Be careful then how you live, not as unwise people but as wise, 16making the most of the time, because the days are evil. 17So do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. 18Do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery; but be filled with the Spirit, 19as you sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs among yourselves, singing and making melody to the Lord in your hearts, 20giving thanks to God the Father at all times and for everything in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.
In the blink of an eye life can
change. A life can end or forever
be altered in ways that just one second earlier never would have been
imaginable or even conceivable.
We think we have so much time. We fool ourselves. We procrastinate…you know what I
mean. Tomorrow I’ll give Kathryn a
call to see how she’s doing. Next
week I’ll think about having that
talk with my child…we all put off things that seem either insignificant or insurmountable
or that we just procrastinate because we think we have time. Name your
procrastination! Unfortunately, we don’t have as much time as we think because
we never know what is around
the bend in the road when we wake up in the
morning.
I suppose on one hand that’s a good
thing because if we were to focus only on the finite and fragility of life we
would drive ourselves crazy. We
don’t want to live in the world of ‘what if’s’ that would be awful! If that were the case then we
would lose the incredible opportunities for joy, love, pleasure and
thankfulness that are in the present, and that’s for what life was created.
To be able to balance the now and the
not yet, today and tomorrow, this minute and the next, wouldn’t that be
wonderful? To understand and live
life, and its related counterpart death and to keep them in balance takes a
mature awareness and strength. Oh
that we were all Zen Masters living the practice of mindfulness. Thich Nhat Hanh, Vietnamese Buddhist
monk and Zen Master, practices the art of mindfulness believing that
mindfulness is the energy of being aware and awake to the present moment;
touching life intensely, profoundly in each and every moment knowing fully that
all we truly have is the present.
Good words to live by? Yes, of course, absolutely! Easy to do? No, of course not, but possibly though! That’s why Hanh calls it the practice
of mindfulness; it’s not something that comes naturally to us but it can be practiced
if we put our minds to it each day.
Live in the present, that’s all we have. We would be so much better off
if that could happen and practicing the art of mindfulness would be a welcomed
discipline enhancing each moment and every interaction that we have with one
another.
Ephesians Context
I wonder if the author of Ephesians was
ahead of his time because he also talks about living in the present. Far removed from the hubbub of
Jerusalem where stories about Jesus’ death and resurrection were circulating
wildly, live the people in the cosmopolitan port city of Ephesus. Christ-followers in a culturally pagan
and gentile society, the people have been told that Jesus is coming back…soon,
real soon…within their lifetime.
Admonitions are abundant! Be careful. Do not be foolish.
Do not get drunk. But so
are the sanctions: be filled with the Holy Spirit, sing Psalms, make melody,
give thanks. What the author
focuses on is time and the passage of it.
“Make the most of time”, he says,
because the days are evil. Evil in
the sense that people, who did not accept Christ and believe in the life
changing events of his life, they thought were evil. I’m so glad that religious tolerance, thinking, and
diversity has changed over 2,000 years and that we no longer believe that
non-Christians are evil. But with
the expectation that Jesus was to return came the heightened need for ‘getting
it all right’. Watch, wait and be
ready because he may just come back today.
He urges people to live as wise people
not as unwise people do who do not make the most of their time. Make the most of time! That is, look and see, listen to and
understand, accept and help those people around you. Those people or maybe even you may not be around
tomorrow. Life is about time, all
the time.
Ground Hog Day
In my mind there has never been a
better illustration of living as an unwise person and then, finally in the end,
a wise person within the framework of time than the movie, Ground Hog Day. Bill Murray plays Phil Conners a
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania TV weather reporter. Dispatched to Punxsutawney, PA to cover Ground Hog Day he is
none too pleased…been there done that!
He’s bored and tired and frankly, thinks this ground hog stuff is a
bunch of hooey. In addition, he’s
not a very aware man to people around him or their feelings and sometimes,
often he’s downright rude.
He covers the story, with less than an
ounce of enthusiasm. When Phil
tries to return to Pittsburgh on February 2, the day after Ground Hog day, he
wakes up to a blizzard that paralyzes Punxsutawney. He is stuck. He can’t get out and no one can get in. The roads are impassable. The movie goes on.
Each day you see the alarm clock
awakening the dawn, which is not so unusual, however it is the same day. Over and over again Phil wakes up to
February 2. He goes through the
same routine, the same steps, the same actions each day. The weather report and the news report are
an exact replica of the day before, which, of course, was the same day.
Gradually however, because he gets
another chance each day, he begins to learn how NOT to repeat his
mistakes. He begins to see beauty
in the people around him and the blessing for which each encounter has the
potential. He progresses from a
very unwise, unaware human being to a wise, alert and much happier one. He gets it. When that happens, the page on the calendar finally flips
over to February 3.
Phil was lucky because he had many
chances to get his life on the right track, to learn how to do the decent thing. We don’t quite have that same type of
obvious opportunity as Phil so we must live acutely aware of God’s grace in
each new dawn and at every juncture that we encounter living as wise people
making the most of our time.
Living in the Moment
Living in the moment. Being completely alert to the
possibility of what life has to offer at this particular moment in time is
exactly what the Epistle of Ephesians talks about and what a Christ filled life
is about. We don’t know when
Christ will return so to put off serving him is not an option. We don’t know what the next minute will
lay out before us so we must be ready, emotionally and spiritually for whatever
the future holds for us.
Rabbi Hillel, a Jewish sage from the
century before Jesus asks the question, “If not now, when?” Or, in context, "If I am not for myself, then who
will be for me? And if I am only for myself, then what am I? And if not now,
when?"
If not now, when will you reconcile a
relationship that is badly in need of repair? If not now, when will you work through your anger or
hurt? If not now, when will you
show your love for someone special?
If not now, when will you help others to achieve their greatest
potential? Now is the only time
that we’ve got. It is a wonderful
and beautiful gift from God.
To live in the moment is to live a life
completely fulfilled. I believe
that is what we all yearn for in life.
Fulfillment and joy. Come
on friends, let’s go…it’s about time, right now.
Amen!
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