A Stewardship for the Fourth
Day
Genesis 1:14-19
A few random thoughts this morning, perhaps to prepare us to hear a
word from God in scripture:
First, the other day I heard someone observe that the Chinese
character for the word "busy" is actually comprised of two other
characters – the one for “heart” and the one for “killing.” Hold on to that
thought of busy-ness as “heart-killing.”
Second, I was struck over and over again last week by the sheer beauty
of this season. There’s a maple tree out on the playground that has put on a
spectacular show for several days against a clear blue sky and the golden
autumn sun. The leaves are turning all around us, and as they fall and decay
the woods are filled with the smell of death and decay. I love this time of
year, and I am moved by that smell of death and decay. It might seem morbid to
revel in it, but it reminds me that while some may see death and decay as cause
for nothing but grief and mourning, I see death and decay as the ground work
for resurrection and new life.
Listen now, for a word from God.
Genesis 1:14-19
And on the fourth day, God created time. The turning of the world, day
and night, the cycles of the seasons – on the fourth day, God created time.
The German philosopher Martin Heidegger famously said, “the meaning of being is time.” I happen to think Heidegger
was spot on correct, and thus, on the fourth day, God created meaningfulness.
The fundamental crisis of postmodernity,
that is to say, the fundamental crisis of our time is a crisis of meaning. This
is not a new observation. Dating back at least to the existentialism of
post-war
For many of us, on a day-to-day level, we experience this crisis in
heart breaking ways. Remember the Chinese character for busy – heart-killing.
We experience the fourth-day crisis as heart breaking, soul crushing. In the
mad scramble that our lives often are the day to day comes to feel sometimes like
so much “sound and fury signifying nothing.” As that great philosopher, Rosanna
Dana Dana said, “if it’s not
one thing, it’s another” … and then it’s another and another and another.
The rhythm of life – a God-ordained order “for the seasons and for the
days and years” – get subsumed in endless busyness.
By coming to this place on Sunday morning, we are saying, “no” to all that
– “no” to the mad dash into meaninglessness, and “yes” to God’s intention that
our lives matter, that they mean something. In this sense, the old saying is
true: time is God’s gift to us, what we do with that time is our gift to God.
Creation itself reminds us of the gift, and in this glorious season of
color, nature itself creates the wrapping paper for the gift.
Worship is our gift to God and it is a gift that returns to us a
connection to the divine orderliness and meaningfulness of time itself.
When I was pastor in
I regularly needled him about this, and I would tell him, “Jack, Jack.
Now I don’t think that God gets tired of our praise even when it lasts more
than 60 minutes.”
On the other hand, we Presbyterians are sometimes known as “God’s
frozen people,” and it’s a real question as to whether or not God gets bored by
our worship! I hope not, for then we truly are wasting God’s gift to us.
Of course, sometimes it’s not enough to be here to worship no matter
how heartfelt, joyous and spirit-filled the time. For the crisis of meaning is
real and can be debilitating in its heart break, its soul killing stressfulness.
I have spoken with so many of you who feel stressed, crushed by the
weight of demanding schedules, and unable to find time to reconnect to God and
to community.
That’s why a stewardship for the fourth day – a stewardship of time –
strikes me as so important for us to claim.
Such a practice will be difficult and complicated. It’s difficult
because we live in a culture and economy that places unbelievable demands upon
our time, places relatively little value on service to others, and places no
value whatsoever on stillness, silence, and watchful waiting for God. It’s
difficult because we are all shaped and formed by a culture of finding meaning
through work, a culture that calls stillness “lazy and unproductive,” a culture
that values action over thoughtfulness and names idleness the great American
sin.
It’s difficult because work is
important, it is valuable, it does create meaning, and the lines are
difficult to draw between the work we are called to and a soul-killing busyness
we take on or that is forced upon us.
A stewardship for the fourth day is complicated because such a
practice compels us to confront the interconnectedness of time, work, rest,
Sabbath, creation, environment, economy, family, money, striving, success,
service, ministry, worship, spirituality, Christian community, family, social
policy and probably ten other significant constructs that I’ve neglected here.
This stuff is hugely complicated.
But if we are to find a way to new life and resurrection out of the
killing of hearts and the dying of souls that marks so much of postmodern
culture and economy, this profoundly difficult hugely complicated yet
fundamental Christian spiritual practice is crucial.
How then might we begin to conceive and practice a stewardship for the
fourth day?
It’s worth repeating that we have already begun. Gathering here for
worship draws us into this practice. Tending to this community – to this room
of friends, of sisters and brothers in Christ – draws us deeper into this practice
as together we mark and celebrate the seasons: Advent, Christmas, Lent, Easter,
Pentecost and the cycles of liturgical time in the church year are reminders of
the seasons that God has ordained. We live through them together sacramentally with baptisms and gatherings at table, and
they touch us in the seasons of our own lives: birth, childhood, maturing in
adolescence, the busyness of work, seasons of sickness, times of mourning, the
season of death – a meaning-filled journey of time that both includes and leads
inevitably toward resurrection and new life.
Well begun is, they say, half way done. So, what might the other half
look like? It will be different according to the seasons of our individual
lives, but a stewardship for the fourth day will involve at least these three
aspects to being: study, prayer and reconnecting to creation.
The spiritual practice of reading and studying – whether it’s
scripture, spiritual biography, theological reflection, or great literature –
the spiritual practice of reading is an important part of a stewardship of
time.
Surprisingly enough, this is one that I find particularly difficult.
The Protestant work ethic engrained in me leads me to feel guilty if I sit in
my study and … well, study. I’m always afraid that someone will come to the
door and find me doing nothing but reading. I’ll grant that this is stupid. You
expect me to study. It’s in my job description. My terms of call provide for a
book allowance. But it still feels like “doing nothing” to sit and read.
And oh, my gosh, if you come in and find me
sitting in silence praying? Talk about “doing nothing.” Yet the spiritual
practice of prayer is a second crucial part of a stewardship for the fourth
day. So, whether you find prayer time in sitting still, or whether it works
best during a work out, if it’s in gardening or making music, knitting or
cooking, in the car or in the hot tub, in private or communally – whatever it
is, open up your life to God in prayer. And, if you are like the disciples –
pretty good company, to be sure – and feel like you do not know how to pray,
start with the Lord’s Prayer. The words are in the bulletin every week, and it’s fine if you don’t know it by heart. It’s a good prayer
– after all, Jesus used it.
A third crucial part of the spiritual practice of stewardship for the
fourth day involves finding something that reconnects you to creation, whether
it’s a regular walk or taking care of house plants or something far more
involved, on the fourth day God created the seasons and they are spectacular.
They are coming soon – and, indeed, every day – to a great theater near you.
Don’t miss them. Simply noticing the movements of time is a central part of a
spiritual practice of stewardship for the fourth day.
Again: this stuff is complicated, and it gets that way because
Christian spiritual practices inevitably draw us out into the world in service,
and this practice is no different. Over time – and remember: time is God’s gift
to us – over time, a stewardship for the fourth day may lead us toward critical
and difficult decisions about the way in which we are using our time. After
all, the way we spend our time is the way we spend our lives. This practice can
change our lives.
Sisters and brothers: that is why the church exists. To be both an
agent of transformation for us and for the world, and to be a community of deep
care and compassion as we live into such transformation.
In this place, whatever the pace of our lives, whatever season we are
living in or through, whatever transformation is upon us, whatever conversion
is before us, in this place there is a welcoming community of faith, a loving
God and an overflowing table of grace set for us.
So, as we consider the seasons, as we ponder a stewardship for the fourth day, as we strive to live soul-restoring, heart-healing lives even as our own hearts are often broken, let us gather at table: a people open to the thrust of grace in our lives, accepting God’s gracious gift of time and celebrating it with sacramental joy. Come to the table. We have time and more. Come, let us celebrate the journey now and praise the Lord. Amen.
Copyright 2005, David Ensign