A Relection on Time Informed by the Grand Hotel, Richard Matheson and the Lessons for June 30, 2013

A Reflection for VI Pentecost (Proper 8)                   All Saints’ Episcopal, Southern Shores, N.C. June 30, 2013                                                             Thomas E. Wilson, Rector

2 Kings 2:1-2, 6-14         Galatians 5:1, 13-25       Luke 9:51-62

     The movie, a soapy “Romantic Science Fiction” piece with beautiful costumes, sets, and score, was about a man who wants to go back in time in order to have a love affair with an actress who died in the previous century but who has a man in her dreams. There is this line that the Jane Seymour character gives which is a three hanky soliloquy:I was reading the paper last Sunday and there was an article about the Grand Hotel at Mackinac Island, Michigan. Pat and I went to the UP (Upper Peninsula) of Michigan years ago and visited the island. When I saw the Hotel, I realized where I had seen it before; it was the

place where part of the movie, Somewhere in Time, a 1980 film starring Christopher Reeve and Jane Seymour, was shot. The movie was taken from a novel written by Richard Matheson, who died this last week, which had the scene set at the Hotel del Coronado in San Diego. 

The man of my dreams is almost faded now. The one I have created in my mind. The sort of man each woman dreams of in her most secret and deepest part of her heart. I could almost see him now before me. What would I say to him if he were really here? Forgive me, I've never known this feeling. I've lived without it all my life. Is it any wonder that I fail to recognize it? You brought it to me for the first time. Is there any way I can tell you how my life has changed? Anyway at all, to let you know what sweetness you have given me? There's so much to say-- and I can't find the words-- except for these... I love you. That is what I would say to him if he were really here.

The concept was based on the idea that many different dimensions of time are running at the same time, and you can jump from one time sequence into another. I liked the idea and can even find some talk about it from the Quantum physicists who theorize about space-time loops and warps. The movie didn’t do too well, but sales of the VHS tapes of it went through the roof and it got good ratings when it was shown on television as a chick flick weeper. However, there was enough interest in backward time travel to sustain a series on the tube in the early 90’s called “Quantum Leap”, where the Scott Bakula character, “Sam Beckett”, goes back and fixes the past.

I liked that series because there are things I wish I could do to fix the past. Wouldn’t that be neat? This time I would study as an undergraduate instead of waiting until grad school. This time I would pay attention to people, places, and things. This time I would not waste time. This time there would be no regrets. Maybe I am the only person in this room who has had moments where immediately after you say something, you realize that it was exactly the wrong thing to say, and you desperately look for the rewind button so that you can live the moment all over again and this time do it right. The problem with that kind of thinking is that I start to be haunted by the past of “what ifs” instead of living in the present of “what is”.

The lessons for today are about living in the “what is”. In the Hebrew Testament Lesson for today, Elijah and Elisha both know that they will be separated. They had been together since Elijah had come back from his encounter with the Sheer Silence of God, and he sees Elisha plowing and throws his mantle over his shoulders. Elisha had a moment of hesitation and wanted to go back and kiss his parents goodbye. But he leaves his past behind and slaughters the oxen he had been using for plowing, as a sacrifice, so he would not be tempted to go back into the past. His past is as dead as the oxen and the past, like the oxen, is offered up to God. He walks with Elijah into the present and, while being warned of the future, he stays in the present with Elijah until Elijah is carried off by the chariots of fire. He mourns and then he goes on, on the path that he was taking, so that he might continue the work in the present. He lives life not in the past or future but solidly in the present - and God is here, in the present, redeeming each moment as we live it in love.

In the Gospel lesson Jesus has that same determination to stay in the present as his face is set toward Jerusalem. He knows where he is going and will not allow himself silly thoughts about revenge on the Samaritan towns which did not receive him. The disciples want to waste time on revenge for the past slight, but Jesus is too busy in the present to hang on to the past. Some prospective disciples want to hold on to the past, and Jesus echoes the earlier admonition from Elijah that, if you are on a journey, you don’t need to waste time looking back.

Paul in the Epistle lesson warns about going back into the slavery of the past instead of living fully in the present life of the spirit in Christ. I wish he had not used the words “flesh” and Spirit” as dualities. What happens is that moralists have used that duality as a separation between being human and being sacraments of God. I think that Paul was saying the incarnation is about joining the divine and the human, and we are called to live into being fully human and being fully aware of the Risen Christ living within us. 

I do not see human flesh as bad or a burden; life is a blessing and meant to be good. I wish that Paul had used a word like “ego-centric” instead of “flesh”. I think Paul means “flesh” to mean something like the standard way we set up our social systems, the use and consumption of people, life, time and the world for our own agendas, and not about mere human failings. Look at his examples of what he calls “flesh” and what I would call ego-centric; “fornication, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, anger, quarrels, dissensions, factions, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these.” 

The moralists want to equate “fornication” with the sexual expression of love, but it is a little like saying that playing “Chopsticks” is like playing Chopin’s Moonlight Sonata. Yes, both use the piano but there is a real difference in the playing; “Chopsticks” is a way of killing time whereas the Moonlight Sonata is a way of filling the time with something wonderfully special that has meaning outside of itself. Moralists would equate “drunkenness” with “drinking”; yes, both use alcohol, but drunkenness is about obliterating the present whereas having a drink with dinner or with a friend tastes the present.  The same would be said about the difference between gluttony and tasting good food. All of the examples Paul gives are wastes of time.  Why waste your time with “idolatry and sorcery”, which are wish-fulfillment fantasies, in attempt to get something to change the present so that the world is re-shaped to please your own ego. Down the list, “enmities, strife, jealousy, anger, quarrels, dissensions, factions, envy” - why waste your energy carrying the heavy load of “trying to be right”, as if being right in the past matters in a life where our faces are meant to be set on living a life of love in the present? 

There is an old Zen Buddhist saying: “Before enlightenment - chop wood, carry water.  After enlightenment - chop wood, carry water.”  The difference we have is that everyday life is lived fully in the spirit.  Or as C.S Lewis said in the Screwtape Letters, “For the Present is the point at which time touches eternity.”  Today is the only day we have, and eternity is here touching each moment and each moment is to be lived fully rather than consumed heedlessly.