“Time to Live with Wise Care”
“Time to Live with Wise Care”
Ephesians 5:15-20
Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost, Year B, August 18, 2024
First Presbyterian Church, Sandpoint, Idaho
Andy Kennaly, Pastor
In 1257 it had been three years since St. Clare had died in Assisi, Italy. 1257 is the year construction began on the Basilica of St. Clare, dedicated to this saint who shared St. Francis’ vision of peace and that humans could have a harmonious connection with the natural world.
Poverty, chastity, and obedience guided her faith. From the life of a bourgeois family and that solid, conventional middle class, about to commit to an arranged marriage, she switched to the life of a nun at San Damiano church as she founded the Order of the Poor Ladies; living in poverty, dedicated to prayer, now called, Order of Saint Clare.
On a Sabbatical in 2017, one of the takeaways I gained after a visit to the Basilica of St. Clare has to do with the entrance, before my wife, Shawna and I even stepped inside. A double door almost twice the height of a person, with windows above it, nestles into a stylish archway above the entry steps. On the outside of the front wall there’s a lovely, round, rose-inspired window, up above that archway. That window gets much of the attention, but there are also a couple other features. Two lion statues just above the door, one on each side; it’s as if they’re watching the people who come and go through the door. Another feature is even more subtle, another lion statue, this one at ground level, but it’s off to the side, over in the corner of the courtyard that overlooks the entire valley to the west. This lion is sleeping, eyes closed, paws crossed to hold the resting head.
Somewhere in that experience I learned that sleeping lion could represent the Empire, and that Christians need to remember that as they practice faith, at any moment the Empire could wake up. Like those two lions outside the church, the Empire doesn’t go in, but can affect the lives of those who do go in and come out from worship as they live in faith.
It’s one thing to sneak by a sleeping lion, but very different if the lion’s eyes open and that mighty mane quivers, and the lion rises from sleep, let alone roar. The lion is not there for protection of faithful Christians, but is an imposing threat, one that must be considered with seriousness.
This is similar to Paul’s letter to the church in Ephesus as he says,
Be careful, then, how you live, not as unwise people but as wise, making the most of the time because the days are evil.
He says this because those in Ephesus, along with other people in other places throughout history, have faith that is under stress, tension, challenges. There is no room for foolishness because, although life is resilient, there’s also a delicate quality, and it doesn’t take much to throw off God’s intentions through careless living, poor decisions, a wrong turn, or misguided focus. To live with wise care is a counter-cultural calling that sneaks past the lion that hopefully is sleeping while Christians sing praises to God and support one another as they give of themselves in love. Empires are about power and control, they use violence as an extension of politics. These things are outside the church, for love does not impose itself.
To make the most of the time means to act on opportunities as they’re presented to further love’s reality; to not be distracted or dismayed like those who are foolish and do not understand what the will of the Lord is. That will, that life embodies love, shared in the wisdom tradition, calls us to do, for example, what we proclaim at the end of each worship service at First Presbyterian Church of Sandpoint, Idaho. We say,
We follow Christ’s light, for we are a congregation of people, loving, living, learning the joy of faith.
To love, to live, to learn, to claim joy: this is making the most of opportunities, the most of time.
Time is a unique thing, like sound. You know there is no sound in space because there is no air to carry sound waves. Space is silent, at least to our ears. There are other noises that can be picked up through specific instruments, tools to tune in to special frequencies. But mostly, sound as we know it depends on a very thin layer we call the atmosphere. Without air, sound doesn’t work. To have sound, to have air, is a special gift that planet Earth is blessed to have.
Same with time. God is eternal, outside of time, beyond measurements. One of the things St. Francis and St. Clare witnessed in their lifetime was the installation of bells into churches. Throughout Europe, time was measured, counted, and announced. Rather than based on periods of day and night, or seasonal changes, time became reduced to what is quantifiable by clocks. With this came thoughts, like time is money, or I’m wasting time, or how do we spend our time, or give of our time. Chronology entered consciousness in a way that shapes our culture but can be careless.
The other day I went on a mountain bike ride up in the Sherwood Forest section of the Pine Street Woods area. At one point, I stopped and stood on a cliff overlooking the Pend Orielle River and the mountains of north Idaho, and a sense of overlapping time became part of the experience. I was there in the afternoon sun and time was ticking away as the day got older. But I stood on a granite cliff that was worn smooth from the massive, geologic floods that shaped this region some 10,000 years ago, and which was under scouring glaciers for millennia before that.
But then this glacial vision went to some other point, and that very rock was molten, a flow of lava as new Earth is born. These stones bear living witness to things that happen on a different scale.
Along the trail, I moved between two boulders, the trail set in the gap, and I had a sense that I was not alone, but many creatures over the centuries have passed through that gap, countless indigenous people made their way through that place, and I wouldn’t be the last to cross over, nor will our time be the culmination of life on that hillside, but other, future creatures will evolve and emerge to have their way, and someday even those stones will dissolve and crumble into dust.
Paul says, to make the most of the time, but which time does he refer to? It is not Chronos, not duration. It is Kairos. This Greek word means the right or critical moment, and it has a qualitative sense to it, even a permanence, an appropriateness. Christians are called to faithful living in Kairos moments. This involves wisdom. As one pastor describes a tee shirt he saw, it says something like, Wisdom makes good decisions based on experience. Experience is gained through poor decisions.
On that mountain bike ride, I got lost. There are so many trails crisscrossed, and I ended up further west than I thought I was. It’s amazing how a decision at one junction, to take one turn instead of another, can lead to entirely different results. Yet even though I was lost for bit, I was always in the Sherwood Forest. Even though I ended up pushing the bike quite a bit up steep sections, and the adventure went on about an hour longer than planned, and I didn’t know exactly where I was, I still had a general sense of how to get back, and I trusted that it’s all part of the journey. Obviously, I made it home.
Paul doesn’t give exact directions. He’s not laying out a map of Christian living or dictating to people what makes this Christian and that not. He gives general guidance: be careful, live as wise, make the most of the time, don’t be foolish, understand the Lord’s will, and the other suggestions which give overall direction and shape community.
As we continue to love, live, and learn the joy of faith, may we learn to pray without ceasing in the depths of our heart, to always give thanks to God, and gain a sense of how to live in faith even through confusions, challenges, and difficulties. May we claim Kairos moments, seek wise choices, and trust the redemption of all things in Christ.
We should not be surprised when the lion awakens, and our faith is tested. Christians throughout the ages show us how to make the most of the opportunities that come even in this tension; that with God’s help we can trust a larger vision, a broader love, and the unending depths of mercy. Thanks be to God for saints, for visions, for the wisdom tradition, and the continued calling to faithful living, both as individuals but even more as a community sent by God in mission to the world.
As we join our voices in Psalm, hymns, and spiritual songs, God is glorified, now, and forever. Amen.
