Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost August
24, 2008
Exodus
1:8-10 Romans
12:1-8
Modern Western society seems to have
an obsession with the concept of time. The excited and overcharged atmosphere surrounding the approach of the new
millennium is only one symptom of this
obsession. Our personal computers have to be precisely calibrated in order to
function properly. Modern watches keep accurate time down to the millisecond.
Almost every gadget in our apartments has a built in clock - from video machines to microwave ovens and air conditioners. Modern science has
calibrated the passing of time with
astonishing accuracy, using crystals which emit particles precisely once per second, or using the regular rhythms of a pulsar situated
billions of miles away in space. Time
is clearly something that can be measured in precise units and divided into a
succession of precise moments. Without that ability to measure the passing of
time with precision, modern science
would not exist.
While Scientists are generally agree on how to
measure the passage of time, Philosophers could not be more divided on the issue. For them, time has more to do
with emotions and feelings than with
the emissions of a tiny crystal. Modern French philosophers even assure us that there is no such thing as the `now
moment'. It is certainly true that we are conscious of the passing of time, even though our bodies or our minds
don't measure the passage of time
with the fanatical accuracy of a digital watch or a professional scientist. We are apt to measure the passage of time with our
emotions. In the widest sense, we are aware of the passing of the decades and
of the years. More immediately, we are aware that another sunnier is almost over, and it is almost time for us to
start new things and new projects.
More immediately still, we are aware of the passing of the hours and the
minutes. We have appointments to be kept and places to be.
Our emotions and our
minds tell us that we are living in time, but we are not entirely comfortable with it. Time's length seems very
dependent on how we are feeling. We are apt to say, "How time flies!" or, "It seems like only
yesterday!" or, "It's an eternity since I saw you last!" Some
moments seem to last forever, while others go by all too quickly. The traditional Christian interpretation of this
phenomenon is that time was created after the Fall:
that is to say time is not the normal or natural condition for humanity to
exist in. We are like fish trying to
live out of water. We notice time because it is an unnatural or strange element for us; unlike the air we breathe
or the water we drink. We have difficulty
in understanding time because we were created for eternity. That idea sometimes induces panic because we see eternity as
the endless succession of hours and minutes. But the biblical view of eternity
is very different. Eternity has nothing to do with the quantity of time, but with its quality. Most of us see time in
terms of past, present and future; what was, what is,
and what will be. But God holds all these three together at once - in one moment. Paul was striving to say this in
the epistle to the Romans:
""From him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory for ever!
Amen." (Romans 11:36)
Nothing is permanent unless
divine. The rest is smoke." Everything around us changes, our families,
our friends, our jobs, our homes, the cities we live in. In the midst ol'this, we are called to take
comfort in the eternal moment in which we already live. Nothing
is lost, because if it is lovely it exists forever in God. Our external
circumstances are only a vehicle for God's justice and love to be made
manifest. We must seize the moment in which we live as if it were our last - that is the only way in which to taste its divinity. We must take comfort in the fact that we
were created for eternity, that one great moment in
which we will know as we are known, and understand as we are understood. "For all things will be well, and
all manner of things shall be well." (Mother Julian of
The Revd Nigel Massey