Prov. 9: 1-6
Ps. 34: 9-14
Eph. 5: 15-20
John 6: 51-58

Pentecost 11
Proper 15B RCL

REDEEMING THE TIME: GOD'S TIME

Sources: Sydnor, Fuller; The Living Church 8/17/97 p.2; Pulpit Resource 8/14/94
Prev. preached: 79,97,00,06 much revised

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Vacations can be peculiarly difficult times for families. Have any of you found that to be true during your vacations this summer, or during other summers?

We have such high expectations for our vacations. We often spend more money than we should, as we take a family on vacation.

Having driven so far and having spent so much, we cram activity into every moment of our vacation time. People who usually live rather sedentary lives are busy over-eating, over-golfing, over-swimming, busier on their vacations than when they are on their jobs!

Well, what are we supposed to be doing with our vacation times? What are we supposed to be doing with our time, period? That is one question posed by today's readings, especially Ephesians.

I. "The days are evi1", says the writer to the Ephesians (5:16). I'm not talking about spectacular, cosmic evil. I mean the petty, two-bit self-destruction in which we indulge - the hardening liver, the swimming head, the tarnished lungs, the grubby little affair on the side, the weekend escapade. These are symptoms of a deeper sickness suggests Ephesians. Our lives are a confused, disordered, pointless reeling from one mistake to the next. It's not that we are intentionally bad, nor spectacularly evil. We are just foolish. Such is the time in which we live.

Make the most of the time, says today's Epistle. And what does that mean? Does it mean "Keep busy and move fast?" We know too much about that. For many of us are driven, full with activities, busyness, things to do and places to be, carpools with the kids, meetings and more. That's our way of making the most of time - fill time, use time, kill time.

For instance, how many of us are not really here at this moment, but have already, in our minds, moved on to this afternoon or Monday morning at the office, and things to do this week? Why waste these precious minutes on anything so pointless as worship? Someone once told me she did not come to worship on Sunday because, in her words, "I just can't sit still that long; I can't see the point of it or what good it does. I'm the activist sort."

So, making the rest of time in these days means, often, filling our days with busyness, pointless chatter, loud music, and the sound of our footsteps racing down empty corridors leading we know not where.

II. What is needed is some way, not just to kill time or fill time, but to fulfill time, to redeem time. Our second reading advises us, "Do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is."

Perhaps that is why we came here to church this morning. Are we seeking to understand what the will of the Lord is? What is the will of the Lord for these harried days? What are we supposed to be doing? More to the point, what is the Lord doing with this time?

The Letter to the Ephesians offers us a bold, cosmic vision of what God is up to: in our time, in this dark, foolish, crazy world, God has come. Now there is light entering the darkness in Jesus. Now walls are crashing down, now nobodies are becoming somebodies - now the song and the shout: in Christ, our time is now God's time, God's good time.

So our days need not be filled with busyness - with self-help techniques, for salvation, with our attempts to, make time count for something. It isn't left entirely up to us to make history come out right. We don't have to work hard to make our lives count fer something, because in Christ, God tells us that our lives do count for something, tells us that our little lives are somehow caught up into the grand purposes of God.

This world is the place of God's redeeming work. Now is the day of salvation.

III. These days are-evil and pointless only if we forget God's presence among us, and in the life of our war-torn world, including His presence in the life of the Episcopal Church at this complex time in our history. So in these days, we will become wise by keeping time with God.

Here in this church, in this town, among everyday folk like you and me, God is present. That changes everything. So how are we to make the most of God's present time?

That is the question that can be answered in each of our lives, by looking at how we live our lives, by asking, "How am I wasting, or killing, God's time?" You or I may then decide to order our days differently. We may decide to live our lives this Monday morning in a different way. We may decide to stop allowing the unimportant things to crowd out the really important times in our lives. Surely that would be wisdom for all of us.

But for now, for this hour of worship, perhaps the best we can do is to join with our brothers and sisters of past and present, and sing - to defy this sad and cynical world by daring to "make melody to the Lord with all our heart," to give a shout of thanks for God's saving presence' in our time - yes, even in our time.

On an ordinary day like this one, with headlines like those in this this morning's paper, with all the foolish ways we mess up our lives, you will be surprised at the difference a doxology can make. In the midst of praising God and giving thanks for this time, we find our time redeemed and transformed.

So here we are, with a list of twenty things to do before noon, and the phone ringing off the hook, and somebody needing an order yesterday that you don't have today.

Or here we are, with soggy cornflakes at breakfast and all our chores done by nine, and the whole day before us, with not one thing important to be done.

Or here are, sitting in church, quiet moments filled with a thousand suppressed thoughts, guilt feelings rushing in upon us, so filling our heads that we can't half worship for being reminded of what a mess our life is in ...

And we sing We dare, despite it all – we dare to see this world as God is making it to be. God is here. You see yourself, I see myself, as somehow caught up in the mystery of redemption. You and I give thanks for that near presence, and in so doing, we wake up, we become wise, light floods in, we become filled with the Spirit. On that day, in that time, in this time, our time becomes God's time.