What Time is it?

Text: John 18:33-37

         The most common question that I am asked these days is: “Gary, what are going to do in your retirement?” It is a fair question and it is a much better question than I have yet to develop a clear and succinct answer. Even so, since I am asked this question so often, I have come up with a handful of broad-stroke answers:

         I hope to spend more time with Jennell (You’ll have to ask her if that is a hope she shares!).

         I hope to travel more and to reconnect with old friends.

         I hope to do things that a life in the ministry has never allowed, like acting on stage again.

         I hope to live a more spontaneous life, one not always governed by the calendar.

         All those answers are true, but they are only partially true. If you ask me again, “Gary, what are you going to do in your retirement?” and if I am really honest, I will start the answer by saying, “I can’t really tell you, because all my life has been shaped around ‘doing’.” Every morning has started with the question, “What am I going to ‘do’ today?” And, that pattern started early for me.

         Is it time to punch the clock to cook burgers at McDonald’s? That was something I did for the last three years in high school and it helped pay my way through college.

         Is it time to get up on this cold, rainy day and head to the 8 a.m. psychology class at William and Mary? That was a question I asked about a variety of 8 a.m. classes for all four years of college. 

         Is it time to pack the car with recreational paraphernalia and drive up to the Mappsville Labor Camp on the Eastern Shore of Virginia? That was something I did every afternoon and evening one summer of college as I planned recreation opportunities for migrant workers returning to camp after picking crops from dawn to dusk.   

         Is it time for yet another Advent season or Ash Wednesday service or Easter Sunday extravaganza? Surely it cannot be time to plan another Session agenda, to develop another annual church budget, to recruit and train a new set of church officers, to attend another incredibly long presbytery meeting. And yet, I have done all those things for well over forty-five years.

         I recently read a book by a pastor in Portland, Oregon. He is younger than either of my adult children and he is far more conservative in the way he reads the Bible than I am. I nearly didn’t read the book because I hated the title, “The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry.” The title makes me cringe a bit and wonder why I would waste my time reading one more “self-help,” “how to cure what ails you” book. Much to my surprise, though, the more I read this book the more the author had this pious Presbyterian saying AMEN page after page.  

         This book is definitely not gripping like a Grisham novel. And, by the way it is formatted and how he writes, it often feels like it is a book designed for people at least fifty years younger than I am. The focus of the book is how easily you and I are defined by what we do and seduced by how quickly we get it done.

            If our lives are defined principally by what we do, then the most common question I am asked these days is the right question. “Gary, what are you going to do in your retirement?” For just look around. There is so much to do. There are hungry kids who need to be fed. There are folks with no place to sleep tonight who need a home. There are immigrants who do not need to be separated from their families and then deported but instead who need to be welcomed. There are innocent folks in prison who do not need to spend one more day there because they are innocent and need to be exonerated and released. There is a whole new era of civil discourse we need to help bring into being where mean and demeaning rhetoric is rejected and replaced by speakers who value truth-telling and compassion. You show me your to-do list and I’ll happily show you mine.

            For all my adult life, I have walked the Robert Frost path described in his poem, “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening.” Frost notes:  

            The woods are lovely, dark and deep,   

            But I have promises to keep,   

            And miles to go before I sleep,   

            And miles to go before I sleep.

         Throughout my four decades of pastoral ministry, I have not often lingered in the woods on a snowy evening much less on a beautiful sunny day. Why? Because I have had too much to do, too many “promises to keep” and I have had “miles to go before I sleep.”

         Next Sunday, we will light the first Advent candle of hope and off we’ll go on our quick march to Bethlehem in search of the Christ child. But, before we set foot in Advent, the church fasts forward far beyond Bethlehem and into the chamber of Pilate’s Roman power. Traditionally, today is known as Christ the King Sunday and after the verbal exchange between Jesus and Pilate you can understand why.

          On Christ the King Sunday, the question is not so much, “what are we going to do” but “what time is it?” For me, that question is easy to answer. It is exactly one month to the day from my retirement. For others, it is time for the last push of school before the holidays. For others, it is time to reclaim women’s reproductive rights that have been set back a century in recent years. For others, it is time to stop pretending that we are not abusing the air, water, and the soil for those who will follow us on this good earth.  

         What time is it? Read the exchange before Pilate and Jesus and the answer will soon take shape. According to John, it is time, always time, to listen to the Truth, the Truth-Teller and Truth-Maker. Pilate wants to be done with Jesus so he asks him to admit to sedition, the charge to which he stands accused. Pilate asks Jesus, “Are you the King of the Jews?” to which Jesus tells Pilate, “You are asking the wrong question.”

         The right question for Pilate, for the crowd, for us is: “Jesus, what time is it?” Jesus answers that question even though Pilate does not ask it. “For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.” What time is it? It is time to listen to the truth-telling voice of Jesus.

         Make no mistake. The Jesus who stands before Pilate is guilty. He is simply not guilty of what he is accused. Instead he is guilty of astounding acts of compassion, a relentless pursuit of justice, a tireless pursuit of those who have been cast out, a fierce honesty to confront con artists disguised as political leaders, like Pilate. Jesus walks on a different path than most who are rich and famous. His path is one where we settle for nothing less than “the truth and nothing but the truth, so help us God.” His path is one where we are not duped into demanding more when we already have enough, a path where no one has special rights to privilege and status.

         With absolutely no interest in the answer and with the truth standing and staring him in the face, the last question of Pilate to Jesus is, “What is truth?” Really, Pilate, is that the best you can do? Pilate asks this ironic question before collapsing into pile of cowardice, before convicting an innocent man and handing him over to the centurions who nail him up while the crowd unpacks their picnic baskets to watch another public crucifixion at this Make Rome Great Again rally at Golgotha.  

         What time is it? It is definitely not time to follow Pilate and his successors, not then and certainly not now. So, then what time is it? Well, for me, it is time to retire from pastoral ministry with a heart full of gratitude for you and for so many others, some living, some not, who have given my life meaning and purpose for so many years. Even more, far more, it is time to follow the truth-maker and the truth-teller on paths I have yet to discover and on paths I have never had the courage to follow.

         What time is it?

         Retirement time. No, not a good answer. Not a good answer at all.

         What time is it? It is time for you, it is time for me, to pause long enough in the woods on a snowy evening or on a sweltering summer day to listen to the truth-maker and truth-teller, especially in this time in American life when we too often settle for lousy imitations of the truth. It is time, high time, for us to follow the One wherever he leads who is “the Way,” “the Life,” and “the Truth.”

         I pray that is where you will find me in my retirement and I invite you to join me on the journey, for I cannot think of better company to keep.

         AMEN