Epiphany 3 2021: The Right Time
Dear Working Preacher,
I still remember learning the meaning of “kairos” my first year in seminary. It was such a cool and compact lesson in the difference that knowing even just a little bit of Greek made. You likely remember that as well. Chronos – root of “chronological” – as the steady, even relentless beat of the time that marks our days, our work, our waiting and watching, contrasted with Kairos, the special, even royal time of God’s intervention into human affairs. The time when chronos is interrupted by promise, presence, and fulfillment. And speaking of fulfillment, “pleroma” was another of those early and fascinating Greek words we learned, when something long planned comes to fruition, when all that was meant to be has come together and now is, the time of completion and fullness. Well, we get both of those words in Mark’s typically spare description of Jesus’ opening proclamation and subsequent calling of the disciples: “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand!”
What struck me this week was not so much an insight, but a question: what makes this particular moment the right time, kairotic time, the time of fullness and God’s presence and promise?
No doubt there are numerous possible answers, including of course that it was all ordained by God. Maybe. But… three things from this week’s reading stood out to me in particular that I just hadn’t really thought about before.
First, it’s a time of crisis: Israel has been living under the oppression of the Romans for some time. And it’s not just an external threat, but also an internal one, as Herod and company vacillate between being complicit in, or at least profiting from, the Roman occupation and being so corrupt that they are ineffectual to look after anyone’s interest other than their own. This is, of course, the backdrop of John the Baptist’s arrest. And I don’t think it’s an accident that this crisis is what propels Jesus into action, as Mark writes, “Now after John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee proclaiming the good news….”
Second, Jesus has received God’s blessing and his identity via his baptism just earlier in the narrative. And so, confident that God is present, active, and with him, he announces God’s coming, even impending, kingdom and calls for the corresponding actions and response of believing the good news and repentance (another cool Greek word that is less about apologizing or confessing sin than it is about being arrested in place and turning toward a new direction).
Third, Jesus finds a willing, even eager audience of people willing to follow. Perhaps the message of good news and fulfillment he offered was so compelling that Simon and Andrew and then James and John cannot but help themselves at dropping everything and following, or perhaps Jesus already knows them and his appearance and summons is the call to action they’ve been waiting for. I think it hardly matters. What matters is that they hear the good news and believe it, not in the sense of mere intellectual assent but rather in that it creates in them a measure of trust and hope that moves them forward into active and committed response.
Crisis, confidence, and commitment. These are at least three of the ingredients that make this the right time.
Which makes me wonder, Dear Partner, if we might not also tell our people that it is still the right time, and perhaps more than ever. That is, perhaps our message this week might be that, even as we gather, “the time is fulfilled, the kingdom of God has drawn near.” After all, we are surely at a time of crisis. Pandemic and the profound loss that attends it, economic hardship and uncertainty, the brutal and deliberate stirring of long simmering differences into violence, radical and painful racial injustice, continued ecological devastation, and more. Yes, crises we have aplenty.
As for confidence, I have absolutely no concerns about that when it comes to you. You continue to attend to God’s word and labor to proclaim the Gospel faithfully, creatively, and well week in and week out during some of the most challenging months for ministry in generations. I take heart each time I think of you living into your baptismal and vocational calling each week. And a part of that call, of course, is to share that confidence with our folks, reminding them that the words addressed to Jesus at his baptism – “you are my beloved; with you I am well pleased” – were and continue to be addressed to them, to all of us, at our baptism as well.
And commitment? Perhaps here is where we might raise a question and, even more, make an invitation. God is still at work, still proclaiming the good news. And through the proclamation and our shared congregational life, God is still calling us to follow Jesus. Yes, first it is a question: are you, are we, willing to drop so much of what passes for normal and expected in order to follow in the way of Jesus? But far more than the question that demands a decision, it is an invitation: God sees you/us as worthy of God’s attention, as capable of great things, as called and equipped to be Jesus’ disciples in this new and challenging 2021. A year, we might remind our people, that whatever difficulties it may present, is still a year anno domini (AD), “the year of our Lord” 2021. It is an honor to be invited, and perhaps that invitation, issued by God and renewed in our preaching this week, may summon our folks to being arrested by the good news, turning in a new direction, and believing and trusting that, indeed, God is with us and for us. And with that call and invitation, perhaps we will be renewed in our confidence that God is working through us to care for and bless God’s world and people. If so, then in all these ways we might see and proclaim that the kingdom of God is still – and perhaps with fresh import – at hand.
Blessings on your preaching this week and always, Dear Partner, and thank you for your good work!
Yours in Christ,
David
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