In Mark’s Gospel, Jesus begins his ministry proclaiming, “The time is fulfilled. Repent.” Our modern, scientific worldview gets in the way of our ability to understand what Jesus means by this simple statement. Let’s take a minute to unpack this.
Some years ago, the movie The Black Robe told the story of conflict between French Jesuit missionaries and the Algonquin Indian tribe of Quebec. Observing the missionaries’ daily rhythms being called to prayer at specific times during the day, the Algonquins were convinced that the clock was the God of the white man since it determined everything they did during the course of the day. Furthermore, because of their anxieties about being “on time” for prayer, for meals, and for appointments the clock seemed to underscore the Jesuits’ anxieties about their own death when time would come to an end. The white man’s clock and all our anxiety about time made no sense to the Indians of the North Country.
Throughout the movie the Jesuits became increasingly frustrated by their inability to make the Indians understand that they needed to make a decision to be baptized for the salvation of their eternal souls. In one case, a dying Algonquin refused baptism. Later on, an entire village of Hurons agrees to be baptized but the village is later massacred by another invading tribe. The Indians who were exposed to the Gospel seemed content to live out their lives, comfortable with the knowledge of this saving God. For them it made no difference whether they were baptized on their deathbed, baptized now, or not at all. The saving God the Jesuits proclaimed was out there. They would encounter that salvation in God’s time, not the Jesuits’.
For people living in different cultures, time is not the same thing. In our modern, scientific view, time marches down a straight path with past, present, and future clearly demarcated. In Jesus’ day, time was understood more in terms of family generations or the periods of particular rulers. The ending of one age always preceded the beginning of the next. Specific points in time were typically connected with religious and cultural festivals in the great cycle of being. Spring planting, fall harvest, new moon, and the rainy season all had their dates, and they all repeated the cycle every year.
The Greek Bible uses two different words for time. The word chronos referred to the minute by minute march of the sun. During the heyday of ancient Greece, different groups of warriors syn – chronized the time of their attacks using leather wrist-straps coated with a material that would change colors after a certain number of minutes or hours. The other term, kairos, had nothing to do with ordinary linear time. Kairos refers to a special moment or an event ordained by God. Jesus begins his ministry in Mark by proclaiming “The kairos is fulfilled,” meaning that God’s promise of a prophet and savior is real.
One thing that has always bothered me about the notions of time and salvation is the popular idea that all the people who ever lived before Jesus could not be saved, or they could not go to heaven. Why would God write off half of humanity just because they died before Jesus came along?
But if you look at this statement not as modern sequential time, but as kairos, it is an opportune moment, a special time or a divinely ordained event. God’s promise is made complete in the person of Jesus. Jesus is making a statement of fact apart from the idea of when it happened. God’s salvation has been available. God’s salvation is available now, and God’s salvation will be available in the future. The kingdom of God is very near you. It always has been, is now, and will be forever.
Some flavors of Christian practice are like pixie dust. You get dunked in water, or you say a few words in front of the assembly, or someone else says some words on your behalf and all of a sudden, POOF, your soul has a guaranteed spot in heaven for all eternity. But in our flavor of Christian practice, the battle is never finished until we cross over into the next world. We have work to do. We must be disciplined. Jesus tells us plainly, “Repent.”
This command is sometimes translated as “turn around.” Literally he is saying “change your mind,” but the sense is not strictly intellectual. It is more like changing your whole being or changing your entire orientation. This is not an easy task for adults. If we have patterned our life where power or money or intelligence or social skills are the things that make us proud or happy or fulfilled, Jesus is telling us to CHANGE OUR RELATIONSHIP with those things and put God first. Then put the needs of other people in front of our needs.
Jesus also reminds us that one cannot get into the kingdom of heaven except as a little child. For example people of all ages love to play games. We celebrate the winners and comfort the losers. But in the 1976 Special Olympics in Spokane Washington, a few of the contestants for the 100 yard dash gave us a different way to play. Warning: This story is often told with embellishments to the facts that worsen our stereotypes of the disabled.
One of the contestants fell shortly after leaving the starting line. Not all, but a few of the competitors noticed this and they turned around to help the child get up and make it past the finish line. Physically and mentally challenged people are not specially blessed by God as angels or with superior social skills. They want to win just as much as we do. For the Special Olympics they train hard. The Special Olympics event is not some benign, casual get-together organized for the unfortunate few. It is a serious sporting event where each competitor strives to do his or her best. It is about trying.
The important aspect of this story is not the typical tear-jerker version where the entire field of contestants turns around and one little girl kissed the fallen child. No. The important version is the true story. A FEW of them turned around. A few of them turned around.
We run this game of life every year, and every year we get a chance to turn ourselves around. God’s time for us does not run in a straight line, but it loops around giving us opportunity to change our relationship with things. Winning in this game does not mean coming in first. It means crossing the finish line and sometimes with help from our friends.
The motto of the Special Olympics is something we can take home today: “Let me win. But if I cannot win, let me be brave in the attempt.”