Sermon for First Sunday in Advent: "The Mystery of Kairos" (Luke 24)

The Mystery of Kairos: 

In the Fullness of Time Christ Comes (Luke 24)

By Michael J. Christensen

 Water's Edge Faith Community in Ocean Beach, San Diego 

Today is the first day of Advent.  Let me add to the ancient scriptures a contemporary reflection on today's Gospel reading from Henri Nouwen's Daily Meditation: 

When Jesus speaks about the end of time, he speaks precisely about the importance of waiting. He says that nations will fight against nations and that there will be wars and earthquakes and misery. People will be in agony, and they will say, “The Christ is there! No, he is here!” Many will be confused and many will be deceived. But Jesus says, you must stand ready, stand awake, stay tuned to the word of God, so that you will survive all that is going to happen and be able to stand confidently (con-fide, with trust) in the presence of God together in community (see Matthew 24). That is the attitude of waiting that allows us to be people who can live in a very chaotic world and survive spiritually.

Henri J. M. Nouwen

The spiritual attitude of Waiting allows us to prepare for the Comings of Christ at the appointed time. Notice I said the Coming (s) of Christ, plural. Scripture speaks of at least 3 ways that Christ comes to us. There are prophesies about the coming of the Messiah, and the second coming of Messiah, and how to seize the present time and prepare the way of the Lord here and now. These scripture texts are complex and require a little sorting out…

Before I try to sort them out, let me introduce you to two Greek words which we translate into English as TIME.  Chronos and Kairos--are two kinds of time used in the language of Jesus’ day.

Chronos –clock time, calendar time, chronological time, ordinary time.

·      We define ourselves by how much work we get done in the shortest amount of time.

·      We fill up our time with things to do, places to go, people to see…

·      We live by clocks and calendars telling us our allotted hour, week, month, year or life is almost up.

Kairos is quite different than Chronos.  Kairos is better translated as “full time”, “right time” ,“opportune time”, “appointed time” or “God’s time.” 

Being too focused on Chronos can cause us to miss out on Kairos—God’s time for every purpose under heaven. 

Hey Boomers:  Remember the old song the The Byrds sang with the words from Ecclesiastes 3--  “There’s a time for every purpose under heaven…” (Ecc. 3:1).? 

A time to be born, a time to die, a time to plant, a time reap, … a time to laugh and time to weep, a time to cast away stones, a time to gather stones together.”   

Sing it with me:  “To everything, turn, turn, turn, there is a season, turn, turn, turn, and a time to every purpose under heaven… (The Byrds, 1965)

What this means is that the purposes of God are fulfilled in their proper time.

God’s time not always our time. The Mystery of Kairos is that Christ comes at the right time, the appointed time, in the fullness of time, which is not always the expected time or Chronos time. 

Three 3 Comings of Christ or 3 Ways Christ comes to us….

With this distinction in mind, how to sort out the three comings of Christ in the fullness of time?  

First Coming:  Incarnation “…when the time had fully come (Kairos), God sent his son, born of a woman, born under law…” (Gal. 4:4).

 

There are a whole lot of Scripture texts in the Bible that prophesy the coming of the Jewish Messiah at just the right time…. One of the most familiar is Isaiah 9:6

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"For unto us a Child is born, Unto us a Son is given; And the government will be upon His shoulder. And His name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace."

We now know that times were dark in Israel when God so loved the world that he sent his only son. And the time was right, when Jesus was born in Bethlehem.  The people of God had been longing and waiting and were ready for the Messiah to come to bring justice to an unjust world.  The incarnation of the Christ marked history, which divided our calendar into BC and AD.  We celebrate his birthday every December 25.    And we prepare for Christmas during the 4 weeks of Advent.

Our family went to Liberty Station on Friday to see the giant Christmas tree.  Rock Church sponsored the event and Pastor Miles and the children choir reminded us of the ‘reason for the season’ before they lit up the Christmas Tree.

Second Coming:  At the appointed time (Kairos) Christ will come again… (Acts 1:6)

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So Christ was born, lived 33 years, was crucified/executed by the Romans, and rose again from the dead—is our Christian faith.  The first disciples of Jesus also believed that Christ would come again.  Even after 2000+ years, the Church continues to confess that Christ will return to finish the work that has begun.   To establish justice and teach the nations how to love each other and not make war anymore… (Isa. 2:1-5—read today)

But here’s the thing… Christ came to us over 2000 years to show us how, and we still we have not learned to walk in his path, lay down our swords, beat our guns into garden tools….  There is still so much too for God’s will to be done on earth as it is in heaven… 

Which is why Church looks forward to a Second Coming of Christ.  We believe that as we when Christ comes again, this time in final victory… so that the scriptures can be fulfilled:

2:4 He shall judge between the nations, and shall arbitrate for many peoples; they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.      

No one knows the time of the Second Coming.  

24:36 "But about that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.  -- Matthew 24:36-44

Maranatha!  (Lord, quickly come) 

Third Coming:  In moments of refreshing and transformation (Rom. 13:11)

In the meantime, as we celebrate the first coming and wait for the second coming, Christ comes to us in new in personal ways, into our hearts by faith, in special times of great need, with transforming power and presence, at just the right time. 

Present Time...Kairos time.  Carpe diem time.

Spirituality is learning to be present to Christ's Presence, how to discern the many ways he comes to us… And when he comes to us in special moments, we are called to wake up, stay woke, pay attention, recognize the Kairos, seize the day in the sacrament of the present moment….

We all have experienced kairotic moments…

• ·      Birth of a baby, sunrise or sunset, beauty and majesty of stars and planets in the night sky…
• ·      A moment of prayer, in joy or pain, where you sense God saying: “All is well”, “Be not afraid.” Or “Well done good and faithful servant.”
• ·      A needed call from a family member, or visit from a friend at just the right time.  Christ often comes to us in the people who come to us, who show up in our lives at a crucial time.

A Kairos moment is a divine appointment…A portal (access point) through which we enter into the spiritual dimension of God’s perfect time…. Kairos can make Chronos seem to stand still…so that we can be present to the Presence.

Three Short Kairos Stories:  How Christ comes to us at just the right time…

Today is World AIDS Day:  Remembering the 37 million people around the globe who are living with HIV/AIDS.  Women like Lillian, whose husband infected her before he died of AIDS. Back in 2005, she did not have access to ARV drugs that could keep her alive…Very few in Africa did.  In her hour of need, I’m happy to say, Christ came to her and gave her strength and HOPE.    Christ came to Lillian in the form of affordable and available ARV drugs in 2007 that kept her alive and helped her to live positively with HIV.  And she became a leader in our AIDS training project sponsored by WorldHope Corps, chairwoman of the HIV Education Committee in Malawi, a powerful advocate and proud survivor…

December 1 is D-Day in our family:  Our daughter was diagnosed with leukemia on December 1, 1996;  Methotrexate chemotherapy kept her alive… We had access to miracle drugs in the West.  80% survival rate if you have access to drugs.  Her story of survival is a Story of Hope and how Christ came at just the right time.  So, on Dec 1, our family toasts-- Harry Potter style—"To the Girl who lived…”

Date with Jesus story:  To be quite personal,  my mother at 92 knows her time is near.  She spends many hours a day gazing at the clouds, wind and rain, imagining herself going to heaven.  She’s had dreams that her father is waiting for her there.  She has told the kids and grandkids “I have a date with Jesus...  She wants to see her family gathered for Christmas one more time. She’s hoping for a moment of Kairos when Christ comes again to take her home.

I too need a moment of Kairos in this season of Advent. Not to go to heaven early, but to sense his presence here and now. I’m preparing, praying, hoping and waiting for a new Kairos moment this Christmas time.  I long for Christ to come again for a season of refreshing, a moment of felt presence. 

I suspect that you, too, need such a moment of Kairos in your Christian life.

It’s the first Sunday in Advent:  Pray and prepare, hope and wait…for the coming of Christ in the fulness of time.  AMEN.

Closing Prayer:   The Lord be with you… Let us pray…

In the fullness of time, O Lord, you came as a babe in Bethlehem

At the right time, we know you will come again.

In the meantime, come afresh to us in times of refreshing. 

May be recognize and seize the Kairos.

“Let every heart prepare him from….and Heaven and nature sing”… AMEN.

Parable of the Shrewd Manager--Soviet Style (Luke 16:1-13)

The Parable of the Shrewd Manager (Luke 16:1-13) for Sunday, Sept 22, 2019

I received an email a few days ago from a former Princeton Seminary student who had been the coordinator for the Princeton Globalization Project at the seminary for which I was a consultant and speaker. Now a pastor in North Carolina, she was preparing her sermon for Sunday on the lectionary gospel reading—Luke 16:1-13--which is the Parable of the Shrewd Manager. Her email read in part:

“I want to tell the story you told at the Princeton Youth Forum about your work in the Soviet Union [in 1995]... You shared that your organization had to work with the young Russian mob to get the medicine to the people who needed it.  I'm preaching on the parable of the Dishonest [Shrewd] Manager and how Jesus is telling us to be wise...but to use it for good...which I thought you did.”

She was trying to remember a story I told over 20 years ago about my own shrewdness in asking members of a local mafia to help us deliver a container of emergency food and relief supplies in the mid 1990’s after the fall of the Soviet Union. 

The relief and development organization I was working with at the time had a single mission project to distribute nutritional food aid to displaced and marginalized Armenians living in Soviet Azerbaijan. My partner and I traveled to Baku for a complex assessment, partnership and planning.  Within the week we had to make a judgment call about whom to trust with the food distribution.  

We first met with the Soviet-style government officials and military officers who are typically tasked with such foreign aid.  We also met some young businessmen who operated outside the System, buying and selling goods on the black market as part of a local Mafia. As ‘gate-keepers’ and ‘movers and shakers’, they became our hosts, demonstrating their connections and interests to help us with our mission (and presumably to take some credit for the getting foreign aid to the recipients). 

So we lined up the various characters we met that week in our imagination and asked ourselves: Not “who do we trust?” But “who do we trust the most, here and now, to get this food to those poor families?” The answer was—the mafia guys over the more corrupt government officials. So, as shrewd managers, we decided to work outside the system and trust the equally shrewd young mafia dudes to get the job done.   And they did. 

 I hope this old story helped her preach her sermon on Sunday. It’s a difficult parable Jesus told and hard to preach on.  Such is the value of lectionary preaching.  Makes us think about texts we tend to avoid.

Coincidentally, I was in Oxford last week researching CS Lewis archives for original unpublished material and found 3 pages of omitted material from his published manuscript “Letters to Malcolm”. Those 3 pages were on his interpretation of the Parable of “The Unjust Steward.” But that’s a topic for another post… 

John Wesley on Theosis

Standing at Aldersgate Flame, London

The Royal Way of Love: Deification in the Wesleyan Tradition

By Michael J. Christensen, Ph.D.

On Wednesday, May 24, 1738, John Wesley records in his journal a profound religious experience he had at a group meeting in the Moravian chapel on Aldersgate Street, London:

In the evening I went very unwillingly to a society in Aldersgate Street [in London], where one was reading Luther’s preface to the Epistle to the Romans. About a quarter before nine, while he was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone, for salvation; and an assurance was given me that He had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death. 

Earlier that day, before his heart was strangely warmed, Wesley was meditating on a particular verse of scripture—2 Peter 1:4.  “I think it was about five this morning that I opened my Testament on those words… ‘There are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises, even that ye should be partakers of the divine nature’.”  The phrase and promise in 2 Peter 1:4 to become “partakers of the divine nature” is the biblical grounding for a bold doctrine conceived in the Patristic era and developed in the various Christian traditions. “God became man so that man might become God”—is how Athanasius (293-373) interpreted this verse in relation to the Incarnation.  His famous line has been repeated and developed through the centuries as a doctrine of deification or theosis (lit. becoming divine).  The idea is that through a process of spiritual participation (communing with God, partaking of the divine nature), the children of God can grow up to become God-like, as far as possible, in how we live our lives and love each other. 

Inspired by this compelling patristic notion of theosis, John Wesley sought to live a holy life, worthy of his calling as a divinity student at Oxford University and as a parish priest in the Anglican Church.  Well-read and informed by the Church Fathers about the promise and possibility of perfection and even deification, he led the “Holy Club” at Oxford in seeking God’s blessing as they tried to live morally and spiritually perfect lives according to their vision of primitive Christianity. Years later, and after professional and personal failures in his mission to America, he felt spiritually bankrupt and open to new direction and light.  After his heart-warming experience at Aldersgate, Wesley came to believe that what had happened to him that day was part of God’s sanctifying work in redemption, offering him the gift of assurance of salvation.   Instead of perpetual striving after God’s favor, he felt like he did trust in Christ alone for salvation. Rather than viewing the promise of deification as a static notion of “becoming gods” resulting in some kind of absolute perfection, he came to understand God’s promise of “Christian perfection” in more relational and dynamic terms of becoming more and more like God in perfect love.

Theologically, how similar are these two ideas—deification and perfection—and what is the relationship of Wesley’s so-called doctrine of Christian perfection to the older, patristic conception of theosis?  Are all these terms more or less synonymous or critically distinctive?  Is Wesley’s 18th century understanding of perfection in continuity with more ancient views of theosis, or does the difference constitute a new doctrine of Christian Perfection? 

In another theological essay on the topic, I make the case that Wesley’s understanding of perfection is not only similar to, but also in continuity with, older ideas of theosis in selected patristic writers of the East.   This chapter assumes that Wesley’s promotion of Christian perfection depends on and is an outgrowth of the broader Christian tradition of deification, and aims simply to articulate the Wesleyan version of perfection as a derivative doctrine.  It also seeks to contribute distinctively Wesleyan theological resources and spiritual practices to the growing ecumenical discussion of human deification and perfection in Christ.

[NOTE:  This is an introduction to new chapter on Wesley I'm working on for forthcoming book on Theosis in the Christian Tradition.]

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Lewis’s Four ‘Bleats’ in the field of Cambridge

I'm only “a sheep telling other sheep what only sheep can tell them.”--"Modern Theology and Biblical Criticism”  (1959)[1]

Having spent these past two weeks in Wales, wandering through green pastures around Hawarden Castle, and reading and teaching a seminar on C. S. Lewis and Alec Vidler in the 19th century "Temple of Learning" at Gladstone’s Residential Library, I offer a tiny piece from my course on miracles in the Bible.  

Here is a hoof-print from Lewis’s ‘four fine bleats’ against modern criticism of the Bible from a lecture he gave to faculty and seminary students at Cambridge University in 1959.  He says he’s just “a sheep telling other sheep what only sheep can tell them,” and his ‘bleats” are still relevant today.

Dr. Alec Vidler, Anglican priest, former Warden of Gladstone Residential Library, and then Dean of the Chapel at Kings College, Cambridge, had delivered a sermon entitled “The Sign at Cana” in which he lifted up the spiritual significance of Jesus’s turning water into wine at a wedding—a spiritual ‘sign’ he said and not a supernatural miracle--and called for a more secular faith and demythologized form Christianity for modern times.  In response, Professor C. S. Lewis gave a Monday morning talk on modern theology and biblical criticism in the Common Room of Wescott House (the more liberal seminary community at Cambridge).  Vidler and Lewis remained friendly, but represent two quite different and opposing views of Christian faith, characterized as “modernist/liberal” and “conventional/conservative.”

During the talk, Lewis bellied out his four major bleats, summarized as follows: 

1.     Some biblical critics lack literary judgment; they read between the lines of ancient texts, reconstruct its supposed sources and shaping influences, not understanding literary genres (e.g., reading John’s Gospel as a romance rather than reportage of historical events and remembrances)

2.     Some claim without good reasons that the real teachings of Christ came rapidly to be misunderstood, and only now have been recovered by modern scholars (Vidler is an example)

3.     Some claim that miracles don’t occur in nature, based on their presupposition that belief in the supernatural is not reasonable or tenable.

4.     Critical attempts to recover the origin or pre-history of an ancient text (in Plato, Shakespeare or the Bible) are suspect, based on the fact that critics almost always get it wrong when they try to reconstruct the sources of many modern writers, including Lewis’s writings and those of his friends.

Here’ a taste in the page images below, of Lewis’s light touch and artful way of engaging his more liberal critics (most of whom were in training to become shepherds of churches):

“I find in these theologians a constant use of the principle that the miraculous does not occur, thus any statement put into our Lord’s mouth by the old texts, which, if He had really made it, would constitute a prediction of the future, is taken to have been put in after the occurrence which it seemed to predict.  This is very sensible if we start by knowing that inspired prediction can never occur.   Similarly in general, the rejection as unhistorical of all passages which narrate miracles, is sensible if we start by knowing that the miraculous in general never occurs. 

Now, I do not here want to discuss whether the miraculous is possible. I only want to point out that this is a purely philosophical question.  Scholars as scholars speak on it with no more authority than anyone else.  The canon ‘if miraculous, unhistorical’ is one they bring to their study of the texts, not one they have learned from it.  If one is speaking of authority, the united authority of all the biblical critics in the world counts here for nothing.  On this they speak simply as men, obviously influenced by and perhaps insufficiently critical of the spirit of the age they grew up in.”   But my fourth bleat which is also my loudest and longest is still to come…"

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[1] “…the proper study of shepherds is sheep not save accidentally other shepherds and woe to you if you do not evangelize. I am not trying to teach my grandmother, I am a sheep telling shepherds what only a sheep can tell them.  And now I start my bleating…”  Lewis, C. S. “Modern Theology and Biblical Criticism” in Christian Reflections, Walter Hooper, ed.

“A Light Touch, A Tad of Humor”

Lewis’s Last Interview:  “A Light Touch, A Tad of Humor”

“God has shown us that he can use any instrument.  Balaam’s ass, you remember, preached a very effective sermon in the midst of his ‘hee-haws.’” – C. S. Lewis, The Final Interview, May 7, 1963[1] 

In my research this week in prep for my course at Gladstone’s Library, I discovered C.S. Lewis’ last known interview, on May 7, 1963 (six months before he died), conducted by Sherwood Eliot Wirt for Decision Magazine (published by the Billy Graham Association. 

I remember meeting young Sherwood n 1968 or 69. He was offering a writing workshop in Pasadena for young would-be writers like myself, and I remember paying the fee and attending his workshop on “How to Publish Your Book.”  I was 15 at the time hoping to write and publish my first book on “God and Flying Saucers.”  What a surprise this week to find his name attached to Lewis's final interview.

One of Sherwood’s questions to Lewis’s was about his use of subtle satire and light humor, which comes through in his writings.

Wirt: A light touch has been characteristic of your writings, even when you are dealing with heavy theological themes. Would you say there is a key to the cultivation of such an attitude?

Lewis: “I believe this is a matter of temperament. However, I was helped in achieving this attitude by my studies of the literary men of the Middle Ages, and by the writings of G.K. Chesterton. Chesterton, for example, was not afraid to combine serious Christian themes with buffoonery. In the same way the miracle plays of the Middle Ages would deal with a sacred subject such as the nativity of Christ, yet would combine it with a farce.”

Wirt: Should Christian writers, then, in your opinion, attempt to be funny?

Lewis: “No. I think that forced jocularities on spiritual subjects are an abomination, and the attempts of some religious writers to be humorous are simply appalling. Some people write heavily, some write lightly. I prefer the light approach because I believe there is a great deal of false reverence about.... God has shown us that he can use any instrument. Balaam’s ass, you remember, preached a very effective sermon in the midst of his ‘hee-haws.’”   [See Numbers 22:21-39]

[What I would have asked him] “So, Jack, what was Balaam’s ass’s sermon about?”

Lewis:  Donkey’s Delight! he would have answered.

Lewis wrote a poem about his personal identification with Balaam’s ass entitled “Donkey’s Delight”—which is also the title and theme of my Travel Blog (see my original post).

A light touch, a tad of satire, self-effacing humor is characteristic of Lewis’s writings about heavy matters: like sex and morality, heaven and, hell, angels and demons, and, of course, the End of the World.

In the spirit of Balaam’s ass, I offer one of Lewis’s light responses when an another interviewer asked him a heavy question in 1953 about the new development of the hydrogen bomb and a possible nuclear apocalypse:

“Civilizations since the 11^th century have been expecting the world to come suddenly and painfully to an immediate end….And anyhow, when the bomb falls there will always be just that split second in which one can say ‘Pooh!  You’re only a bomb.  I’m an immortal soul.’”

More seriously, “when the end is near, how shall we then live?”

Lewis said he agreed with William Morris: “…the answer is to simply to get on with the job—to mend the sails, or launch the boat, or gather firewood.”

I love his light touch on heavy matters.   #DonkeysDelight

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[1] “The Final Interview” with C.S. Lewis, Decision Magazine, May 7, 1963.