Time For God

Mark 1:9-15

I get asked a lot of questions.  Some of them are of course related to all things religion, but often I am asked questions about existential matters, issues related to science and education, politics and marriage.  I have been asked about the best way to talk to children and my opinions on particularly newsworthy topics.  I love questions and in fact I was told by my sixth grade math teacher that I would not be moving ahead to honors math due to my need to ask so many questions.  (I didn’t have the guts to tell her that I thought asking questions was in fact a good way to grasp the subject and instead I did what I was told.)  Over the years I have learned to see these questions as a blessing.  I guess it is the fact that my role puts me in the position of being some kind of representative speaking in support of God.  And so I take all manner of questions seriously because in part I believe that questions and the posture of curiosity is a holy way to seek for the energy that we call God. 

But if I have learned anything about questions, at least the good ones, the ones that come from a place of deep yearning and a profound need to know God, is that answers take time.  Seeking God takes time.  I don’t mean this in the cliché trite kind of way…oh give it some time, I mean that if we really have questions, if we really have a longing to know God, if we genuinely have a yearning to be in relationship with God’s very being, we must give God some time.  Yet for most of us, even when our intentions are good and our hearts are planted firmly in the right place, we don’t have time for God.  We don’t have time for a lot of things because we are caring for parents and children and spouses and neighbors.  We don’t have the time because we want to make sure that our kids are well adjusted and fed.  We don’t have the time because before we know it, it is Monday again and the week ahead looks just as packed as the ones that came before.  We treat time as a commodity that can be swapped or traded and filled.  Our day is a buffet of activities and so we often go to bed stuffed and wondering how it is that once again we are at the end of another routine.

We might fail to make time for God because we figure that God is God and if God needs a word with us, God will find a way. And of course God can find a way, God will find a way to get to us when the TV is blaring and the dog needs to go out or the radio is blasting and the oven timer is beeping, but it seems to me that God’s voice or pull or lure is often just a whisper that simply cannot shout above the world.  God doesn’t seem to work that way.  God seems to prefer using a voice that is small and steady maybe so we are sure that it is indeed God.  This method of speaking seems to have gone out of fashion.

But even if God can make a way out of no way, even if God will eventually get to us above all of the racket of living, do we really want to make it that hard?  Do we really want to put so much between us and God?  It would be something like really needing to have that conversation with your mom, you know that one that has been, put off for years.  You say that you have words that you really want to hear, words that will change everything, words that will free you to live fully.  You have made it clear that your heart wants to hear these words, no, your heart needs to hear this and yet you make no effort to answer the phone or check the mail or return an e-mail or sit down to make some time or create space for this conversation to unfold.  What our time with God is something like this?  You see, I wonder if making time for God is just as much about the renewal of our own souls as it is about giving God time to tell us what we need to hear.  I wonder if God simply needs time with us.

It is not just us, even Jesus found it hard to make some time designated just for God.  He probably could have gotten away with filling his schedule day in and day out so that there was no space, but the really good stuff comes only after he has made time.  In the Gospel of Mark today, we ready of Jesus’ baptism and we read of God’s words of blessing to him and then he heads off into the unknown of an empty schedule.  No healings or meetings; no errands to run or dinner dates to keep.  Maybe Jesus kept putting God off, so God sent him into the wilderness.  It wasn’t all warm and fuzzy, but his time in the desert is what prepared him for what came after.  We don’t know what God might have said to him there.  We don’t know if Jesus tried to ignore God’s voice for fear of what he might be asked to do.  We don’t know if Jesus ran off his list of questions.  But we do know that he had time for God, forty days in fact.  And it is after this time spent seeking God, that Jesus begins preaching the good news.  He returns to his home and starts the work that God had in mind for him.   “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.”

Maybe we find it hard to make time for God because we tell ourselves that it is only when our days are full that we are able to accomplish all of the tasks before us.  Maybe we find it hard to make time for God because we have been fooled into thinking that this is how it is supposed to be, that this is the American dream or the life that we planned.  Or maybe we find it hard to make time for God because we have become convinced that the depth of our daily routine is a measure of how important we are or the way we determine whether our life has purpose and meaning.  But friends because you have begun the journey of following Jesus, the purpose of this life does not come from the schedule you keep, but by the fact that you are created in the image of God.  And making time for God is the way to hear what God has in mind for you.  But this time does not just show up, it is a commitment and a gift that we must create for ourselves.  It is time not just with us or with God but time for God.

As we begin our first full week of Lent together, I invite you to put God into your schedule.  I invite you to make space and time for God.  What question are you pondering?  What answer are you seeking?  What is it that you are yearning to find?  Have you made time for God to respond?  Take a walk with God.  Sit in silence with God.  Stroll on the beach with God.  And maybe we will find that God needs it just as we much as we do.  May it be so.  Amen.