it is right that we ask ourselves how we inhabit the mystery of time. We are all encumbered by the many calendars of our lives and by the due dates that populate our lives. There are days when I sit down at my desk at home or here at Epiphany and feel overwhelmed by the many tasks and expectations there are of me. I do not doubt that we all have those moments.
But, when I pause long enough to hear the voice of the Spirit of God whispering wisdom into my ears and into my soul, I can begin to experience kairos and I am free to do what truly needs to be done. I am freed so that I can consider what is important and pressing and what is not. I am freed so that I can use what days and weeks and months and years that are left to me to serve God’s purposes and to grow as a disciple of Jesus. That’s what saints do – and I want to be one too – I think that we all want to be saints.
