I love both these passages this morning, they both reach me in
different ways, but both speak to how I see and understand the world around me.
Matthew 25 reminds me of the importance of what we do and how we relate to each
other and taking the time to notice the people around me and how I can be a
blessing, while Ecclesiastes 3 reminds me that time is important and that our
lives are made up of different seasons and times. Ecclesiastes 3 also reminds
me, that even though there are so many people who don’t accept Jesus or God or
have only a really loose connection to Jesus, the world still recognizes much
of the beauty and wisdom in the Bible. The Byrds wrote a song called Turn,
Turn, Turn, see if you recognize where the lyrics comes from. (play video)
Ecclesiastes is mostly known for telling us that everything is
meaningless. The writer repeats this over and over again. It’s no different
with time. Time gets its meaning from how we spend it. How many of you have
felt like time gets away from you, that it seems to move too fast at times? I
find when I’m online looking for something specific, that I can find myself
following rabbit trails, clicking from one site to another, and then discover
that an hour has slipped by. You need a healthy regular diet to be your physical
best, in the same way, we’re called to use time in a healthy way to be healthy
spiritually, emotionally and physically to become who God has created us to be.
There is just so much time; we all have the same amount of time
each day-24 hours-so how we spend our time is important. I find it interesting
that how I feel about the way my day has gone often depends on how I spent my
time and whether I believe I accomplished anything of value with that time.
That can be so subjective because what I consider valuable may be different
from someone else.
Paraphrasing Pastor Lora Copley, “Ecclesiastes is wisdom
literature that recognizes the reality and rightness of these different times.
We challenge the assumption that we ought to be happy all the time, realizing
if we’ve lost someone to divorce or Alzheimer’s or a miscarriage, it’s right to
weep. We recognize there’s a time to scatter stones, breaking down
physical and relationship walls that keep us from healthy relationships, and a
time to hate the wrong and evil that’s in our world and destroys so much. Often
what’s so hard in life is we don’t know which times are which. Say you have a
relative who doesn’t know Jesus, when is it the time to speak or the time to be
silent? Or a friend has really betrayed you, is it time to walk away from the
friendship or heal it? Wisdom encourages us to recognize the importance of
balance and the discernment of different times and seasons.”
The Teacher in Ecclesiastes reminds us that there’s a variety of
times; a time for our families, a time to take care of our needs, a time to
work hard, a time to play and rest, a time to love our families and ourselves,
a time of love our neighbours and our community, and always it’s time to love
God and follow his leading. Jesus reminds us in Matthew 25 that we need to be
aware that our time is also his time and that when we use our time to help and serve
others, we are actually using our time to serve and love him. Rev. Peter Marty
writes, “Our
incognito Lord takes up residence in people who don't seem to count. We ought
to forget all fascination with some moral virtue in the sheep and some grievous
fault in the goats. The king in our story never says a word about anyone
compiling an impressive moral record. The only difference between the sheep and
the goats appears to be the willingness of the former to look other people in the
eye and meet them in their circumstance. Faith is more than feeding and
caring for others - it is believing that these other ones actually have a place
in our heart.”
Jesus enters into our time to show us God’s love and call on our
lives and hearts and time, not just with words, but through an outward
focused, other focused life where there’s always time for someone else. Jesus was
always aware of the people around him and never let time stand in the way of
serving and getting to know these who came searching for him. There was
Nicodemus who came in the dark of night to find food for his soul, there was
Jairus’ daughter who was dying and yet when a woman who had been bleeding for
years and whose only hope was Jesus touched him in a last gesture of hope,
Jesus stopped and acknowledged her even though it meant Jairus’ daughter died.
Even then, Jesus continued to go with Jairus and took the time to show his
power over death by raising her from the dead. Jesus took time to kneel beside
a woman caught in adultery and protected her from being stoned to death. He
then took the time to raise her up by the hand and speak into her heart, asking
her where her accusers were and then gently and firmly telling her that he also doesn’t condemn her, but to go and
sin no more.
Jesus enters into time to save us from our selfish use of time
that focuses on “me” rather than Jesus and other focused. Jesus spends
his time with us to show us the Father, to model what a God focused life looks
like, and to take our sin onto the cross, to take the punishment we earned on
himself to make us right with God again, to bring healing into our relationship
with God, each other, ourselves and with creation. Jesus gives us his time to
transform our hearts, to help us become more like Jesus, focused on being a
blessing instead of receiving blessings. Jesus shows us that there’s time for
study of the Scriptures, times for prayer and solitude, times for fellowship
and weddings and meals with friends, times for serving, and time to sacrifice
our lives to God’s purposes. There is never a sense of time getting away from
Jesus so that he runs out of time, Jesus is very conscious of how valuable his
time is.
Jesus shows us in Matthew 25 what a life of blessing looks like, it
looks like taking the time to bless and help those who don’t have the same
blessings we do. This isn’t brand new to the people, Jesus simply reminds us that this
is who God has created us to be as his people, his children. Proverbs 19:17, “Whoever is kind to the poor lends to the Lord, and he will reward them for what
they have done.” Isaiah 58:6–7, “Is not this the kind of
fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of
the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke? Is it
not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with
shelter—when you see the naked, to clothe them, and not to turn away from your
own flesh and blood?” Then there is Paul’s encouragement in Romans 2:7,
“To those who by
persistence in doing good seek glory, honor and immortality, he will give
eternal life.” To
live like this, to be shaped by the Holy Spirit means that we open up the time
in our lives to the moving of the Holy Spirit when it opens our eyes to see the
people around us, showing us the opportunities we have to be more like Jesus in
their lives.
At the beginning of a new church season, it’s a good time to
stop a moment before we allow ourselves to get too busy and take stock of how
we spend our time, to reflect on how much of the time we’ve been given we’re
using for ourselves and how much we use to know God better, to spend time with
Jesus, how much time we focus on being a blessing and to use the gifts we’ve
been given to serve the church and our community. Time is both meaningless and
precious, it all depends on how it’s filled. There’s a time to work, a time to
study, a time to rest, a time for yourself and a time to serve others; “there is a time for everything, and a season for every
activity under the heavens,” but we need to use the wisdom the Holy
Spirit gives us to wisely to figure how to use the time God gives us.
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