A Sermon by Pastor Tom Lacey . . .

Make the Most of Your Time

Ecclesiastes 9:7-10, Preached by Tom Lacey at Congregational Church of Boca Raton, November 12, 2006

Time isn’t easy on anyone, as you may know. In fact, after awhile, it seems incredible how long people can live. A grandpa says, “My young grandson called the other day to wish me Happy Birthday. He asked me how old I was, and I told him, ‘62.’ He was quiet for a moment, and then he asked, ‘Did you start at 1?’ Or how about the elderly woman, at her husband’s funeral. Just before the service started, the undertaker comes up to the very elderly widow and asks, "How old was your husband?" "98," she replies. "Two years older than me." "So you're 96," the undertaker comments. And she responds, "Hardly worth going home, is it?

With a sense of humor like that, who knows how long she is apt to grind it out on this terrestrial orb. Of course, the hope is that she and we will have quality time as well as quantity. We want to make the most of the time we have, and not just take the most time we can. The fact is, time is the one true currency of our lives. Time is of the essence, not just at the end of a ball game or during an attempt to save a dying person’s life, but because “none can keep alive his own soul,” as Psalm 22:29 says. Our “days are swifter than a weaver’s shuttle,” says Job. “We must die, and are as water spilled on the ground, which cannot be gathered up again.” 2Samuel 14:14  Tough words. Look, it is one thing to have the time of one’s life, but it is better to have the life of one’s time. It is scriptural wisdom for us to know our end and the measure of our days. How can anything, or anyone, let alone any day or moment, be appreciated and valued if we do not remember that we do not have an endless supply of them? Robert Schuller’s book Power Thoughts has a short poem in it: Life is just a minute/ Only sixty seconds in it, Forced upon you, can't refuse it./ Didn't seek it, didn't choose it, But it's up to you to use it./ You must suffer if you lose it, Give an account if you abuse it, Just a tiny little minute,/ But eternity is in it. So “Be careful how you live … making the most of the time….” Eph. 5:16 Serve your time well.

What we want to see this morning is that even though we may want to live as long as Methuselah, the real trick is to fill out 24/7 with all the good things you can. In American life, we face a difficult choice: How much time do you spend producing something worthwhile vs. how much time do you spend appreciating something worthwhile. A hippie is someone who appreciates without producing much. He will stop to smell the roses, look at the clouds to see the shapes they are making, and learn to play the guitar. The opposite American type is the workaholic who produces while appreciating little. Sleeping only five hours a night because of work demands, taking less than a week’s vacation a year, and working on weekends are definite signs of living life on work overload. Neither one has worked out how to make the most of time. Our scripture reading from Ecclesiastes, while certainly having a bit of a downer at the end of it, reinforces what we already know but sometimes forget when it comes making the most of time. “Go, eat your bread with enjoyment, and drink your wine with a merry heart; for God has long ago approved what you do.” Don’t be a sour puss. Lighten up. Have some laughs. God enjoys a cheerful liver, as well as a cheerful giver. He continues by bringing in the most important relationship most of us will have: Our spouse whom we love. We are supposed to enjoy the life we have with each other as well. Be good partners. Be friendly. Share the good things. Share the bad things. She or he is our portion in this life, so this relationship will only be as good and enjoyable as we make it.  Before I go onto the second half, we should backtrack to the point the Teacher makes about enjoying bread and wine. The picture here seems more akin to an Italian lunch with its five courses and wine to complement than the more puritanical chicken salad with Evian water chaser that Americans force upon themselves in the name of good health nowadays. We “are to drink our wine with a merry heart; for God has long ago approved what you do.” This doesn’t mean you have to drink wine, but it does mean to enjoy life and lunch and meals and family and friends gathering. God thinks these are good for us as well. And they are.

Let’s be honest. The reason the Teacher pushes the idea of enjoying life when you have a chance is because life is tough and too short, quick to come, but even quicker to end. This is the most honest and hard nose book in the bible. The words vain and vanity are used freely throughout its 12 chapters, expressing dismay at how often humans waste their limited time on foolish and wasteful pursuits. Even labor is seen from this point of view, the second side of our life; it is referred to in our reading as toil. But this toil has a redeeming factor. It is an outlet for our strength and vigor. This is why we have a tough time when we retire with not doing anything but eating bread and drinking wine, and why you retired types simply make some of the best and helpful church members a grateful pastor could ask for. You have wisdom, strength, experience, time, and a desire to still be productive for God and good. Though I’m pretty sure you do your share of eating and drinking, which as it says in our Bible God approved. And heck now we know that if you drink like a gallon and a half of red wine a day, you will live almost as long as Methuselah, or at least a lab mouse.

Let me give you an example of how we can utilize both the time we have and produce the best we are able. An artist asked the gallery owner if there had been any interest in his paintings on display at that time. “I have good news and bad news,” the owner replied. “The good news is that a gentleman inquired about your work and wondered if it would appreciate in value after your death. When I told him it would, he bought all 15 of your paintings.” “That’s wonderful,” the artist exclaimed. “What’s the bad news?” “The guy was your doctor!” We really need to hit the ground running and do the things we’re supposed to be doing.

There is not enough time. Particularly is that true for today's wives and mothers. A study by Bryn Mawr College fifty years ago stated that women then devoted more than eighty hours a week to cleaning the house, cooking meals, and taking care of the children. Did things get better? You know the answer to that. Another study twenty-five years later reported that full time housewives spent more hours doing laundry in the 1970s than they did in the 1920s, despite all the new washing machines, dryers, detergents, and bleaches. The main change was that the family had acquired more clothing and now had even higher expectations about cleanliness and grooming. In the 1990's few women can even afford dreaming of devoting full time to their families. Thus the extraordinary demands of running a home are added to running an office or a classroom or a business. Who has time for God's banquet? Many men have the same problem. A University of Michigan study found that one-third of all physicians in the United States are so busy working that they are two years behind the breakthroughs in their own field. That's scary. As the Queen of Hearts said in Alice in Wonderland, "It takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!" Some of us are caught up in a hectic lifestyle and it is depressing!

You see, we think we’ve found ways to squeeze more time out of the time we’re given, but it simply doesn’t work this way. We just add more expectations to our lives. Email, IMing, cell phones, don’t make life easier, they just put a new wrinkle to a very old game. We never beat time, find a way around it, or set it aside, if we go at it the same old way. The same old way is to see it as our possession, as something we can manage, massage, and manipulate even to the point of time giving up its power and secrets. And we view it in this way whenever we foolishly assume and expect life to continue today and tomorrow as it did yesterday. What we forget is that each moment is a privilege, a gift, that God gives us, which God alone owns but graciously shares with us up. So stop trying to work time to your advantage. Time is in God’s hand. Give back to God your life and receive in turn each moment’s beauty and the preciousness of the whole of one’s journey. To each of us there is given a season, a time by grace that is ours, and in it to do what God desires of us. So find the joy in where you are and with whom you find yourself. Drink in the sights, sounds, and smells of this miracle called life. And savor the moments.

A man was seated on a park bench when a small boy about 5 years old sat down and started winding what appeared to be a prized possession—a Mickey Mouse watch. "What a neat watch! Does it tell you the time?" the stranger asked. "No,” said the boy, “you gotta look at it." That’s what I’m talking about. If you let life just fly past you, it will. You’ve gotta look at it in order to see it. It’s like a fan that’s turning. Look at it in a normal way and it’s one blur. But focus on a single blade, and you can separate it out from the others and watch it while it moves in its circular path. That is the difference between living in the never ceasing flow of time and living life as the gracious gift that God gives in each moment of time.

A woman was turning forty and feeling very unhappy about growing older. She took her daughter for her first horseback riding lesson. As a girl, she had always wanted to learn to ride, but had been unable to do so. At least her daughter would learn, she thought. But taking the daughter added to her sense of depression. Her own life was nearly over, she felt, and it would always be incomplete because she had not fulfilled her childhood desires. Back at home, she ran across a little booklet her daughter had made when she was eight years old and in the third grade. It was titled "The ME Book." It was about the daughter's life up to that point. There were eight pages, one for each year of her life, and on each page there was a photograph of the daughter at that age. Slowly, the mother turned the pages, looking at her daughter's pictures. It made her sadder than ever. Her daughter was so young, and she felt so old. Then she came to the last page. She expected it to say "The End." But it didn't. It said, "The Beginning."

The mother shook her head. It took a moment for the meaning to sink in. The teacher who had asked the students to create these booklets had had the students write "The Beginning" on the last page instead of "The End" because their lives were only beginning at that point. Suddenly, sunshine broke into the mother's life again. Her own life wasn't at the end, it was at the beginning! Her whole attitude changed. She decided it wasn't too late to learn to ride a horse. She asked her daughter's teacher and soon she too was sitting on a horse, riding around a track.

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