"Borrowing Time"

READING

How can people believe themselves to be free if they have no space in their lives where nothing is expected of them, and if they are always late or in a hurry? The Lilliputians observed two centuries ago that Gulliver's God was his watch, and that 'he seldom did anything without consulting it and said it pointed out the time for every action of his life.' Montesquieu philosophized that the English were impolite because 'they are busy people, who do not even have the time to raise their hats when they meet.' Time was short even in this supposedly relaxed age. So what chance is there of escaping its pressures today?

. . . Before clocks were invented, frustration had a different shape. Time then was not made of little pieces, of hours and minutes, needing to be saved and accounted for, but was like a huge cloud enveloping the earth, and humanity was waiting for it to clear. The past was a part of the present; individuals lived surrounded, in their imagination, by their ancestors and their mythical heroes, who seemed as alive as themselves; they often did not know how old they were, being more preoccupied with death than with time, which was only a music announcing another life that would last for ever. Every civilization has made a different prediction as to how long it would take for eternity to arrive. The Hindus spared themselves immediate anxiety because they thought it would be 300 million years; the Chinese insisted that time went around in circles . . . so that nothing ever really changed; and the Zoroastrians said that God took 3,000 years just to create the world.

But then the Jews invented a new idea of time, which has been adopted by all modern societies: they separated the past clearly from the present. Having made a contract with God, they looked forward to its implementation in the future, not in heaven, but in the world. They were the first to imagine a time when justice would be established, when the deserts would become fertile and when there would be an abundance of food and drink for everyone. This vision was their answer to persecution, and the beginning of a new tradition of dreaming about the future, stretching from the Book of Daniel to medieval heresies, socialist utopias, industrial revolutions, and science fiction. . . .

So most of the humans who have lived have not been much bothered by the passing of time. The modern idea of time is peculiar because it includes a new sense that once something has happened, it is gone for ever, that time means change, and so insecurity. Humans welcomed the clock's regular tick, its unalterable habits, its tyranny, because it consoled them for this new insecurity. It was a tyranny which began as a liberation, as so many other tyrannies have. Medieval monasteries were the first to assign a fixed duty to every minute of the day and night, so as to free people from the pain of not knowing what to do with themselves, and from the temptations of idleness. But some thought the price of security was too high: Rabelais protested, 'never will I subject myself to the hours; the hours are made for the man and not man for the hours.' . . . He was announcing a quarrel between the easy-going and the orderly which was to last for several centuries, until the hours won. . . .

Theodore Zeldin, "An Intimate History of Humanity" (New York: HarperCollins, 1994), pp. 349-351

SERMON

François Rabelais may have protested the tyranny of the hours, leaving the precisely regulated life of the monastery for freedom and uncertainty outside. And he prevailed, if his literary output is any indication. This sixteenth-century author is well known for his satire and social criticism. In this era, however, in "the quarrel between the easy-going and the orderly," as Theodore Zeldin described our existential dilemma, "the hours won."

We live with a pervasive sense of urgency, torqued up by technology and its mixed blessings of efficiency and speed. The anxiety that we are not keeping up is familiar to anyone juggling the demands of modern life. We dart from one appointment to the next, even scheduling time for meditation or church or yoga as if these activities were just another meeting. Oftentimes, they are. If we didn't schedule them, we wouldn't have the time for them.

You don't need me to tell you we are too busy. Especially not me, just coming back from sabbatical. Now I have this precious perspective, which I may all too easily lose in the busy days ahead. It tells me there is something wrong with how busy we all are. We owe it to ourselves to think about time; make the hours for us, not the other way around.

This New Year's Day coincides with the conclusion of Hanukkah, which is an interesting convergence. Both holidays have some fanciful notions about time. They lift us out of the usual order of the days and show us alternatives.

We associate New Year's with starting over. Acutely aware that time is moving on, we make resolutions about self-improvement and new commitments. According to custom, we get a clean slate - sort of. We make a surgical cut between the old year and the new one, which is still full of potential. In this way, we separate the past from the future and from one ritual moment - this day - comes the power for transformation. We have to act while the cycle is with us.

The Hanukkah story has another message about time. When the Jews recaptured Jerusalem, they set out to rededicate their temple with a celebration. There was only enough oil to light the candles for one night. Miraculously, the oil lasted much longer, and the celebration continued. One night became eight nights. The Hanukkah ritual suggests that time is elastic, subject to cosmic intervention, and that the human story is part of eternity in ways we can only imagine.

We expect holidays and religious rituals to teach us lessons about time and eternity, but all too often, these lessons are fleeting and forgettable. The hours win - and the new year just hurtles us forward that much faster. The hours win - and the holidays make us busier than ever. The hours win - and even our well-meaning attempts to slow down and do something spiritual devolve into one more meeting we'd rather skip.

Something tells us life shouldn't have to be like that. Then again, something tells us life is like that - if we want to be responsible, successful, even virtuous. A stretch of time without any obligations is a guilty pleasure, "borrowed time," we tend to say: borrowed from the dwindling hours that remain. Not a comforting thought. Unlike members of earlier civilizations whose sense of time made them more familiar with eternity, rather than less, everything we do reminds us of just how little time there is. If we want to make a difference, we'd better get busy.

I have spent the past four months doing different things: putting together a book manuscript, traveling, spending time with my family. These activities have been meaningful and worthwhile. I am grateful to my congregation for making this time possible. I feel as if I have borrowed time which I now can give back, enriched by what I have learned. I will say, "Here's my book." "Here's my sermon on my trip to Morocco," earnestly offering you evidence of my productivity. It is good to have done these things.

But even better is to have done nothing at all. Yes, I hesitate to admit this, because it goes against the grain of how each and every one of us lives - but what these past four months have given me is time. Simply time - vast, empty days with no appointments. Days to walk the dog, move through the world, breathe in the air, sleep. Now that the time comes to learn from the experience, I see it has to do not only with what I have done - but also with what I haven't. "I thought you might have trouble with all that time off," my husband David said to me a few days ago. I did better than both of us expected.

We think of the passage of time as a dwindling resource, a trajectory that moves us all too quickly towards oblivion. But in these past few months I have experienced time as recuperative and healing. Time to grieve the loss of my parents. Time to rest from work. Time simply to be.

Time is not an enemy. Time nurtures us, makes room for growth. Time opens our eyes and ears to the world. Time imparts wisdom. It teaches us the difference between good work and futile busyness.

Good work is a virtue. It is our offering to life. With good work, we are not drudges to the hours, we make the hours for us to do what we can with our minds, our hands, and our hearts.

Busyness is what theologian Barbara Brown Taylor calls an "imposter virtue." "Real virtues," she writes, "make one feel like doing good," but "imposter virtues make one feel good about doing bad." "Busyness," she adds, "keeps us from lingering on anything long enough to engage it at any depth. Busyness convinces us that there is always something else we need to be doing. Busyness exhausts, embitters, divides, and demoralizes . . . ."

Busyness convinced the businessman in the story I told earlier that it is wrong for the fisherman to relax in the sun. Work harder and make twice as much money, the businessman says. But the fisherman realizes that such busyness would not give him anything he doesn't have already. It's a small fable about the futility of busyness, but a big lesson to learn.

This story overlooks one aspect of modern life, however: time is a luxury. It comes with privileges like sabbaticals, not available to many people. Unlike the fisherman who can spend a few hours working and the rest of his time enjoying life, most people work very hard just to make a living. Someone working two or three jobs to support a family doesn't have time for adequate sleep, let alone vacations or yoga classes. Not everyone can choose simply to be less busy.

Theodore Zeldin asks, "How can people believe themselves to be free if they have no space in their lives where nothing is expected of them?" It's an important question. How many people in our society are never really free because they have no time? How many of us burden ourselves with busyness, hoping for a sense of self-worth to emerge out of the chaos, when what we really need is to do less? What does it take to bring about a balance?

The search for answers to these questions is the spiritual challenge we face. It means choosing good work not busy work, savoring quiet moments and days, making the hours for us instead of the other way around - all within the limitations imposed on us by modern life - not just for ourselves, but for all people. Balance is not simply some personal internal adjustment, it is justice. It is the freedom all people deserve to have "space in their lives where nothing is expected of them," when good work and good rest are the good life. This New Year's Day, we think of the future with hope. We have not yet lived the hours that are before us. It is the right time to look at what could be different. What can we make of the hours, of ourselves, so that we all can be free?

Resources used to prepare this sermon include Theodore Zeldin, "An Intimate History of Humanity" (New York: HarperCollins, 1994); Barbara Brown Taylor, "Virtues and imposters," in "Christian Century," July 26, 2005; Margaret Silf, "The Fisherman's Dream," in "One Hundred Wisdom Stories From Around the World" (Cleveland: The Pilgrim Press, 2003).