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What
Time Is It?
December 1, 2002 Homily
Fr. George Smiga
Mark
13:24-37
Yogi
Berra, the former manager for the New York Yankees, is well
known because of his unorthodox remarks and peculiar responses.
It is from Yogi Berra that we get the phrase "It ain't
over 'til it's over!" and "This is like déjà
vu all over again." It is said that on a particular day
while he was walking the streets of New York, Yogi Berra was
stopped by a stranger who said, "Excuse me sir, do you
know what time it is?" Yogi responded, "You mean
now?"
Before
we become too critical of Yogi Berra's redundant remark, it
might be appropriate for us to remember that time is not as
simple as it seems. In fact, there are different ways to understand
what time actually is. The Greek language is more sensitive
to this issue than is English. In English we have one word
for time; but in Greek, which is the language used in the
Christian scriptures, there are two words. Each reflects a
different concept of what time is. The two words are chronos
and kairos.
Chronos
is the word from which we get chronology, which is a listing
of events and intervals. Chronos is what we might call clock
time. Clock time measures things. For example, we could take
any interval, say from 8:00 until 8:30 this morning. In that
thirty minutes you could decide to dry a load of laundry.
In that same interval, three thousand people could die throughout
the world, and four thousand people could be born, your thumbnail
could grow a fraction of an inch, and a bomb might explode
in Jerusalem. All of this in the time in which you dry your
laundry. Chronos marks that interval and it doesn't care about
any of the things that happen within it. Chronos is clock
time. Tick Tock. Ho Hum.
But
there is another kind of time, kairos. Kairos is not clock
time. It is the right time, the time when good things happen.
Kairos is the time that we are waiting for, the time when
all things come together. Kairos is God's time, the time in
which we see God working.
We
find it difficult to remember chronos time. If I were to ask
you what you were doing April 7th 1992, you probably could
not remember. But kairos is a time that we remember always.
Like the time we met our spouse, or found the courage to forgive
an enemy, or realized what we wanted to do with our lives,
or held a child or a grandchild in our arms for the first
time, or made a sacrifice which changed ourselves and others.
We remember these times because they are kairos. This is the
time on which we hang our lives. Kairos does not measure life;
it is life. It is not the time we live through; it is time
we live for.
Now
if we examine our lives, I think that we would all admit that
there is a lot more chronos than there is kairos. A lot more
clock time than there is the right time. But the good news
of today's gospel is that, whatever proportion we have between
these two times does not have to remain as it is. We can choose
to have more kairos, more right time in our life. This is
why the gospel today keeps telling us, "Be alert!"
"Be awake!" "Don't fall asleep!" The gospel
believes that there is a right time coming. In the next day,
in the next hour, perhaps now, a right moment could arrive.
We could meet a person that changes our life. We could hear
an idea that shifts our thinking. We could find the courage
to do something we never thought we could do.
God
is coming, and we do not know when. The last thing we would
want to do is miss that moment. This is what Advent is about,
why we take these four weeks every year to remind ourselves
Christ is coming and we want to be alert when he arrives.
Spiritual writers believe that the most important thing about
being a disciple of Jesus is not saying prayers or doing good
works. It is being attentive, being alert to life. At any
moment Christ can come. The next moment could be kairos.
So
the next time that you find yourself waiting for time to pass,
see if you can shift and start beginning to wait for Christ
to come. The next time that you are waiting at a traffic light,
or waiting in line, or waiting for retirement, or waiting
for me to stop talking, don't treat that time as time you
have to live through. Ask yourself; "Is this the time
I've been waiting for?" Ask yourself, "Could God
be in this time, inviting me to thanksgiving, or insight,
or action, or laughter, or hope?"
You
see, time is not all the same. There are moments yet to come
that can change our lives, gifts that we will remember forever,
invitations that can take our breath way. So be alert! Stay
awake! Watch! For Christ is coming! That is the message of
Advent -- that is knowing the difference between clock time
and God's time.
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