January 15, 2006

Glynn Cardy

Epiphany 2
     1 Samuel 3:1-10     John 1:43-51

When the Hebrew text simply says “the Lord called Samuel” [I Sam 3:4] we aren't told the details. If the writer had been Irish maybe he would've said a fairy was poking him in the ear. The dreams, legends, and fables of ancient people invite us into different worlds with their own understandings of time and the place of the human heart. Dreams have their own time, as does love, as does God. There is a time for everything. Importantly, there is a time to slow down.

I've been musing about coffee, that wonderful stimulus that is so much a part of city life. The award winning cafes are all within easy walking distance of my home and office. For the last week however my consumption has taken a dive. I've been camping far from the seduction of computers, cell phones, and baristas, surrounded instead by the stimuli of native bush, sand and surf. The rising and setting of the sun is my watch. The casual conversation is my news. The walks on the beach are my Morning Prayer and Compline. I've been musing on coffee, not because I'm in withdrawal, but because I haven't missed it. The stimulus of this slower life creates its own energy. Speed, efficiency, and performance - all the so-called essentials of modern living – don't necessarily produce the dynamism they purport to.

When you live at a fast pace slowing down is a spiritual discipline that can bring its own rich rewards. Matakana is a small town north of Auckland . Unlike their near neighbours they've decided to be a slow town. In Matakana you won't find fast food outlets cuddling close to large red sheds. Gross mega-stores with their lure of cheap goods and employment aren't part of the town plan. Rather, slow food, aesthetically pleasing buildings, locally made products, are being woven into a commercial success. Assisted by entrepreneurial nous they are developing a different brand. It is a slow brand.

There is a 1970s book of theological reflections by Kosuke Koyama called Three Mile An Hour God - three miles an hour being the pace of walking. Koyama's point being that God is not in a hurry. When the world speeds up, God goes slow . Following God means going at a different pace than others. It's like love. You can't love fast. When a couple tells me they have known each other for six weeks and want to get married I tell them, very politely of course, to get lost. I tell them to get lost in each other in order to find the truth of each other and of themselves. Sometimes this can take only six months, but usually it takes a number of years.

Despite what magazines or soap operas tell you, you can't pull into a drive-through and order a double, crispy love burger with a side of meaning and a large commitment. For the simple reason it won't be love. Love takes time - both the time on the clock and the pace of the heart. Love is more akin to my nana's Christmas cake with multiple ingredients soaked for days and slow baked for hours.

There are two words in Greek for time: chronos and kairos. The first is chronological time, the time on the screen, minute upon minute. The second is the right time, the time of the heart, grace upon grace. In the Gospel of Mark [5:22ff.] there is a story of Jesus responding to the request of Jairus, one of the rulers of the synagogue, to come and heal his daughter. Jairus out of his love for his child had humbled himself asking assistance from a man that his colleagues and maybe even he strongly disagreed with. The need was urgent. His daughter was close to death. Time, chronos, was of the essence. Yet as Jesus hurried to the child's side he was violated. A haemorrhaging woman, ritually unclean, had grabbed his garments. Jesus stopped. He was now in the eyes of the law himself unclean. Her stain had become his stain. As a holy man he should have distanced himself from others and performed the necessary ritual ablutions.

Instead Jesus called the woman forward and spoke words of comfort and courage. Time, kairos, was of the essence. This was a moment of grace for that woman. Yet chronological time did not stand still. There was a child dying. Indeed as Jesus was speaking to the woman a messenger arrived from Jairus' household saying the little girl was dead. Life often seems to be a conflict between chronos and kairos, between the deadline and the life time. The more chronos dominates the less likelihood that moments of grace will occur, and the energy from that grace be absorbed into and shape the community. Yet there are consequences when we disregard chronos. We know that in Jairus' case everything turned out okay in the end. But our lives are seldom like that. Usually we have to make choices.

Summer is a time for slowing down. Long may January be a time when shops keep shorter hours, when the economy slows, when newspapers are thinner, and New Zealand goes on a picnic. If we like it this way we need to work to keep it this way, chiefly by lowering our expectations of others and ourselves. There is a time for everything – a time to slow down, to turn around, and see the agapanthus and the fairies dancing on top.