Call to Life Eternal

This sermon was heard at the First Presbyterian Chruch in Berryville, Arkansas on the Seventh Sunday in Easter, May 4, 2008.

Acts 1:6-14
Psalm 68:1-10, 32-35
1 Peter 4:12-14, 5:6-11
John 17:1-11
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen.

When I was in college, some friends of mine liked to play what we called “The Busy Game.” The game was played whenever we tried to get together to do something. In a day before Palm Pilots, cell phones, and email, my friends would actually take time to discuss who was busiest. “I can’t get together on Thursday because…” and then “Well we can’t do lunch this week because…” and the notorious, “Nope, sorry, got a meeting…” One of my college friends even developed an ulcer, at the age of 20, because she was so busy. I never really liked the game, mainly because I could never win. I was never quite as busy as my friends; most of the time I would rather read, study, or throw darts than be so busy.

The American longshoreman philosopher Eric Hoffer shrewdly observed that “the feeling of being hurried is not usually the result of living a full life and having no time. It is, on the contrary, born of a vague fear that we are wasting our life. When we do not do the one thing we ought to do, we have no time for anything else—we are the busiest people in the world.”[1]

In the end, we all suffered the tyranny of the busy. We did everything we could to fill every free moment of time with an activity to fill our resumes so we could get better jobs, make better contacts to broaden our networks, or whatever we thought would fill our lives with something worthwhile. We did this so well that we had no time for anything of real and lasting importance.

A common thread in our New Testament readings is time. In Acts, we are told that it is not for us to know the time the Father has set. Peter instructs the church to humble themselves before the mighty hand of God so that he may exalt it in due time. In the Gospel Jesus says the hour has come. Time is a part of each of these readings.

In Acts, the disciples ask if this is the time when Jesus will restore the kingdom to Israel. They ask if this is the day, the hour, the moment in time when Jesus will restore the kingdom to Israel. They knew he would restore the kingdom, and he has risen. He has risen indeed. They wanted to know when.

Jesus answers, “It is not for you to know the times or periods that the father has set.” Instead of “times or periods,” the New International Version translates this as “times or dates.” The New American Standard says “times or epochs.” All translation has an element of interpretation, and this is a glaring example of just that. In the Greek, the words used here for “time” and “period" can both be translated as “time,” but they are different kinds of time.

Using the Greek words from the text, Patricia Fortini Brown, distinguishes between these two kinds of time. Kairos is opportunity or an opportune moment and chronos is eternal or ongoing time.[2]

So kairos can mean ages, or eons, or epochs; or an opportune moment. It can also mean “appointed time,” particularly “God’s ordained time.” Chronos is time we find on clocks. Again in Brown’s words, “While [kairos] ... offers hope, [chronos] extends a warning.”[3]

Eternity also has its place in our readings. John’s gospel tells us that Jesus has been given the authority to give eternal life to all whom the Father has given him. Often when people think of eternal life, they think of the life that follows after the end of this one. When our time ends on earth, our eternal time begins with God in heaven. But John’s gospel teaches us that this is not true, not at all.

Jesus says, “And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.” Eternal life exists without regard to the tyranny of chronological time. Eternal life has nothing to do with our death, on the contrary, it has everything to do with life and how we live it.

It has been said that for Catholics there are “only two things that survive to eternity: our relationship with God and our relationships with each other. Therefore, the things we do with our relationship with God and our relationships with each other are of mutual significance.”[4]
I believe the wisdom of this saying. I believe that eternal life begins here on earth with how we relate to the triune God while we live. I also believe that the quality of our relationships with one another is a reflection of our relationship with the triune God.

The disciples showed this in their response to Jesus’ ascension. It says in Acts that after the ascension “they returned to Jerusalem from the mount called Olivet, which is near Jerusalem, a sabbath day’s journey away. When they had entered the city, they went to the room upstairs where they were staying…All [of them] were constantly devoting themselves to prayer.”

The disciples stayed together, they returned to the upper room. They dedicated themselves to worship and prayer awaiting the power of the Holy Spirit. And after receiving the Spirit, they would become witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.

When some say that they seek eternal life, what they mean is that they can’t wait to live with Jesus in the next life. I say that with the glory of this promise there is eternal life long before death. The glory of life eternal begins with the relationship between the Holy Father and his Son Jesus Christ our Lord. It extends to Christ’s relationship with us and our relationship with him. It then is reflected by our relationship with one another and all of creation.

I say “reflected by our relationship with one another and all of creation” because of what Jesus says in our gospel reading. He says, “I am asking on their behalf; I am not asking on behalf of the world, but on behalf of those whom you gave me, because they are yours.” Jesus prays first for the disciples, those who follow him. He prays for them that they may be one as he and his Father are one.

Jesus prays for the church so that during the time of trial that is to come they may be one. In John He prays that the disciples will respond to his death, resurrection, and ascension just as they did in Acts. He prays that they will live the life eternal on earth as it is in heaven because this is what he calls them to do.

The Greek word “ecclesia” is often translated as church or congregation. The roots of the word mean “the ones who are called out.” Friends, the church, the entire body of Christ and especially this part of the body of Christ are called out from the world to be Christ in the world. We are called to be one with one another in Jesus just as he is one with his father.

We are called to live this life together in the warmth of prayer and worship just like the disciples. We are called to go out and meet Jesus in the world just as he called his disciples. We are called to share the Good News of eternal life so that the world may know the only true God and Jesus Christ who himself was sent.

Since Easter Sunday, I have focused on the church and what it means to be the church. We have seen John’s Pentecost and the scars Jesus received in order to save us. We have heard The Message and how we are its witnesses; how we are called to take it into the world. We have heard Peter’s call to the people to repent and be baptized. We have seen Jesus as the Good Shepherd who knows us and calls us all by name.

We learned that we are called to pray for one another because we all need prayer. We have seen and heard the word of Jesus who is the one who is the elect, the one predestined for salvation on our behalf. Above all, we know that we have been called to be the church as the church was called into being two thousand years ago.

Today, we begin to take all of these things with the understanding that we are called to life eternal, lived in the joy and the wonder that we may know the only true God and Jesus Christ who himself was sent. We are the ecclesia, the ones called out from the world to live the eternal life. We are also the ones called out of the church and into the world to share the Good News of Jesus Christ. But that’s for next week.

[1] Bob Buford, Halftime. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan Publishing House, 1994, 80
[2] Stewart Brand, The Clock of the Long Now. New York: Basic Books, 1999, 9.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Father Luke Dysinger of Saint Andrew's Abbey in an interview with Bruce Langford, Pathways, 6, March-April 1997, 10.