About Time

“Our God, Our Help in Ages Past” is Hymn #1 in the Pilgrim Hymnal, which was the hymnal of my childhood church, and of this church too until about 14 years ago. There is a verse we rarely sang (because it was the fifth verse, we usually only sang the first four), but when I read it as a child it chilled me to the bone:

Time, like an ever-rolling stream,
Bears all its sons away;
They fly, forgotten, as a dream
Dies at the opening day. (Isaac Watts)

Time is a cannibal? Time eats its own children? I could not imagine why this verse was in the hymnal. It perplexed me to no end.
Another hymn of my childhood was not in the Pilgrim Hymnal, but it was in the Genesis songbook that we used in youth group. It was also about time:

Come gather ‘round people wherever you roam
And admit that the waters around you have grown
And accept it that soon you’ll be drenched to the bone,
If your time to you is worth savin’
Then you better start swimmin’ or you’ll sink like a stone,
FOR THE TIMES THEY ARE A CHANGIN’! (Bob Dylan)

Two songs, one written almost 300 years before the other, share a similar message about the nature of time. It is no respecter of dreams or desires. Time is not vindictive. There is nothing personal in the march of time. Time just is what it is, and will be what it will be. Time moves, rolls like an ever-flowing stream, rises like a flood.
The first conversation in the book, Changing the Conversation is called “It’s not about you.” We humans tend to take a lot of things personally, even things which are impersonal, things which neither we, nor anyone else, can control. When it’s warm and sunny during our summer vacation, we might attribute it to the grace of God or a benevolent spirit: “Somebody up there must like me.” If its cold and rainy, “What did I do to deserve this?” It’s just weather. It’s not about you, right?
The times have been “a-changin’,” and the church as we knew it has been, in a sense, “borne away.” Not just our church, all churches. It’s nothing personal. It’s nothing you or I or anyone else did wrong. It just is.
The Arts Committee has created this display (see it in the Fellowship Hall)to help us begin that first conversation (It’s not about you), and to bid farewell to “Christendom.” (It also inspired us to empty out a few junk drawers, which were stuffed with old photos!)
As you look at these faces and places, remember and give thanks for what is past. And, let it go. Hear the words of the prophet Isaiah:

Do not remember the former things,
or consider the things of old.
I am about to do a new thing;
now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?
I will make a way in the wilderness
and rivers in the desert. (Isaiah 43:18-19)

Or, if you must remember the former things, don’t worship them. You may consider what is past, but don’t let is keep you from participating in the present and celebrating the new life that God is creating. “Now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?”

Seeing Salvation

In the gospel of Luke, in the words of the “Song of Zechariah,” Zechariah prophesied that his son John will be the one to prepare the way for the one who will give people “knowledge of salvation through the forgiveness of sins.” A few chapters later, John is described as the one who will prepare the way for the one who is to come, in whom “all flesh shall see the salvation of God.”
There is a precedent in scripture, for seeing salvation. Time and again God gives us a clue, a sign, a far-off glimpse of salvation. Moses got a view of salvation when he stood on the mountaintop and saw the Promised Land. Martin Luther King, Jr, who referred to that mountaintop experience in his last sermon, he too had a glimpse of salvation. Neither Martin nor Moses ever got to set foot in their Promised Land, but they saw and described what salvation looked like, each in his own time, each to his own people.
God gives us glimpses of salvation, and a kind of a road map of how to get there, but the rest is up to us. The land flowing with milk and honey was a part of the covenant promise God made with the people. Another part of the covenant was the law, God’s model of how to participate in the creation and the maintenance of salvation.

“Salvation” is a word that we don’t use much, it is a “churchy” word and perhaps one that we are not very comfortable with.

Kathleen Norris, in her book Amazing Grace: A Vocabulary of Faith tells a story to describe salvation.
First, you need to know the setting of the story: It is Lemmon, South Dakota, a town in sparsely populated ranch country, not unlike the town of Hyannis, Nebraska, where I once lived. And what you need to know about rural, ranching communities is that after high school graduation, there are not a lot of options for young folk. If you are young in Hyannis, Nebraska, or Lemmon, South Dakota, and you decide to stay and work the ranch, like your parents, well, your parents will be pleased to have you around, but also, a little disappointed. They will wonder what’s wrong with you. Why you don’t go to college, or find work in one of the bigger cities, like North Platte, or Omaha, or maybe Denver. But if you decide to go to college, or to the city, well, then, “Who do you think you are? I suppose you’re too good for us now.” So you see, you can’t win.
Kathleen tells the story of one of these young men from Lemmon, who decided to leave, and try his luck in the city. He wasn’t well equipped for life in the city, he had a hard time finding a job that would support even a meager subsistence. Eventually, he did hit upon a lucrative, but illegal trade, selling drugs. And he thought life was great! Until, one day, he was driving out in the countryside with a “business colleague” They spotted an oncoming car and waved, which is something you just do, out west. There are so few people out there, that when you see a vehicle approaching you get ready to make eye contact and offer a friendly wave, because it’s likely somebody you know and you wouldn’t want to appear unfriendly. Well, this young man’s friend, who was driving, did indeed recognize the driver of the oncoming car, and he pulled over and stopped, and said, “I’m supposed to kill that guy.”
“I’m supposed to kill that guy, but someone was with him.” He pulled a gun out of the glove compartment as he contemplated his next move. The young man from Lemmon saw, for the first time, where his life was headed, if he continued down this path he had chosen to follow. And he later told Kathleen Norris, who wrote it down in a book, that at that moment, he knew, that if he survived the day, he was going to turn around, and go home.
That was the moment at which he saw salvation, and seeing it from a distance, began to make his way there. His life was saved. That is salvation.
Jesus came to show us salvation, and that is what he did. The parables are, in a sense, salvation sightings.

Whenever Jesus began to say, “The kingdom of God is like,” he proceeded to paint of picture of salvation.

Salvation is like this: It’s like a younger son, saying to his father, “Give me my inheritance now,” and then going off and spending it wastefully. When he realizes that he has been foolish, he repents, he turns around and goes home, expecting punishment, but instead, he is forgiven and treated to a feast! That’s what salvation looks like.
It looks like finding the coin that you thought was lost! It looks like planting seed and reaping a harvest!
Jesus also used the “object lesson” to show us salvation. One day, when people were gathered on a hillside to hear him preach, and it was getting late, and his disciples said, you better wrap it up and send these people home to get their supper, Jesus said to his disciples, “You give them something to eat.” They pooled their bread and fish, and Jesus took the bread and blessed it and broke it and began to share. And lo and behold, there was enough for everyone. More than enough, in fact, there were leftovers.
That’s what salvation is like.

When we share this meal, we repeat the object lesson. Here, at this table, all are welcome, and everyone gets what they need. No one gets too much, no one gets too little. In this meal, we get a glimpse of salvation.

What does salvation look like to you? Maybe it looks like the face of a loved one, who is there beside you when you come out of surgery and the haze of anesthesia, and you realize you are not dead!”
Maybe it looks like your sister reaching out and lifting you out of the lake after you fell through the ice (Lisa W shared this story with me).
We are the body of Christ, and individually, members of it, and therefore, it is our task to give to the world “knowledge of salvation through the forgiveness of sins.” As the body of Christ, how can we show people what salvation looks like?
After describing salvation in the parable of the man who was saved by the good Samaritan, Jesus said, go and do likewise. Participate in someone’s salvation. Go and do likewise.
As we share this bread, and this cup, see in this meal the salvation of God, and go and do likewise.
Thanks be to God, for this salvation sighting. Amen.