Somewhere along the way, each of us learned how to tell time. Children growing up today find it less and less necessary to translate the meaning of the hands on a clock, for they live in an increasingly digital world. And in a sense, of course, the real human endeavor is not to learn how to tell time so much as to learn how to use those things that will tell us the time.
For most of human civilization, that instrument was the sun. Mechanical clocks and timepieces are a comparatively recent invention, not to mention the digital timekeepers and time-tellers that surround us. Whatever the technology, though, we want something to tell us the time.
The timer on the oven tells us when it’s time to take out food. The alarm by our bed tells us when it is time to wake up. All sorts of automatically generated reminders tell us when it is time to pay some bill or renew some subscription. And the variety of bells and beepers on our phone tells us when it’s time to do all sorts of routine and daily things.
For all of the gizmos and gadgets that tell us what time it is, I have observed that mornings in our home still feature the most familiar and time-tested method: Mom. She tells our kids when it is time to get up, when it is time to eat, when it is time to take the dogs out, when it is time to get their coats and shoes on, and when it’s time to walk out the door. Our children know how to tell time, but they still rely on Mom to tell them what time it is.
In our three selected passages this week, we discover that it is a part of the work of the servant of God to tell time. That is to say, it is the calling of God’s messenger to tell others what time it is. For time is a very telling thing.
Jonah 3:1-5, 10
The passage begins with the news that “the word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time.” That narrative detail compels us as preachers to go back and explain the background of the story up until this point. In addition, that narrative detail serves as its own kind of good news.
We make a mistake, you see, if we let the book of Jonah become only the story of a rather comical prophet and his uneven performance. Above all, the book is the story of the mercy of God. And that mercy is implicit in the very fact that “the word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time.” Jonah had not heeded that word the first time, you recall. Indeed, he presumptuously defied it. And so the fact that the word of the Lord came to him again bears witness to a merciful God who does not give up on us just because we fail or rebel.
The divine mercy that the Lord afforded Jonah, of course, was the same mercy that Jonah later begrudged the people of Nineveh. This is a common irony among the people of God. The Lord deals patiently and generously with us, yet we turn around and dare to be impatient and stingy with others. Jonah is the real-life story of the unforgiving servant (see Matthew 18:23-35).
In this chapter, at least, Jonah does go to Nineveh according to the Lord’s command. And there he preaches the word that the Lord gives him. Interestingly, verse 4 is the extent of what we know about Jonah’s message to the people of Nineveh. While we enjoy a lavish mixture of both message and biography in the books of Isaiah and Jeremiah, and while we read almost exclusively message material in the books of Amos and Joel, Jonah stands alone at one end of the spectrum. His book is almost entirely story. This lone verse in chapter three is the entirety of his recorded message. All the rest is his story.
Except, of course, that it is not his story. As we noted above, the story of the book of Jonah is the story of God’s mercy. And that mercy is evident at every turn.
We see it first in the very call of Jonah. If the Lord’s will was actually to destroy the wicked city of Nineveh, after all, then he wouldn’t have sent a prophet to warn them about it. When I set out to swat a fly or a mosquito, I try to sneak up on the thing; I don’t let it know my hand is coming. And so the Lord’s commission of a judgment prophet is itself a sign of his mercy.
Next comes the Lord’s patient chastening of his wandering prophet. First there is the storm that frightens but does not kill. Then comes the big fish, which probably also frightens, but keeps the now penitent prophet alive and delivers him safely to land. And then comes the moment with which our passage begins: the second-chance word of the Lord.
The mercy of God continues in chapter four. The Lord provides object lessons to try to teach his compassionless prophet. And even the content of God’s correction of Jonah is patient and kind.
But the ultimate mercy of God in the book of Jonah comes at the moment that concludes our selected lection. “God changed his mind,” the narrator reports. “God changed his mind about the calamity that he had said he would bring upon them; and he did not do it.”
1 Corinthians 7:29-31
Our New Testament lection this week is so uncommonly short that we will need to train back the lens considerably in order to help our people see it in context. The larger contexts are relational, textual, and theological. The relational context, of course, is Paul’s relationship to the Corinthian Christians and his correspondence with them. The textual context is the larger section of 1 Corinthians from which our passage is taken. And the theological context is the paradigm of “the appointed time” with which Paul is functioning.
Relationally, we remember that Paul spent more time in Corinth than in any single place other than Ephesus. He was the founding pastor of this church, and he was intimately acquainted with the people there. We have more chapters devoted to his correspondence with the Christians in Corinth than any other church or individual. And in the case of this first letter, the apostle is responding to both a series of questions that the Corinthians have asked and a report about that church brought to him by Chloe’s people (1:11).
Textually, Paul begins chapter 7 by dealing with questions that the people have had about marriage. This, of course, is always a subject about which people have questions, for it is always a part of life for us. What to do with meat that has been offered to idols or a runaway slave who is returning ? these are more rarefied subjects. But human beings always want and need guidance for marriage.
Paul is matter-of-fact about the human sex drive, and he briefly establishes in this chapter both boundaries and permissions for that part of life. That, then, is related to the larger questions of whether to marry, whether to remain single, and whether to seek a divorce from an unbeliever. His discussion on these matters evokes from Paul a general principle that applies beyond just one’s marital status: “remain in the condition in which you were called” (1 Corinthians 7:20). And that, finally, becomes the immediate context for our brief passage.
Finally, theologically, Paul is operating with a certain paradigm that informs the specifics of his teaching. His paradigm has to do with time, and his conviction about it is that “the appointed time has grown short.” The paradigm, then, is more like a football game than a baseball game. There is a clock, you see, and it is ticking down. And Paul believes that we are nearing the end of the game, if you will.
Sports fans know the look and feel that comes near the end of a game. In professional football, in particular, the referees signal to all involved a “two-minute warning.” It is the beginning of the end, and it is usually characterized by a certain urgency owing to the fact that this is where victory or defeat will be finally determined.
Every football team has some version of a “two-minute offense.” This is the terminology for the system and the plays that a team may need to implement at the end of a game. And a two-minute offense is what Paul has in mind for us as Christians. We do not have the luxury of forever in the present age, and so we must live in response to the recognition that “the present form of the world is passing away.”
That is the conviction that gives rise to the paradoxes of Paul’s instruction. It is precisely because the present reality is temporary and fleeting that we should live as though it was not the reality at all. And so, whether the present reality is marriage, mourning, rejoicing, buying, or whatever, it’s all about to change, and so we should live accordingly.
From time to time I will awaken before my alarm goes off, and so I’ll reach over for my watch on the end table to see what time it is. Let us imagine that it is just two minutes before my alarm is set to ring and I am scheduled to get up. Paul would say that, since the appointed time is growing short, I shouldn’t turn over and pull the covers over my head. Rather, given the time, I might as well go ahead and get out of bed right now.
Mark 1:14-20
Mark is famous for being “the Gospel in a hurry,” and we see evidence of the author’s rapid pace in our brief selection from his account. He is not even halfway through the first chapter, and Mark has already recalled Jesus’ baptism and temptation, the beginning of his Galilean ministry, and the call of the first disciples. We don’t reach the same point in the story until partway through the fourth chapter of Matthew and the fifth chapter of Luke.
Mark paints a quick picture of the ongoing work of God. John, the man of God, has been imprisoned, but that does not bring to a halt the work of God. Now it is Jesus who is proclaiming the good news. And in the next moment he is calling disciples, whom he will train and equip to carry on after he is gone.
Meanwhile, students of Greek will recall the difference between chronos (Strong’s, #5550) and kairos(Strong’s, #2540), two different New Testament Greek words for “time.” Chronos, on the one hand, is typically used to refer to a definite time. Herod, for example, inquired of the magi about what time the star had appeared (Matthew 2:7). Kairos, on the other hand, is used more philosophically. It has the sense of an opportune moment or an appropriate season. This, tellingly, is the Greek word for “time” that the ancient translators used throughout the Ecclesiastes passage about there being “a time for every matter under heaven” (Ecclesiastes 3:1).
Well, kairos is the Greek word employed here when Jesus declares that “the time is fulfilled.” The sense is that there is an opportune moment in the providence of God, and this is that moment. On God’s end, it is the time when “the kingdom of God has come near.” And on our end, therefore, it is the time to repent and believe.
In the brevity of Mark’s account, we are struck by the repetition of the phrase “good news.” In the original, of course, this is not a phrase but a single word: euaggelion. It is the word for “gospel.” And we observe that believing it is meant to come right on the heels of the proclaiming of it.
Mark began this section by reporting that “Jesus came to Galilee,” and now the action turns specifically to the shores of the Sea of Galilee. There, in a familiar and cherished scene, Jesus calls his first disciples. They are two sets of brothers, two sets of fishermen. First we meet Simon (better known as Peter) and Andrew, and then in short order we meet James and John.
As we are thinking this week about the theme of time, it is worth noting that this day proved to be a watershed day in the lives and experiences of these four men. Everything changed for them that day. Yet there was nothing about the day to suggest it was unusual, for the men were involved in the most routine and daily business. They were casting and mending their nets ? the mundane sort of things they did every day of their lives ? yet in the midst of that ordinariness came the extraordinary call of God.
Finally, the scene invites us to let our eyes linger behind the action for a moment. We are inclined, of course, to let our focus follow Jesus and these newly-minted disciples as they go on their way. But not so fast. See the places where they all just were, for there we observe the first marks of discipleship: things and people that have been left behind.
Nets and boats, families and coworkers, livelihoods and identities. They have all been abandoned in favor of Jesus. Is that a sad thing? It needn’t be sad; only poignant. Consider the look of the family and friends at the wedding reception who are left behind as the bride and groom drive off together. It is a happy occasion. It is right and good. Yet moving forward in love and commitment to one person always entails leaving some other persons and places behind. And so too with all those who respond to the call to follow Jesus.
Application
Someone stops and asks “Do you know what time it is?” You could look at your watch or your phone and give the standard answer in terms of hours and minutes. But our Scripture readings this week suggest a different, more profound way of answering that familiar question.
A part of Jonah’s divine assignment was to proclaim to the people of Nineveh what time it was. We see something of the same vocation in Mark’s characterization of Jesus’ preaching. And the apostle Paul serves the same kind of time-telling function in his letter to the Christians in Corinth. But this is not the stuff of hours and minutes. Rather, this is about the activity of God.
For Jonah and his audience, it was time for God’s judgment. Just as my wife might call up to our kids “Just ten minutes until it’s time to leave,” so Jonah warned the Ninevites “Just forty days until it’s time for God’s judgment.” Since the Lord prefers redemption over destruction, however, the people of Nineveh were able to stop that clock ? although we know that the judgment did come in the generation of Nahum.
Meanwhile, when Mark summarized Jesus’ early work, he reported this core message from Jesus: “The time is fulfilled.” The message suggests both opportunity and urgency. Like the announcement at the airport that flight such-and-such is now boarding, Jesus’ declaration indicates that the wait is over and it is time now to get on board with what God is doing.
Likewise, we see in Paul an understanding that “the appointed time has grown short.” What the NRSV translates as “appointed time” is simply that Greek word kairos. It is not about hours and minutes; it is about the season of God’s time and activity.
The three settings of our readings are quite different, to be sure, yet in every case the implication is the same. The time calls for a response. Perhaps the response was to repent and believe. Perhaps it was to leave things behind and follow. Perhaps it was to shift into a “two-minute offense” way of living. Like the alarm that tells us it is time to get up, or to take the food out of the oven, or to leave for a certain appointment, so the kairos of God requires some action, some response, on our part.
Alternative Application
Jonah 3:1-5, 10. “R.S.V.P.” Jonah is arguably the most effective of all the canonical prophets. None of his peers enjoy the kind of immediate and complete response from their human audience that Jonah does. Yet he is also arguably the least commendable of all of the prophets, and his message is conspicuously sparse.
We remember that the people of Jerusalem resisted and opposed Jeremiah’s eloquence. Yet the people of Nineveh earnestly repent in response to Jonah’s terse warning. The former example may comfort us when as preachers we find our congregations unresponsive. In the next moment, though, the latter example should keep us humble when folks do respond to our preaching, lest we think the responsiveness is a tribute to us.
There is no fault in Jeremiah; only in the people of his day. And there is nothing particularly commendable about Jonah. But the people of Nineveh in that generation are to be commended, indeed, for their responsiveness to the word of God.
We know well from Jesus’ parable of the sower (Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23) that people respond in different ways to God’s word. The sower and the seed are the same in the story. It is the soils that are different.
We also know from Jesus’ teaching that people do not always respond appropriately to what is before them. “The people of Nineveh... repented at the proclamation of Jonah,” Jesus noted, yet “see, something greater than Jonah is here!” (Luke 11:32). Likewise, the queen of Sheba responded more wholeheartedly to Solomon than Jesus’ generation did to him, even though he is much greater than Solomon (see Matthew 12:42).
Together, these principles raise important and sobering questions.
First, they raise the question of how responsive we are to God’s word in our lives. No matter the quality of the messenger, the real issue is our response to the message. The indications of Scripture are that we will be judged according to how we respond.
Second, they challenge us to consider the proportionality of our responsiveness. For we human beings are never completely unresponsive until we are dead. We no doubt respond to some things, therefore, with devotion and enthusiasm. The question is whether they are the right things.
And finally, in addition to our personal introspection on these matters, the texts invite some reflection on our generation in general. The variety of responses that we see in several of the aforementioned texts, after all, are portrayed as group responses. Jonah’s generation in Nineveh responded positively, while Jesus lamented the spiritual condition of his generation (e.g., Matthew 12:39). And so we are prompted to step back and see the big picture. What things generate a grand response from our generation? And what is this generation’s response to God’s word?
