January 25, 2009 Message

1 Corinthians 7:29-31; Mark 1:14-20
“Time Is Limited”

Is there anyone here today that is finding it is hard getting older? It’s something we don’t really give a lot of thought to when we’re younger, do we? Older was something my great grandmother was, perhaps my grandparents – remember those days? When you are young you don’t really think about being old, anyway that old. Maybe like 18 or 21 old, but not really “old, old.” But it doesn’t take long before discovering your getting older begins much sooner than you would have thought. You know you’re getting older when…

• You feel like the morning after, and you haven't been anywhere.
• It takes longer to rest than it did to get tired.
• You know all the answers, but nobody asks the questions.

A friend said her daughter once told her, "You're married and have kids...your life is over." Now in the spirit of the church season we are in, that can be an epiphany of sorts. The thought of one’s life being over, of time running out, of there only being a short time left, is not a comforting thought, no matter how old you are.

On Wednesday, Althea and I will observe the anniversary of an important day – a day beginning forty-two years of our life being over, at least in the mind of one young girl – and, perhaps, in Paul’s mind as well. Now Paul says a lot about marriage in these verses and elsewhere in his letters, but that is not the main point of today’s lesson.

In our reading today from 1 Corinthians 7:29-31, Paul says, “the appointed time has grown short,” which literally means our time is limited. Whether we are married or not, our time is limited. In other words, there is really not all that much time! Paul’s lesson for us today, is about the time we have left.

You come on a Sunday morning to encounter God revealed in the word, to catch a glimpse of Jesus, to hear his proclamation of the kingdom and his call. At least that is what author Cynthia Anderson writes in her Reflections on the Lectionary for this week. I would like to think she is right. And I think many of us also want an idea of how it all applies to our lives. We want to know what the apostle Paul and the author of Mark have in mind and just how we fit in – or at least how it fits in with our life, right?

Well Paul says, what you think is yours - whether it is time or something else - it’s really not. He says, “We ought to regard nothing as our own…” and that we “would be ready to sacrifice all for Christ's sake.” Whether single or married, sorrowful or rejoicing, owners or renters, we are to be devoted, committed, faithful – all of us - to God.

However, Paul says we can be distracted in our faith, by our commitment to people and things – imagine that! He goes on to say: so, reduce the distractions to better cope with the challenges you face as people living in the end time. People who are distracted by a lot of things can lose track of what really matters. They may have difficulty functioning as they should or have trouble handling things. The pressures and distractions can even run their life and become like 'other gods' that they serve. So, it is very important to stay centered and connected with God, to keep things in proper perspective.

ALL considered ours IS Gods – including our sorrow, joy, possessions, etc.

Paul's challenge today deals with a way of living that loses touch with the center and is subject to pressures from many sources. It’s how many people live today. It’s even how we may find ourselves living. God is just one of the pressures we must give in to beside all the others which bombard us through what’s expected of us and slick advertising. Paul's word may jolt us into asking whether we have in “living our lives” lost God and, at the same time, lost ourselves.

So, what might our living look like, if not the life we live? If Mark is a clue, it means reaching out and touching people, bringing healing, liberation, renewal. It means joining Jesus’ ‘act’ – now, not later. It means becoming involved, becoming a disciple of Jesus. It means loving and caring for people. This is what is to be the center of life. The time is short. The time is now!

The calling of James and John and Simon and Andrew “to leave all and follow” function as a protest not against life at home, but more generally against life itself and the structures of society which serve to perpetuate the past and trap people into the service of the status quo and its gods. It called for a new way of looking at life, with a new set of priorities and different values. It meant returning to the God of compassion and justice. That was not James and John and Simon and Andrew’s life before they were called, and neither is it ours.

Ours is a life in which our mortality is often hidden in the complexity of our life-style. Being a Christian or “a believer” doesn’t exempt us from “masking” our mortality or denying our “days are short,” like the rest of humanity, by our preoccupation with "the things of this world." Paul’s advice to us is this:

1) First, "this is a critical time," before the end of the age. It is a time to begin knowing the living God, Jesus Christ – to know him and live with him for eternity. It is not a time to be sidetracked by the momentary distractions of life.

2) Second, "this world, as we know it, will one day be gone." All the things that are important, the things that define us – our family, our work, everything we have learned over the years, everything we have created, the little truths we have discovered – and all the stuff we have accumulated over the years, will soon disappear. One day, sooner than we might think, they are not going to be around any more. In the end, for us, they will be gone! We are but "a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes", James 4:14. And the same is true for all our stuff.
So, what are we to do – about all the things of this world, things that are only temporary, that have become consuming distractions from what is really important? How do we apply what Paul and the author of Mark say to our lives? What do they have in mind for us? How does it all fit in with our life?

They are saying: "Use the things of this world, but don’t become engrossed in them." We should enjoy, appreciate and participate in all of God's creation without being absorbed by it. C.K. Barrett translates Paul like this, he says, “We should use the world as if we "had no full use of it."

Life is on loan to us. We cannot possess it and it can never become substantial or eternal for us.
The time we have is for our knowing the living God and beginning our eternal existence in his presence. We do this by trusting God for our salvation and seeking to grow in Christ-likeness through his Word, Jesus Christ. This is to be the central purpose of our life – nothing else.

Let us follow Christ, with God at the center, for our time is limited, and we cannot afford to be distracted by all the stuff that demands our time.