Known by our fruit: patience First UMC Carroll Iowa July 22, 2018

Known by our fruit: patience

First UMC Carroll Iowa

July 22, 2018

 A man was walking through a supermarket with a screaming say: “Keep calm, Albert. Keep calm, Albert.” Finally, in admiration for the man’s patience as the child continued to wail, the woman walked up to him and said: “Sir, I must commend you for your patience with baby Albert.” To which the man replied, drawing himself up: “Madam, I am Albert!”

Patience.  There are a lot of people who would like to have patience… and have it right now as the old poster said

 This is part of this series I call “KNOWN BY OU FRUIT” 

So far, we have talked about the fruit of love. What did we hope people would say?...

“See how they love each other and others.”

Then we talked about Joy. What did we say we hope people will say?

“See their joy bubbling over in worship.”

Last week we talked about peace or Shalom and I hope people will say “See how they work toward Shalom.”

 This week I want to ask what it would mean for the church to be a place of patience.

 Patience has to do with how we understand time. There are different kinds of time. There is chronos time. That is what we measure by the clock.  That is what I call impatient time.

Martha was living in chronos time.  “We have to put the meat in at this time, and start the vegetables at this time, and there will be enough time do up a few dishes before I have to check the meat.”  You know what I mean.  Our calendars reflect chronos time.   It is linear, and it marches unforgiving into the future. And when the sand slips through the hourglass it is gone.

We live in a chronos world where patience is almost a quaint little idea relegated to the pages of ancient books.   We live in an instant dinner, microwave oven, information at our fingertips, 30 minutes or free, call in the next two minutes for the best deal, honk as soon as the light turns green culture.

OK I should qualify that… we all live in that world except my cell phone company I have to wait for them for so long, I can’t even guess what kind of time they are on.

Chronos time is time that can be managed and measured and it can be divided up to pack a few more things into the day. When a church runs on this impatient time they are constantly pushing. Racing to get more members, more money, more programs, more and more and more.  They have to have programs for everyone, offered multiple times to fit busy schedules. The staff works 7 days a week and volunteers are stretched as thin as possible to make sure everything is covered. 

A church like that might say they have a sense of urgency in their ministry… call it what you like, I think this kind of impatience may feed those who come, but leaders and volunteers burn out as fast as a 4th of July sparkler.

 To bear the fruit of patience is to understand that chronos time is a human invention to make sure the preacher didn’t run long on Sunday. It is also understanding that chronos is not the only way to understand time.  There is also kairos time. In Greek kairos is the “opportune time.” It is the eternal now. It is God’s time. The God who was, is, and always will be.  The eternal and infinite one looks at time differently. It is not necessarily linear. It is not to be managed.  And it is hard to measure or quantify…we might not all perceive it the same. Kairos is really more about quality than quantity. When Jesus said “the time is fulfilled” it was kairos time. When John the Baptist announced the time “was at hand,” it was kairos time.

To bear the fruit of patience is to understand that chronos time is not all there is. The fruit of patience is embracing kairos time as God’s sacred gift. In today’s scripture, while Martha was sweating away fighting the march of chronos time, Mary was on kairos time. Sitting at Jesus’ feet in the now… in the presence of the holy and not controlled by the schedule, not worried that the sand is slipping through the hourglass but being enveloped in the richness of the present. 

I picture Martha too hurried to even come out of the kitchen, flour on here nose, her hair mussed, her dress not perfect.  I picture her yelling out of the kitchen. “Mary, get in here.”… “Mary, where are you?”  “Mary, if you don’t get in here I’m telling Jesus.”  Mary, of course, didn’t hear her because she was in a different time zone. When there is no response she comes to the door wiping her hands and says, “Jesus, send that lazy sister of mine in here.  She hasn’t done anything all morning.”

Jesus response is classic. 

“Martha, Martha… you are worried about so many things.”  He might have meant “You are worried about the future. You are worried about what people will think.  You are worried that Mary won’t have to do her fair share of the work. You are stuck in chronos time.”  You are worried about many things, but Mary has chosen the better way. She has her priorities straight. She knows that this is the opportune moment that may never come again.  She knows that sometimes time just stops for a while and we take a break from being human DOERS so we can be human BEINGS.

What do you suppose Martha’s response was?  I could imagine her huffing and heading back into the kitchen grumbling.  I could also imagine the light bulb going on and she puts down her towel and sits down by Jesus.

Which do you think you would have done?

The hard thing about biblical patience is that we don’t leave any room for kairos time.  Many people have no margins in our lives. Picture this… We are created by God to have margins in life. The Sabbath is the most obvious margin God provided. Take time off for God, family, and self.  Just like a piece of paper has margins or empty space around the edges, we are intended to have some empty space too. 

Our lives are so chaotic and busy, however, that we have started squeezing the margins. The margins around work, and play, and family have all but disappeared.  The American workday has inched up past an 8 hour day to a 9 hour day.  The average person perpetually has 36 hours of work either piled on their desk, on their to-do list, or things they wish they could get to.  Add to that the fact that we sleep 2 ½ hours less per night than we used to.  We are pushing the white space that used to be around our lives further and further to the edges of the paper.

In order to experience Kairos time, we have to open up some white space in our lives.

I know that is a little hard to understand. Let me tell you what it means for me.

Personally, when I schedule my professional calendar with back to back appointments, I get stuck in chronos time and I am exhausted at the end of the day. I sit down and wonder what opportunities I rushed past. On the other hand, when I leave some white space in my calendar I see things I would not have seen. I see someone who stops by the office unexpectedly to share their vision of the future and I spend a half hour dreaming with them.  Or they come to share the pain they are experiencing and I pray with them. I have to leave some space for Kairos time to interject itself in my day. And I have to be committed to not passing by holy moments because I have something I think is more important. It is taking each moment as a sacred gift and we don’t know what Gift God will give us in that moment.

Kairos time is going for a visit and being ok with the fact that I didn’t get those other 5 things done that day because I had the unbelievable privilege of spending 2 1/2 hours with someone facing imminent death talking about life, God, fear, and hope. That time was kairos time and it was a sacred gift that I could have foolishly rushed past in order to keep an arbitrary schedule.

Kairos time is sitting on my swing after dark watching the stars and embracing the power and presence of God in prayer.

Kairos time is Sunday afternoon Sabbath when we don’t cook or work, but nap, talk, play games, enjoy nature and family

Let’s take a minute to reflect. What do you think you might have missed this last week because you were living in the impatient chronos time?  Lean over and give your neighbor just a quick description of what you might have missed. Like, “I did the dishes instead of playing with my grandkids and then it was time for them to go home.”  Or “I know someone wanted to talk to me, but I just made up an excuse to leave.”  Take a minute to share.<<<<   >>>>>

Now turn it around. How can you open up a little white space in your life, widen your margins just a little to allow you to engage in God’s wonderful gift of Kairos time. Maybe you have to let go of one chore… will anyone notice (when I did that a year ago no one notice what I stopped doing).  Perhaps you can just leave a little more time between appointments.  Share your idea of how you can open up to kairos time with that neighbor.

God’s time is patient time; karios time. Hopefully, you have a good sense of how you could live in patient time, or Kairos time. The focus of this series, however, is on the church. What does this have to do with the church?

Everything.  Who is the church?  You are. We are.

 If we are all running so fast that the only thing we see of God is just a blur in the rear-view mirror that shapes who we are as a church. Everyone… including me… needs to practice Godly patience.  We need to slow down a little, give ourselves a break and sit with Mary at the feet of Jesus in Kairos time.

 Second, we want to intentionally invite people into Kairos time. Come to sit quietly in the sanctuary.  I promise you God will meet you in this beautiful place. Instead of launching into your meeting. Take time to be open to God’s movement spend some time in silence or praying for one another. Invite someone to push the pause button on their life and come to meet God in a Bible study. Or come color with the color me pretty group. No pressure, just white space so we can breathe and God can work.

As we leave today let’s all pray for the freedom, patience, and openness to experience the margins of life and the Godly time we will find there.