I remember learning to tell time. It was before digital clocks and watches. It was all about learning to read the hands on a clock or a watch.It was a mystery that eluded me.
When I was in first grade my father gave me one of his old wrist watches, from high school. It was a wonder to behold, shiny metal and glass. No battery, no oscillating quartz crystal, just gears and springs and a little wind up nob. I could hear and feel the little engine turning and ticking inside. It felt substantial. And they put a new fat and wide heavy dark leather watchband on it, like they made back in 1974.
I just loved wearing it. I liked how it looked. I felt like I was an astronaut with my own special scientific machine. But I couldn’t read it. I couldn’t tell the time.I don’t know how many years I wore it and people asked me for the time and I would look at my watch and I’d say, “I don’t know.”
Eventually the mystery of the big hand and the little hand spinning around all those numbers became clear to me. The fat dark leather band wore out. The watch eventually broke. I lost trackof it years ago. I still smile when remember how I was lured into telling time. That watch really did look good.
The Gospel lesson this morning sounds like it is describing the summer of 2019, a summer where everyone turns against everyone, everyone is angry and fearful, like fire has fallen onto our country.
But of course, Jesus is not talking about this summer or this country. He is talking about God’s judgement, and whether we will pay attention to the right things, and that has everything to do with the summer of 2019. Will we learn to tell the time or will we be distracted?
The Gospel lesson is simple. We can tell what the weather is doing and prepare for it, will we likewise prepare for the arrival of God’s kingdom that Jesus has brought? It is called arguing from the lesser to the greater. And that decision about Jesus is the point of division.
Will we live the Jesus way? Bringing peace, forgiveness, generosity to a world that can’t and won’t tell the time. Will we forsake the insanity and work to build a kingdom where things are different? It’s that simple. More of the same or something new, something different, something good.
Jesus is the amazing love of God, luring us into telling time, into a kingdom with a different way of doing things.
What time is it? I don’t know. But I want to learn. Amen