FREE FROM THE FUTURE
Matthew 3:13-17

A sermon given by the Rev. Richard H. Taylor
January 30, 2005 / Fourth Sunday after Epiphany

Isn't it strange how sometimes in life you notice things, register them in your memory, and then pay them very little attention? A friend may be telling us why they did something in their life. We respond, "sure, I knew about that, but I never really thought about it." We know more than we have processed.

Today's lesson is one of those things for me. I knew it a long time ago, but I never thought about it – or didn't think about it enough.

When I was young several of the Bibles we had around our house were red-letter editions of the King James translation. If you don't know what they are, red-letter Bible editions were supposed to print all of the words that Jesus spoke in the color red. We don't try to do that any more. The Greek used in writing the Gospels did not have modern punctuation. There were no quotation marks. Therefore, you really can't tell where Jesus words begin, and particularly you can't tell where they end. How much of a comment after the words "Jesus said," were actually said by Jesus, and how many are a later commentary added by the author? We don't know. The scholars argue and argue. So, to not force words into Jesus' mouth, we dropped the red-letter Bibles.

But when I was young I didn't know all that. And I guess I was most impressed by the red-letter words. I thought they were the most important. After all, Jesus said them. One time I tried to read the red-letters only, skipping the rest.

In the New Testament, Matthew's Gospel comes first, we don't really know why. And so in that old red-letter the Bible, the first words in red, the first words spoken by Jesus, were today's text: "Suffer it to be so now: for thus it becometh us to fulfill all righteousness." Or as we would say it today, "Now is the time to fulfill all righteousness." This is a story about Jesus' baptism, about the beginning of his ministry; and the first thing Jesus has to say is "now is the time." Not yesterday, nor tomorrow, now is the time. Isn't that a dramatic way to begin?

Later, when I grew up and knew my Bible better, I discovered that we had quotes from Jesus earlier in his life, in Luke for instance. And we also know that Mark wrote down some of Jesus' words before Matthew did. So it's really not as if these were the first public words Jesus spoke.

But they are the first words of Jesus that Matthew puts in his book. They tell us a lot about how Matthew understood Jesus' revelation. Important to Matthew is the idea that now is the time. We need to stop living in the past, or imagining about the future. Jesus lives in the present tense, now is the time.

I knew that, but it didn't mean all that much.

Perhaps the second time that I really began to think about this was when I read some books by a Catholic monk, David Steindl-Rast. I became so enamored with his writing that I took a retreat with him. Brother David teaches a spiritual practice that centers on gratitude and attentiveness. He encourages us to pay closer attention to what is going on in our life and around us. He suggests that gratitude may grow in our lives through the process of being more attentive.

So he suggests, for example, when it is lunchtime do not swallow down your lunch in order to get quickly on to the next thing. Instead carefully chew each bite. Relish it's various tastes and juices. Bring to your attention the workers who have made this special moment possible. Imagine the bubbling stream that watered the grape or the bright sun that warmed the grain. Be grateful. I've tried it. It actually works. Being more attentive to your meal relaxes you, increases your gratitude.

Now is the time to live; in this moment.

I knew what he taught, but I didn't keep up the process.

Well, for the third time, all of this has been pushing its way into my life. I hope this time I get the message.

Strangely, this new idea is pushing at me from an old familiar source. I have been telling people for years that my favorite poem is Four Quartets by T. S. Eliot. It is actually a collection of four related poems finished by Eliot during the Second World War. I came upon Four Quartets years ago when three different books that I was reading simultaneously, all on divergent topics, explained what they had to say with quotes from this set of poems. I knew then, I had to read them. When I got a hold of the poems there were several brilliant passages in them that spoke to me immediately. I seized upon them, adopted them as favorite quotes. But as you may know, Eliot is difficult to read. There were other passages in Quartets That I could not understand at all. I had no idea what he was talking about. Well recently whole sections have opened up to me, and I've had an "Aha!" experience. It's not that I have the whole poem down yet. But a group of passages have suddenly become clear, and they are influencing my life. And these passages seem to be echoing the words of Jesus that Matthew thought were so important, "Now is the time."

The passage that forced me to think this way, actually near Eliot's conclusion is this:

"This is the use of memory:
For liberation – not less of love but expanding
Of love beyond desire, and so liberation
From the future as well as the past." ¹

There is a lot there. Let us concentrate on this part, "liberation – [free] from the future as well as the past." We know what we mean when we say that someone is living in the past. They can't adjust to change. They keep wishing something was the way it used to be. Their life has become frozen and they can't move on. We know what we mean when we say someone needs to be free from the past. But what does it mean to be free from the future as well?

It really means to live in the now. But listen to these explanations Eliot gives:

"There is, it seems to us,
At best, only a limited value
In the knowledge derived from experience.
The knowledge imposes a pattern, and falsifies,
For the pattern is new in every moment
And every moment is a new and shocking
Valuation of all we have been. We are only undeceived
Of that which, deceiving, could no longer harm." ²

Or try this passage:

"It seems, as one becomes older,
That the past has another pattern, and ceases to be a mere sequence –
Or even development: the latter a partial fallacy
Encouraged by superficial notions of evolution,
Which becomes, in the popular mind, a means of disowning the past." ³

Or one more:

"And right action is freedom
From past and future also.
For most of us, this is the aim
Never to be realised:
Who are only undefeated
Because we have gone on trying;" ⁴

What I think Eliot is trying to say is that we have to stop believing that we know what the future will be like. We seem to make our decisions because we are sure that this or that is going to happen. We are sure we know the future. We don't. We need to stop being enslaved to our ideas of what the future will be like and live freely and attentively in the present.

We are sure our predictions are correct – that we understand the future. So we decided what to do today based on the fantasy that we understand tomorrow. We don't.

The stock market could crash. There could be a fire. The City of Providence could go bankrupt. Major businesses could leave our community. Major businesses could move in. Crime can increase. Crime can decline. We don't know. The only time we have to live is now. Now is the time we will be judged for in heaven.

So many of Jesus' parables, when rightly understood refer to this reality. Don't bury your treasure; be actively using it now. Be awake; be alert, when the bridegroom comes. When the master of the field returns be found doing what you were supposed to do. You must be living in the present tense.

Sure be cautious. But live in the now. What is the best I can do with these gifts, these abilities, in this place at this time, right now? Now is the time to fulfill all righteousness.

Amen.

1 – Eliot, T. S., Four Quartets, (Harcourt Brace, Jovanovich, New York, 1943/1971), p.55.
2 – Ibid., p. 26
3 – Ibid., p.39
4 – Ibid., p.45