Sermon: 21 January 2024 3rd after EpiphanyText: Mark 1.14-20Theme: Kairos – the time is NOW!!Let us pray:
O Gracious God – in this precious time, we pause and gather to hear your word– to do so, we break from our work responsibilities and from our play fantasies; we move from our fears that overwhelm and from our ambitions that are too strong, Free us in these moments from every distraction, that we may focus to listen, that we may hear, that we may change. May we who are comfortable be disturbed and we who are disturbed be comforted by your word today. Amen.
Before God found me and called me to service as a Priest in God’s church, my ambition was to be a history teacher. I did a BA in history at UQ with a double major in American history. It is and will always be my first love. I say all this just to remind us all that America celebrated Martin Luther King Jr’ day on Monday and I am a big fan of his. I even have a poster of his “I have a dream’ speech on my office wall if you want to have a look. I want to spend just a little time talking about important figure.
Because of tornado warnings and torrential rains, the night of 3 April, 1968, only 2,000 people rallied at the Mason Temple in Memphis to support Martin Luther King, Jr. in the strike planned by the city's sanitation workers. Three weeks earlier, King had spoken to 14,000 supporters in the same cavernous venue. In an eerie telling of his past that foreboded his future, he reminisced how he had nearly died in 1958 when a deranged woman stabbed him in a Harlem bookstore. He then related how on his flight from Atlanta to Memphis that morning a bomb scare caused the pilot to announce to the passengers that a threat to King's life necessitated a special guard on board. King continued:
‘And then I got into Memphis, and some began to say the threats — or talk about the threats — that were out, what would happen to me from some of our white sick brothers. Well, I don't know what will happen now. We've got some difficult days ahead. But it doesn't matter with me now because I have been to the mountaintop. And I don't mind. Like anybody I would like to live — a long life — longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now; I just want to do God's will.... So I'm happy tonight! I'm not worried about anything! I'm not fearing any man! Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord!’
At 6:01 PM the next day, escaped convict James Earl Ray assassinated King on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel. He was 39. Riots in more than 60 cities ensued. On 8April, more than 300,000 people attended his funeral. Part of King's many-faceted genius was his recognition that chronos, mere clock time — the passage of days, weeks, and years, no matter how long or short, no matter how trivial or important — is no match for kairos, that unique or opportune moment of God's visitation. Longevity, length of days, is a pale imitation and sad substitute for a decisive choice at a critical moment, however short the time.
In the Gospel this week Mark begins his story of Jesus with a stunning announcement. "After John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God." In Mark's account these are the very first words spoken by Jesus.
And what, exactly, was this "good news of God" that he announced? "The kairos has come. The kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news!" The Greek word kairos denotes a critical juncture, a divine appointment or intervention, in contrast to prosaic chronos or everyday "clock time." You might yawn at chronos, and forget whether it is Wednesday or Thursday, but kairos provokes a radical response, an urgent choice, or a fundamental reorientation.
In announcing "the good news of God" Jesus identified the coming of God's reign with his own person, which is why he then he invited Simon Peter and his brother Andrew, "Come, follow me." Mark is unambiguous about their response: "At once they left their nets and followed him." And if that did not sufficiently punctuate his point, Mark then adds that "when they had gone a little farther" Jesus called a second set of brothers, James and John, who were at work in their boats. They too left everything at once to follow Jesus — their father, the hired help, the boat, and their nets.
Jesus proclaimed that "God's kairos has come and God’s kingdom is near. Repent and believe." In this week's epistle, written about thirty years after Jesus, Paul used remarkably similar language in his letter to believers in Corinth: "The kairos is short...this world in its present form is passing away." Whatever he meant, there's no ambiguity in the response he urged due to the crisis of the kairos. He cautioned against any postponement, entanglements, or distractions. He eliminated any middle ground and called for an either/or decision. The married, the mourning, the exuberant, the buyers and sellers should all live "as if" the normal canons of chronos did not adhere. The fulfillment (Jesus) and foreshortening (Paul) of God's kairos meant that one should no longer live life "business as usual." The kairos of God's coming in Jesus should elicit a radical revolution in life's priorities. Throughout the New Testament, marginal people connect with Jesus's urgent invitation — the religiously suspect, social outcasts, the economically poor, and the morally impure, whereas the smug "establishment" sorts often miss it, don't believe it, or choose not to hear. In the Hebrew reading this week from the book of Jonah, the most improbable converts, the pagan Ninevites, understood the kairos of God. Much to Jonah's shock and chagrin, these "foreigners" responded to his preaching, repented, and believed his message about Yahweh.
1 December 1955, dawned like any ordinary day of chronos, except that a seamstress and civil rights activist named Rosa Lee Parks (1913–2005) sensed the moment of God's kairos. After a long day of work at Montgomery Fair department store, she boarded the Cleveland Avenue bus and refused the driver's demand to relinquish her seat to a white passenger. Parks understood the fleeting nature of transient chronos, and the limited opportunities we have to choose risk over regret, and urgency over complacency. In her autobiography, Rosa Parks: My Story, she explained her motivation that December evening: "I was not old, although some people have an image of me as being old then. I was forty-two. No, the only tired I was, was tired of giving in." Her solitary act provoked the Montgomery bus boycott, propelled a 26-year old year old Martin Luther King, Jr. into the forefront of the civil rights movement, and became a moment of kairos in American history.
Dr. Muhammad Yunus responded to an inner conviction that poor women deserve to receive loans with the lowest interest possible so that their lives could be changed. By changing the lives of women for the better, he knew that he could help improve the lives of their whole families. On that conviction, or call, he founded the Grameen Bank, and the practice of giving small loans to women and the poor in general is now flourishing. A moment of kairos.
In 1912 a young Presbyterian pastor John Flynn was commissioned to undertake a survey of the needs of both the Aboriginal people and white settlers of the Northern Territory. His detailed reports resulted in the creation by the Presbyterian Church of its Australian Inland Mission (AIM), of which Flynn was appointed Superintendent. Keenly aware of the isolation of the people of inland Australia Flynn believed that a 'mantle of safety' could be created for the isolated communities of Northern Australia only with the establishment of an aerial medical service and the introduction of radio communications. Flynn's vision finally saw the establishment of 13 flying doctor bases around Australia, which continue to spread 'a mantle of safety' across 6.9 million square kilometres, or 80 per cent of the Australian continent. An act of kairos.
Desmond Tutu heard the call of God, which filled him with the unshakable conviction that all human beings, regardless of the colour of their skin, are created in the image of God. That conviction led him to work with another great human being, Nelson Mandela, to bring an end to the evil of apartheid. A kairos moment.
The Psalmist this week observes the levelling effect of chronos, that whether one is born a pauper or a prince, "together they are only a breath" (Psalm 62:9). Like smoke that dissipates from a room, at some point in the not-too-distant future, our past, present and future, the duration or passage of chronos we have enjoyed, will come to an abrupt end. Until then, following in the footsteps of Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks, in the footsteps of Muhammad Yunis and Desmond Tutu, God's kairos invites us to seize the opportune moment or appointed time to enter God’s kingdom. This is our call today. The Lord be with you.