Time is running out for those who live in boxes
In many ways people today are locked away in a world of their own making surrounded by the comforts of home, computers and large TV screens. They live in boxes, move around in boxes, listen to boxes, watch boxes, think in political boxes and all trying to pretend that the day when they will be buried in a box is far far far away! But what if around the corner that box world was about to be broken into, broken down and torn apart by something wilder, more dangerous and utterly uncompromising to our wants and likes?
What could this dangerous reality be? Could it be a deep global winter brought on by a mega volcano going off in the United States? Could it be an EMP bomb or a Solar wind that fries all our electrics and electronics in our homes, planes, cars and computers? Could it be a global financial meltdown that renders money useless and so that many take to the streets to find food, water, fuel and protection? Could it be a new world war which brings a nuclear winter to our fields, towns and cities? Could it be a new world order, a great Reset, that arises to save the planet by taking from the many and giving to the few with the clarion call of this new feudalism ‘You won’t own anything, but you will be happy’? [watch video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Q9hBO-cQKA&t=731s&ab_channel=NeilOliver].
No, it is something much more powerful than all of these. It is a new reality proclaimed by St Paul in 1 Cor 7:29-31, namely, that the times in which we live are running out and coming to an end.
I tell you, brothers and sisters, the time is running out.
From now on, let those having wives act as not having them,
those weeping as not weeping,
those rejoicing as not rejoicing,
those buying as not owning,
those using the world as not using it fully.
For the world in its present form is passing away.
Something new is now breaking through the very fabric of space and time such that all that this world had to offer as home is rendered empty, useless and without a future, if it is not brought under the reign of Christ. It is this reality that Christ ushers in when he says:
“The time is fulfilled. The kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the gospel.” [Mark 1:15]
How does the Kingdom of God break through the fabric of this space-time continuum? It breaks through by Christ’s presence in the Mass, the Sacraments and the Word of God for he gathers a new creation out of the old creation. The King of this kingdom gathers out of the peoples of the earth the new people of God, who choose to share the life of the first born of this new creation, Jesus Christ, who has risen from the dead! A people who Christ prepares by the gift of the Holy Spirit to go through the portal of death with Faith, Hope and Charity by which they overcome the fear of death that underpins the powers and structures of this world. The power of God’s grace is revealed in and though his Son’s death and resurrection which is made visible by the other-worldly and supernatural ‘technology’ called the Sacraments. To such a people the world as we know it is passing away and they no longer live for this passing world but live for the new heavens and the new earth that Christ has revealed in the resurrection. A world where he is King! A new world that he declares is the Kingdom of God! A Kingdom that he makes sacramentally visible in our space-time continuum!
The outposts, the portals, the star-gates and the cosmic ships of this Kingdom are parishes that have become Schools of Prayer, Places for the dispensation of Wisdom, Vineyards of the Lord and Eucharistic communities. In such Eucharistic communities there is formation, service and mission wherein the fishers of men serve and labour to bring people out of a dead world into a living world, out of a wasteland into heaven, out of pointless living that wastes and drifts in time into one where time is given directionality that leads to the eternal fullness of time; out of physical, moral and spiritual death into physical, moral and spiritual resurrection. In short, to take fallen creatures of this lost and dying world and make them into sons and daughters of God fit for a new world, the Kingdom of heaven!
Simply put, we have a serious and profound choice to make: either we sow our lives in this old dying world or we sow our lives in the new and eternal world. Either we say to God ‘my Kingdom come’ or we say ‘thy Kingdom come!’ Either, it is my kingdom, my power and my glory that I serve or it is God’s kingdom, God’s power and God’s glory that I serve. We cannot have it both ways! It is one or the other! Our Lord comes to make visible this eternal choice around which our lives will turn. That is why he says: “Repent, and believe in the gospel.”
It is also why when we come to Mass on Sunday we should not expect words of worldly wisdom that makes us feel nice, warm and cosy – let the TV and radio do that for us - but rather we should expect eternal truths to be spoken which are given to shake us, awaken us and galvanise us from sleep, worldliness and false visions about life on this earth! After all, it is our eternal destination that is at stake!
A Priest must straddle this world and the next, as Jesus is back from the dead and back from the future, so the priest can only be like his master. He too must teach like a Prophet, sanctify like the high priest and govern like his King! And of course like prophets of old, a priest will not be thanked for it by worldly souls whose hearts live for this world and yet come to Mass as a form of insurance, just in case it’s all true! Our Lord speaks of such lukewarm souls in the Book of the Apocalypse when he says: So because thou art lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spew thee out of my mouth [3:16].
However, for those who whole heartedly seek the Kingdom of God and wish to have Christ reign as King of their hearts there is a deep joy and a deep hope that all will be well. If a Priest leads as a King then he will be an icon for Fathers to be kings in their homes and mothers to be Queens in their homes and their children will be knights and ladies in the court of family life; for they will discover a royal chivalry of heavenly grace which will give them a right order of life wherein the Kingdom of God reigns. They will be generous with their time to God because they have discovered the secret of time: that when you give your time first to God and the things of God you are given all the time you need to do what is necessary in your life. Whereas misers of time never have enough time!
When a person says to a priest be they young or old, youth or adults, they have no time for prayer, for Sunday Mass, for youth fellowship, for parish formation and service, the priest knows that they are living for this world, for the Kingdom of God is not in their hearts. The greatest gift we can give to anyone is our time but when we have no time for God, for prayer, for Mass, for service or for fellowship we have lost our time to the world, a world that will hungrily gobble up all the time we have left! We will be like the passengers in Stephen King’s novella and film: ‘The Langoliers’. They were trapped in a time-lock at an airport where time stood still and the future did not arrive but the past was fast coming up behind them, eating up all the time they had left.
So pay attention to those words of the Lord that the time is fulfilled for it is fulfilled by him and no other! If you want more time you will have it in abundance if and only if you give your time in prayer, worship, service and mission as it is Jesus who is the Lord of time. Just as Jesus warns us about life when he says ‘those who seek to save their lives will lose it’ so too is it true about the time we have been given:
‘those who seek to save their time will lose it but those who lose their time for my sake and for the kingdom of God will have time in abundance.’
