"So Much Wasted Time"

St. Paul’s Church in Bergen, Jersey City

December 3, 2017

Year B: The First Sunday of Advent

Isaiah 64:1-9

Psalm 80:1-7, 16-18

1 Corinthians 1:3-9

Mark 13:24-37

“So Much Wasted Time”

            I’m sure that pretty much every adult in the room thinks that kids today – kids today! – spend too much time looking at screens, too much time on their phones or on the computer, too much time playing video games.

            Of course, lots of adults are doing exactly the same thing, but let’s set that aside for now.

            There have even been studies done showing that all that time looking at screens is changing how kids learn how to relate to other human beings. In some cases, kids are having trouble reading facial expressions because they are not used to having a simple face-to-face conversation.

            This is concerning, of course. And, I’m not one to give parenting advice, but parents should probably consider limiting just how much time their kids spend staring at screens.

            But, at the same time, if I’m honest, I have to admit that when I was a kid – when I was a kid! - along with pretty much my whole generation, I spent a ton of time looking at a screen, too.

            Of course, it wasn’t a computer or a cellphone or a videogame device.

            It was TV.

            Now, even as a kid, I was a pretty avid reader – I loved to read books.

            But, I’m sure that if I could somehow add up all of the waking hours of my childhood, I’m sure that I’d find that I spent way more time with my eyes glued to the tube than I did with my nose in a book.

            Probably I spent more time just watching Star Trek than I did reading!

            As I’ve thought about this, I’ve remembered those seemingly endless weeks of summer vacation when I spent a lot of time at home watching reruns of such educational programs as I Love Lucy, Gilligan’s Island, The Brady Bunch, The Munsters (or, if I was feeling more intellectual, The Addams Family), My Three Sons, Green Acres, The Partridge Family, and, well, I could go on.

            Since these shows were on every weekday, we’d see the same episodes over and over again – and we could use a kind of shorthand with one another: “the one when Lucy gets into a fight when making wine,” “the one when the Brady’s go to Hawaii,” and so on.

            And, thanks to that repetition, the actors who starred in these shows became so very familiar to us, so familiar that we fooled ourselves into thinking that they were the characters they played, fooled ourselves into thinking that since we “knew” them so well they must somehow “know” us, too.

            We kind of “get involved” with these actors and with newscasters, too, who also play a kind of role, so it can be upsetting to find out that they aren’t the characters they play on TV, can be very upsetting to find out how flawed they can be – as we seem to be discovering just about every single day.

            And, it can also be a very emotional experience when we meet some of these stars, which I can attest to having encountered William Shatner several times in person – each time with tears in my eyes.

            In real life, he’s an elderly Canadian actor who doesn’t know the first thing me or, I’m sorry to say, care about me one bit. Of course, right? But, although I know it’s not real, on some other level, he is Captain Kirk and we’ve been on so many adventures together on the USS Enterprise.

            And, that’s why some of us get quite sad when these actors die.

            For example, many people – especially many women of a certain age – were grieved when David Cassidy, the star of The Partridge Family, died a couple of weeks ago.

            Back in the early ‘70’s he was an incredibly huge star, a teenage heartthrob, the first crush for many girls, but, as often happens with celebrities, he didn’t do so well after his moment passed, and, in fact, suffered from alcoholism for many years.

            After David Cassidy died, his daughter shared with the media her father’s last words:

            “So much wasted time.”

            Today is the first Sunday of a new church year, the First Sunday of Advent, the first Sunday of this brief but holy season – a season when we are called to prepare, yes, for the birth of the Son of God in an out of the way and very poor place – a season when we are also called to prepare for the last day, when we will be judged on how well we served the King and the Kingdom.

            So, while out there in the world so many people are caught up in what they think is the “Christmas Season” with its frenzy of materialism and also, unfortunately, the annual and fake “culture wars” about what cashiers are supposed to say and what Starbuck’s should print on its holiday cups, here in church the message and the focus is supposed to be quite different.

            And, we certainly heard that in today’s Gospel reading, where there was no Christmas cheer at all, right?

            Instead, Jesus looks ahead to the last day – a day that isn’t marked on our calendar – a day that only God knows – the day for which we must prepare.

            So, the message of Jesus to us is quite clear: “Keep awake.”

            Or, to put it another way, “Stop wasting time.”

            Now, Jesus isn’t calling us to be sleep-deprived or to deny ourselves rest and recreation. Not at all.

            But, Jesus is saying that since we don’t know the day or the hour, we must not postpone doing the work God has given us to do.

            We must not postpone loving one another – must not postpone telling one another, “I love you.”

            We must not postpone welcoming the stranger, feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, visiting the sick and lonely, and comforting those who mourn.

            This brief and holy season of Advent is a good time to take stock of how we live our lives – and, an opportunity to spend even just a little bit less of our precious time staring at screens and spend more time looking into the eyes of our brothers and sisters, the people we may think we know so well but maybe haven’t really talked with in a very long time.

Advent is an opportunity to spend more time looking - really looking - at the faces of those who cry out for mercy and compassion, those who hunger for a sign of God’s love in our broken and terrified world.

            I’ll close with one of the most beautiful blessings I’ve ever heard. It’s a call, a prayer, to stop wasting time:

            “Life is short, and we do not have much time to gladden the hearts of those who make the journey with us. So…be swift to love, and make haste to be kind. And the blessing of God, who made us, who loves us, and who travels with us be with you now and forever.”

            Amen.