February 22, 2009
Rev. David Boyd
It's funny when you look back on the songs that you liked when you were younger and think about how they struck you at the time. When I look back, I realize that I didn't care that much about the lyrics—or at least I didn't listen to them primarily. I liked the whole package, the music, the singing, the rhythm, the intent. And while the lyrics were important, they didn't feature as prominently then. Now, they do. Lyrics are very important to me today. And I look back at some of the songs that I liked and think, "Why, in heavens name, did I like that song?" And others have struck me anew because of the words of the song.
As I was thinking of a sermon today, for some unknown and odd reason, the words of Steve Miller Band's song, "Fly Like an Eagle" popped into my head. I have a couple of "Music from the 70's" CDs and this song is on them. But why it occurred to me as I was sitting at my computer trying to come up with a sermon I can't say. I was never a huge Steve Miller Band fan. I enjoyed their music, but I never bought any albums. "Fly Like an Eagle" certainly was a hit, but I'm amazed at the social content of the song.
It was the chorus that popped into my head, actually:
Time keeps on slippin, slippin, slippin — into the future.
And then, when I investigated the rest of the lyrics, I actually found they had some social value. I didn't really realize that back in the 70's. Some of the lyrics are thus:
I remember one of the Superman movies in which Clark Kent--Superman, played by Christopher Reeve before his accident, got the earth spinning backwards so that he could roll back time in order to save Lois Lane, played by Margot Kidder. I guess if you have superhuman powers and can make time go backwards, you can save the world. And time doesn't keep on slipping into the future.
But we can't make the earth spin backwards, which, of course, physics would tell us wouldn't make any difference to time anyway. But I wonder if we can't do other things with time than just watch it fritter away while people are starving on the streets or dying as child soldiers in jungles somewhere.
The gospel story from Mark is about a lot of things, and one of the primary things it is about is time. It is a story about Jesus' identity, which Mark wants to keep secret. It is about Jesus' connection to the Law and the prophets, symbolized by Moses and Elijah. It is about sharing the gospel through the presence of the disciples of Jesus. The story is about God's blessing to Jesus and to all the world, a reminder of being the Beloved of God. But, it is also a story about time.
I'm not talking about the kind of time that we are used to, the kind of time that wonders if this service is going to be an hour and a half and then the AGM will be a couple of hours, and that's just too much! I'm not talking about chronology; I'm talking about a different kind of time, a spiritual kind of time, if you will, a time outside of time. I'm talking about kairos time, which, when translated, loosely means "decisive point" or "fullness of time." It refers to a decisive moment in time in which we are aware that God breaks through; it can also refer in Greek thought, to space as well as time, but that is much more difficult to ponder.
Whatever took place on that mountaintop where Peter, James and John along with Jesus had gone, one of the important things was that a decisive moment occurred, a kairos moment happened. In a sense, time stood still, things changed, the earth was shaken to its foundations, and God spoke, "This is my Beloved; listen!" The story was, in many ways, a demand to the followers of Jesus, that they mark this decisive moment by creating other decisive moments in their own living. That is the meaning of the transfiguration story, to my mind. You can't keep that transformative moment to yourself; you have to share it with others. You have to take your kairos moments and instead of guarding them jealously, you have to share them joyously.
As I mentioned to the two contemplative prayer groups that have recently started, I learned to meditate when I was in my early 20's. My dad was ill, I was a new dad myself, and I was looking for ways to live with more perspective and integrity. So, a friend of mine who was studying to become an Anglican priest—and who never finished—and whose true heritage was Ukrainian Orthodox, taught me how to meditate. Meditation, contemplative prayer, is all about trying to living more decisively in chronos time; spiritual practices are all about trying to meld kairos and chronological time together so that we live more intentionally, with more integrity, with more of the mind of God in our hearts. And of course, we all know the health benefits of that—less stress, less tired, more time for others, more patience, more wholeness, more love, more justice, more integrity... just more abundance of living.
The curious thing is that, while I've meditated off and on for over 25 years, I've never much talked about it. I'm not sure why that was so. Perhaps I thought it seemed too flakey or too esoteric or to non-United Church or too Catholic or too Orthodox. But you know, what I'm struck by, as I think back on that and as I ponder authors who are writing about the Church today, is the realization that if the Church is going to survive, we need to be about spiritual practices. I think the fact that over 30 of you have come to the contemplative prayer groups that we've started is a testament to the fact we intuitively know that spiritual practices and disciplines are beneficial to the planet, to our own lives and to other people's lives.
More and more, I have to say, the struggle I have with the Church—the United Church in general—is our increasing institutionalization and bureaucratization. We have policies for everything you can imagine. We have processes and protocols for dealing with things. The overwhelming sense I had when I was last at General Council, which was 2006, is that we are over-governed. Where is the freedom of the Spirit? Where is the emphasis on the gospel? Where is the energy for justice? Where is the Church? You may remember the misprint I quoted in a sermon shortly after I returned from General Council at Thunder Bay. You may remember, I said how we sang Marty Haugen's hymn at the closing worship service, which we sang last week, #1 in More Voices; and instead of singing "...here as one we claim the faith of Jesus: All are welcome, all are welcome, all are welcome in this place," we sang, "...here as one we calm the faith of Jesus..." It felt like the whole Council was about calming the faith of Jesus. We don't want kairos moments here. We don't want decisive moments. We don't want to fly like an eagle and start the revolution. We don't want to come down off the mountain. We just want to cerate more bureaucracy to make sure things run smoothly! Where will that lead us?!
Because we want to create decisive moments—kairos time, we've chosen to go with a narrative budget for our annual meeting here in our congregation. It's why we aren't just going to do business; we want to talk about the church and about our congregation. It's why we want to focus on spiritual practices that deepen and enliven our faith and make us more conscious of the kairos moments that exist all around us. The narrative budget helps us claim the faith of Jesus, not calm it. And we hope that, as a congregation, we are on the path of living those decisive, kairos moments more fully in our living both as a congregation and as individuals.
For when all is said and done, Jesus took his followers down from the mountain; "this kairos moment isn't to be preserved as a monument," Jesus said. "It is to be shared." It is for those babies who don't have enough food to eat. It is for those children with no shoes on their feet. It is for those living on the street. It is for you and me. The revolution of time has begun; we can live more fully in a decisive time and step more out of chronos time. We can do this because God is with us.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
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For those babies who don't have enough to eat, those children with no shoes on their feet, and for those living on the street, time does keep slipping, slipping, slipping into the future.