Lent 3/ Year C
Did you hear about
the nun who procrastinated doing her laundry?
She had a filthy habit.
What do you call a
fire-breathing lizard that procrastinates?
Dragon his feet.
Who does a
procrastinator see when he isn’t feeling well?
Dr. Dolittle.
Had enough?
This morning’s
reading from the Gospel of Luke is aimed directly at those who assume there
always will be a time down the road to tend to what we put off for now. Some people ask Jesus about an unspecified
number of Galileans Pilate had executed as they worshipped in the temple. Given Jesus is also a Galilean, almost
certainly he personally knows some who were lost. Jesus responds by referencing eighteen people
who died when a tower collapsed on them.
Within the language of “none of them were worse sinners than any of you”
is the heart of Jesus’ message in the face of these horrific losses: Life is
short!
It is a basic truth
easy to overlook as one day follows in the footsteps of another and another and
another. For most of us, we only break
out of this illusion when we experience a loss confronting us with the
shortness and uncertainty of life.
How would you
complete the following statement: Life is short… A little Google research provides some
possibilities.
Life
is short.
Break the rules!
Live it!
Experiment!
Lick the spoon!
Buy the shoes!
Smile while you still have teeth!
Perhaps the best
advice: Kiss slowly, laugh insanely, love truly, and
forgive quickly!
And how
would you complete this variation of the same statement: Life is too short to… Some suggestions…
Life is too short to…
…wake up with
regrets.
…hide your feelings.
…worry about
anything.
…wait.
…live with ‘what
ifs.’
…waste a single second on
someone who doesn’t value or appreciate you.
…make excuses.
…read a bad book.
I like what Christine Caine, a Christian
author from Australia, says: “Life
is too short, the world is too big, and God’s love is too great to live
ordinary.”
I have always loved the thinking of the poet
who wrote the 90th Psalm:
You sweep us away like a dream; *
we fade away
suddenly like the grass.
In the morning it is green and flourishes; *
in the evening
it is dried up and withered.
The span of our life is seventy years,
perhaps in strength even eighty; *
yet the sum of
them is but labor and sorrow,
for they pass
away quickly and we are gone.
So teach us to number our days *
that we may
apply our hearts to wisdom.
Some
may find its message to be depressing, even dour. Given what Jesus says in today’s reading, I
would say he finds it to be sobering and motivating. It tells us it is time to ditch Dr. Dolittle,
to stop Dragon our feet, and to make the most of the time we do have.
And this
is the second part of Jesus’ message: You still have time! For the unproductive fig tree, there is
another year. For you and me, who can
say? But there is still time. If you have been watching the college basketball
tournament, chances are you have heard an announcer say something like, “Team X
is down by 12, but there is still time for them to get back in this game.” Maybe you have seen Peter Seidel’s book on
climate change titled, “There is Still Time.”
The other day I received an email informing me there is still time to
register for next week’s seminar. Each
example combines a sense of hope with a sense of urgency. Life is a little bit like those infomercials warning
us to act now before time runs out on this offer!
I
suspect the two times most of us attempt to make a significant course correction
in our lives come at the beginning of the year and in Lent. New Year’s resolutions are fraught with
failure, perhaps because most are grounded in will power entirely apart from a
spiritual undertaking. Lent, on the other
hand, infamously involves frivolous sacrifices… “I am giving up okra and beets
this year”, when it can invoke God’s help to forsake habits and/or embrace
changes which truly matter.
And God
will help. In today’s reading we learn
Jesus says we have more than time. We
have the Master Gardener working in us and for us to encourage us to be as
fruitful as possible. In other words,
God is working with us as we seek to make the best use of our treasure, our
talents, and our time. Stephen Covey,
the author of Habits of Highly Effective People notes, “The bad news is
time flies, but the good news is you are the pilot.” We people of faith might add, “And we have a
co-pilot we can trust to see us through.”
Here is
a question: What would you do if I
promised to deposit $86,400 is your bank account each and every day of the rest
of your life, with one condition… one day’s balance does not carry over to the
next day. Whatever you don’t use gets
deleted when the bank closes at 5:00 PM.
But not to worry, when it opens the next morning your new account balance
for the day will be $86,400. Does it
sound like an offer too good to be true?
Well, the surprising truth is each of us has just such an account. Rather than money, each day you are credited
with time – 86,400 seconds to be exact.
You can’t save it for tomorrow.
You can’t borrow from the future.
You must use your daily allotment of time in the best and wisest way
possible. What are you doing with this gift? What changes might you make in order to make
better use of each day’s deposit? How is
God prodding you and partnering with you to make good use of one of God’s
greatest gifts to you… the gift of time?
Remember. Life is short, but there is still time.
