Accounting for Our Time
What do we spend our T I M E - focused on, and thinking about?
Yesterday, at Mass, the Scripture reading (John 5:1-16) concerned the healing of the man at Bethesda. He had been crippled for 38 years, Jesus walked by and… with nothing more than a Word - healed him.
Just like that.
Our pastor began his homily, however, by noting that the 1st reading was from the prophet of Ezekiel, and it prophesied the ‘River of Healing’ that was to come from the Temple - from God (Ezekiel 47:1-9, 12). That River of Healing was obviously fulfilled in Christ that day for all to see. Like a Great River, Healing simply flowed from Jesus. The Prophecy had been FULFILLED!
Were they ecstatic? Were they jumping up and down in celebration? A 600-year-old prophecy fulfilled - and in their own lifetimes; and before their own eyes! What an incredible revelation!!!
But our pastor noted that no one there was interested in that. They were only interested in ‘The Mat’. After the man was healed, he picked up his mat and walked away. But it was the Sabbath. ‘Picking up one’s mat’ on the Sabbath is a violation of the ‘work rule’. Oh, my heavens!!! Obviously… forget the miracle!
“WHY was this man carrying a mat on the sabbath?!!! And WHO told him to do so?!!”
They needed to get to the bottom of this right away; and they needed to discuss, and dissect, every detail.
They completely missed God, the fulfillment of prophecy, the fulfillment of healing and of life. They were all too focused on criticizing another human who was not doing what they THOUGHT he should be doing. He was NOT following (their interpretation of) the rules!
And I realized in that moment, that ‘They’, are ‘Us’. How much of our time is spent focusing on Christ - what He HAS done and what He IS doing in our world? And how much time do we spend focusing on ‘The Mat’; i.e. what other people are doing, and what is in ‘the News’?
What, after all, IS our ‘News’ that we consume our time with - is it not simply critiquing what everyone else is doing; and judging it? Whether it is ‘news’ brought to us via gossip; or via major media outlets - it is all the same.
‘Why is he carrying THAT MAT?!! And who told him to do so?!!’
And do we not judge it based on the puny amount of information that we have - almost all of it biased and inaccurate? Every single moment spent focusing on that, is a moment lost to God. We only have so many minutes on this earth - and God will expect an account given of them - especially from those of us who should know better.
‘Why is he carrying THAT MAT?!! And who told him to do so?!!’
They say that Satan is like a chained dog, attached to a fence in our back yard, and that he is only dangerous if we walk within his boundaries through our sin. But what if we take a nice comfortable seat just out of bounds; and simply watch him all day? How will we give an account to God for that?
Me: “Well Lord, I just wanted to MAKE SURE that satan didn’t get loose and hurt somebody! I had to be ‘up on everything’ so as to watch out for him!”
God: “He’s chained. I chained Him. He’s not going anywhere. Watching him is a complete and total waste of your time - you know, the time that I gave you to do MY will?”
There’s a great simile of this that C.S. Lewis placed in his final book of the Chronicles of Narnia. In the book, all had passed through the doorway into heaven, and as the children walked onward through the incredible garden all about, they came across the dwarfs. The dwarfs were always suspicious, always negative, always watching what everyone else was doing and criticizing it. Now they were in paradise, and yet they didn’t know it.
Lucy led the way and soon they could all see the Dwarfs. They had a very odd look. They weren’t strolling about or enjoying themselves (although the cords with which they had been tied seemed to have vanished) nor were they lying down and having a rest. They were sitting very close together in a little circle facing one another. They never looked round or took any notice of the humans till Lucy and Tirian were almost near enough to touch them. Then the Dwarfs all cocked their heads as if they couldn’t see anyone but were listening hard and trying to guess by the sound what was happening.
“Look out!” said one of them in a surly voice. “Mind where you’re going. Don’t walk into our faces!”
“All right!” said Eustace indignantly. “We’re not blind. We’ve got eyes in our heads.”
“They must be darn good ones if you can see in here,” said the same Dwarf whose name was Diggle.
“In where?” asked Edmund.
“Why you bone-head, in here of course,” said Diggle. “In this pitch-black, poky, smelly little hole of a stable.”
“Are you blind?” said Tirian.
“Ain’t we all blind in the dark!” said Diggle.
“But it isn’t dark, you poor stupid Dwarfs,” said Lucy. “Can’t you see? Look up! Look round! Can’t you see the sky and the trees and the flowers? Can’t you see me?” C.S. Lewis: The Last Battle
And if you’ve read this story, you know that no matter what anyone - (even ASLAN, i.e. Jesus) - tried to do to rescue the Dwarfs from their critical, negative outlook - they refused to believe.
They refused to BELIEVE.
They chose to remain looking at the darkness - for after all, that is what they had chosen to spend their time focusing on in their earthly lives.
Now let that sink in…
I’ve been reading about the Irish Saints lately. St. Patrick, St. Brendan, St. Columbkille - all the great Irish Evangelizers. They brought the JOY of the Lord to countless people in their time: heathen people, pagan people, barbaric people. And yet nowhere in their biographies does it note the vast amount of time they spent getting to know the ‘politics’ of the people. They did not bemoan the peoples’ lack of belief - they simply taught them about Christ. And they were able to teach them about Christ because they spent all their time focused on Christ. They knew Scripture; they memorized it - it flowed off their tongues when needed. It brought healing and life to all they met.
Here’s a question for you. How many bibles have you read cover to cover? I was surprised the other day to discover that a theologian I know has only read one once. One. Once. I was surprised because I am not a theologian, yet I can’t count the number of bibles I’ve read, cover to cover. I just get a new one, start reading it in snippets of time every morning until it’s finally finished - taking notes on what the Lord is showing me that day. On average, it takes a couple years. And then, when finished, I get a new one, and begin again. Then, when I have occasion during the day, I read yet another book about Christ, or His life, or His followers, or the incredible impact belief in Him has, and continues to have, on this world.
I can tell you one thing that that entails - T I M E. People ask how it is that I have not turned on a television to watch tv in over 30 years! What do I do with my ‘time’ they ask in shock. Well, now you know.
And when I need a verse or a story to brighten someone’s day - the person the Lord sent me that day just because He was counting on me to do so - that verse or story will just come to my memory.
God is sneaky like that. If we do the work; He does the magic.
Yet I have let too much of my time, lately, be caught up with ‘the news’. I think this is a real danger with retirement. After all, the ‘news’ is pretty awful, and now I have the time to learn all I can about it. I figure I need to ‘know what is going on’ so that I can combat it. But I don’t combat it. I just talk about it. Usually with righteous indignation, and often with outrage and justifiable contempt.
The funny thing is that I’ve noticed that those on the exact opposite side of each issue do the same; I know because I used to be one of them, and because they are very vocal about their criticism everywhere they go - like me. And they also ‘talk about it’ - with righteous indignation, outrage and justifiable contempt…
‘Why is he carrying THAT MAT?!! And who told him to do so?!!’
But God is good in that whenever I get off track and allow myself to get caught up in this, He sends me little reminders that help me to remember that actually - my time is not ‘my time’. It is HIS. He has given it to me; and I better be using it so as to give him a good return on HIS investment. In fact, it seems that Jesus talked about just that, when He walked among us! (Matt. 25:14-30)
My reminder came yesterday, from God, through my pastor. It was one I sorely needed; and one that I will be eternally grateful I received.
For we forget, to our peril, that when Jesus healed the cripple at Bethesda, the Pharisees focusing on ‘The Mat’ were the holy ones, the learned ones, the ones who were adamant they were following God the right way, that they were waiting for His Coming! And yet by focusing all their time on the negatives, on those who ‘weren’t following the rules’, they ultimately ended up crucifying the very God they were all filing into the temple every day to worship! Indeed, they murdered the very God who gave them the prophecies so that they would recognize him when He finally came.
But they didn’t. They didn’t even look to Christ. In their rush to criticism and judgement, they didn’t even notice, or discuss, the work of God that was happening all around them.
They just saw… ‘The Mat’.
Lord Jesus, please have mercy on our souls as we continue to do the same.