"Redeeming Our Time"
Sermon Transcript for November 24, 2002 By Rev. Dan Sinkhorn
Many years ago I worked at a classical music radio station and I learned the meaning of the word "classic". I really didn’t understand it until then. But I found that as I sat there in the control booth playing the records—do you remember those? Tara was asking the kids if they recognized the cassette and I’m wondering if they would even know what to do with a record album! You know, when they were this big! Well, we played those records and I read the backs of the jacket for the record album and I listened to this music some of it hundreds of years old. And I realized it’s as good now as it ever was—maybe even better! As I hear the classical music I understand the meaning of the word "classic".
And as we revisit the story of Ebenezer Scrooge and Charles Dickens’s, "A Christmas Carol", we are talking about a story that is a classic. It has withstood the test of time. It has withstood the abuses inflicted on a work of art so often. It’s been made in to plays, musicals, movies, TV dramas and cartoons. Ebenezer Scrooge has been played by George C. Scott and Patrick Stewart. He’s been played by my favorite, Alfred Finney. He’s been played by the Muppets, he’s been played by Mr. McGoo, and Donald Duck has played him. This is a classis because it transcends generations, transcends time. It gives us the message that has truths in it that are timeless.
"A Christmas Carol", if you need a little refresher, is the story of a miserly old businessman by the name of Ebenezer Scrooge who is confronted with the festivities of Christmas. And his response of course are those famous words, "Bah! Humbug!" He has no time for Christmas and he bitterly resents the holiday and all the ways that it gets tangled up in his perception of the most important thing, which is to run his business and acquire wealth. To Scrooge, Christmas is a time for finding yourself another year older and not an hour richer. Now, throughout the Advent Season we’re going to look at video clips from one of the versions of the story, "A Christmas Carol". And today I want us to take a quick look to help us establish this person, Ebenezer Scrooge. In our minds eye let us always remember this guy. And this video clip we’re going to look at now is the scene where Scrooge’s nephew enters his office full of Christmas cheer and he gets a dose of Scrooge. Let’s take a look.
VIDEO
Boy, that person’s personality is like a cold wind isn’t it? I tell you just watching him for a few minutes’ just gives you the chills. Did you hear what Fred said? "You don’t keep Christmas you give it away!" It’s a time of forgiveness, it’s a time of charity, and it’s a time when people open their hearts where they may have been closed before. Fred goes on to say, "Therefore, Uncle, though it has never put a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket, I believe that it has done me good and will do me good and I say, ‘God bless it’."
You see Christmas is about time. Scrooge has no time for Christmas, but Fred made time for Christmas. And because he did, he was blessed. And as a consequence he became a blessing to others. I have had the privilege of knowing many missionaries who travel around the world, and a missionary who’d been in Africa taught me a phrase that I really like. He said, "Americans have watches, African’s have time." See we have the technology to keep ourselves on track all day long and to make the most of everything we do. I have a palm pilot. I have a computer. I have a watch that beeps every now and then to remind me of things that I need to do. I keep the sticky note people in business because I have little sticky notes everywhere. With the technology in hand I shouldn’t forget anything, and yet I frequently do. Africans and other people in the world who don’t have access to all sorts of technology, who probably don’t have watches or clocks on their walls, they could teach us a thing or two about family, about time, about moving at a different pace. Maybe they could show us what’s really important.
And that’s the challenge we face as we move in to Advent. Advent, after all, is a word that means "coming". It’s a word that tells us to anticipate something. But what happens if we’re too busy and we miss it. We need to learn how to redeem our time so that there is room for Christ in our lives so that our "humbugs" can be turned in to "hallelujahs". So what is it that’s crowding Christmas out of our lives?
Expectations: I think it’s a few things. The top of my list is expectations. We sometimes have Christmas crowded out and the real meaning of Christmas is lost in our unrealistic expectations. We want to have the perfect Christmas after all. And then, of course, there are those of us who are victims of family members, children, mothers and fathers and grandparents, and aunts and uncles, and brothers and sisters who have expectations that involve us so that Christmas becomes a rush and hurried time where we put in our time with people that we need to see so that they are not unhappy with us.
Commercialism: Commercialism has certainly crowded the meaning of Christmas right out. I mean, we can all agree that there are too many commercials on TV. There are too many banners hanging on buildings. There are too many Christmas carols being played in every form imaginable in a local store. I think we can all agree that Santa Clause has in many ways replaced Christ as the focal point of Christmas or ‘Christ’mas. And so we need to be able to see through that.
Past Hurts: Another area that I think crowds out Christmas in our lives is our past hurts. And I want to move carefully through this because this is a very difficult thing to talk about. But for many of us Christmas is a painful time. It’s a time of remembering loved ones we’ve lost. It’s a time we’re remembering disappointments. It’s a time of sadness. As unbelievable as it seems, Christmas is one of the times of the year when the suicide rate is the highest. Why is that? Past hurts combined with unrealistic expectations can make Christmas a very bitter and painful time. That isn’t to say that there aren’t real suffering people who are longing for loved ones all year long and it is just enhanced at Christmas. The rest of us suffer from the past hurts of others as well at Christmas time because we see their sorrow. We wonder how Christmas can do this to people.
Circumstances: The last thing that I notice is a source for crowding out Christmas is circumstances. Now this is interesting because it could be a lot of things. It could be the weather, it could be the condition of the economy, it could be the national well being—here we are anticipating war, for example. There are situations at work, situations in our homes, situations in our communities. There are many circumstances that crowd Christmas out. And some of them are real authentic push times, difficult times that we learn to balance against Christmas. But there are other places in our lives where we are like Scrooge; and we have chosen to put our work above Christmas. We are like the innkeeper in the Christmas story who was so wrapped up in profitable business, we think, that maybe that’s why he said to Mary and Joseph, "There’s no room." Is it possible that the inn that is our mind and our heart is closed to Christ at Christmas time? Are we like that innkeeper? Christ is standing in our door ready to bring new life and new birth to something amazing and we are saying, "Sorry, no room."
Scrooge’s nephew, Fred, understood something significant. He understood that making a living isn’t the same thing as building a life. The Apostle Paul spoke of it in his Letter to the Ephesians in Chapter 5, where Paul says this, "Be very careful then how you live, not as unwise but wise, making the most of every opportunity because the days are evil. Therefore, do not be foolish but understand what the Lord’s will is." What is the Lord’s will for your life? How would the Lord ask you to spend this next several weeks leading up to Christmas? Looking for Him again, anticipating His coming again? Or continuing to struggle and work and toil for the sake of profit?
Work isn’t necessarily the problem, though. Work in itself is a good thing. As a matter of fact, challenging work—stressful even at times—is very rewarding. I certainly enjoy my job; and it’s challenging. And it has its moments of stress. But it is very rewarding and it’s very satisfying. And it surely feels like a calling to me. And so, we can assume that there are times and places in our lives that work is a good thing. But when work consumes us, when it deprives us of our health and our families, when it has a profound negative effect on our spiritual life, then it’s wrong. As believers we are called to "seek first the kingdom of God".
I want to stop here because there’s a story that occurred to me this morning in the first service that one of the reasons I am standing here in the pulpit today is because I worked for a guy who was the embodiment of Ebenezer Scrooge several years ago. Now people will laugh when I say that but I mean to tell you that I’m very familiar of the story, "A Christmas Carol", and this guy was Scrooge all over. No doubt. And at a point in my life when I realized he was pushing me to become like him, when he was assuring me that to work like he worked and to value what he valued would make me a very successful person, I knew that God was calling me to a different kind of life. And I left that job. Fortunately I had a new friendship with my pastor in Corydon, Indiana, a guy by the name of Mike Beck. He spent some time with me working through that decision and helping me to recognize my call to ministry. So you could say my Ebenezer Scrooge had a lot to do with my happiness in my work and the privilege and joy that I have being here with you.
We have to be careful, though, not to confuse work lovers with work addicts or workaholics. Scrooge was truly a work addict. He was trying to fill an emotional and spiritual void in his life with his work. I like the way Mark Twain talked about his life work. He said that he had never worked a lick in his fifty years of writing. Mark Twain said, "I’ve always been able to gain my living without doing any work. For the writing of books and magazines were always play, not work, and I enjoyed it." Does anybody feel that way about their work? Work lovers get great satisfaction in what they do. And to them it really is play or at least it provides enjoyment. But when they want to they stop; they know how to stop. True work addicts are very often unable to play and they don’t know when to stop. They are filled with mixed emotions about such things because they believe that if they keep at it they will fill a need for the admiration of others. They will be able to measure their worth by their work.
Would you believe that even homemakers can be workaholics? Some homemakers will say to you, "Play is what you do when the work gets done", but the work never gets done. Some homemakers are perfectionist and they just believe that no one else can do the job as well as them. And they are driven to take away those chores from others and do them themselves. I’ll probably pay for this later but I have to tell you a story about my wife. I remember when we were training the children to do the dishes. And when they were done the dishes weren’t very clean so Laura would redo the dishes. And one day like a typical man I said to her, "You know what, just wash two—one plate for you and one plate for me, one fork for you and one fork for me—they can eat off of those." Boy, you know, their quality of work improved significantly. It’s hard to let go of a thing that we want to see done according to our standards and let others.
I’ve always admired Reverend Mike because, well, like right now he’s in California celebrating the marriage of his son Aaron to his daughter-in-law, Risa. And they are having a great time, I’m sure. And I promise you he’s not worried about things here at Grace Church. He knows how to let go of something he cares very deeply about and to leave it in the hands of others. And we won’t let him down. It’s not easy to do because when you have invested yourself in something and you have tied your work in to it, you are in great danger when you give it over to someone else’s care. But if it is something you love and you do it with a sense of joy, you don’t mind sharing the love and the joy with others. It’s a subtle difference but it is critically important.
So what is the message about? What am I trying to say? Well, we need to make time. If we are going to have a meaningful Christmas we’ve got to learn to shut down things, take off our watches and examine our lives. We need to learn to redeem our time, spend a little bit more of it with the Lord Jesus. You see, basically workaholism is a spiritual problem. The workaholic, well, really is living in complete opposition to the characteristics that we witness in Jesus. Jesus demonstrated in his ministry everything you need to know about living a fulfilling, balanced life. Even though He was only on earth for 33 years and only doing His ministry for three of those years that we know of. And even though His work was the most significant thing in all the history of humanity, probably the most significant thing in the entire universe in all of time, even as important as all of that was, Jesus knew how to balance His life. He learned a trade. He enjoyed hospitality. He liked intimate conversations with friends and strangers. He traveled, and studied, and prayed and he taught, and Jesus even when to parties. But at the same time, Jesus recognized when He was weary. Jesus recognized when He needed to stop His ministry and take a break and spend some time in quiet restfulness. Jesus knew when to pray and spend some time alone with the Lord. He had perfected the balance between work and play and spirituality and rest. He had perfected the blend so that He could show us the real meaning of abundant living.
No wonder Jesus said to us the words that I want to share with you now from Matthew, Chapter 11. Now what I am going to say and what you are going to read (on the screen) are different because I am paraphrasing it. Jesus said, "Are you tired? Are you worn out? Are you burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you will recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me and watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly."
You know, it is ironic that Christmas is an event that came after Jesus had lived and died and ascended into heaven because we would probably all experience Christmas better if we could have Jesus come to our parties. Something tells me that Jesus, unlike any other person who ever lived, would know exactly how to do Christmas right. Of course, Jesus is alive today and with us in Spirit. So our challenge today is to find a way to make room for Him in our Christmas so that He can show us how to do it right. How can we redeem our time to make room for Christmas? Here are some suggestions:
Schedule: Take control of your schedule. You simply must learn to make time for frivolous, unprofitable things. Maybe you can go for a walk in your neighborhood some night and look at Christmas lights or take a drive and look at some Christmas lights. Go downtown, look at the lights, and look at the store windows. If you really want to learn how to do frivolous things at Christmas, go hang out with some children. And if God wills it, we’ll have some snow and you can go out and make a snowball and throw it at somebody. Do something frivolous. Call up a friend you haven’t seen in a long time and invite them for lunch – just because it’s Christmas. Make peace with someone. Keep control of your schedule.
Inspiration: Learn to find sources of inspiration. Join with us in Grace Church over the next few weeks in looking at the story of Ebenezer Scrooge in the classic tale, "A Christmas Carol". You can rent any one of a dozen versions of it at the local video store. And if you want to try something really old fashioned you can read the book. It’s a short story. In fact, if you were reading the trivia questions before the service, my daughter, Bethany, wrote those for me, because she’s read the story and I knew that she would be able to come up with some questions for you. If you do choose to do the video you might want to consider going to the video store each week and picking up a different version of "A Christmas Carol" and just kind of comparing them and talking about them. There are other sources of inspiration not the least of which is the Bible, church, Christmas music, other wonderful stories on the real meaning of Christmas. Take time to seek inspiration.
Daily Devotions: Take time for daily devotions. This is very significant especially if you are one of those who struggle with letting your work get hold of you. When you start your day spend some time with the Lord praying for time, for a proper understanding of your work. You could use the devotional calendars that I mentioned earlier that are available in the lobby. Take time. Spend time in devotions with the Lord each day preferably before the work begins.
Worship: And finally, worship. Come to church whenever we gather together and worship. Worship with friends and family. Spend time praising God for what He has done through Jesus. Worship together as a family or with a close friend or neighbor. Get your Advent wreath out and your devotional calendar and once a week have a little ceremony acknowledging the coming of Christ.
I believe if you will do these things you will redeem your time and make room for Christmas. I believe that the way to change our "humbugs" to "hallelujahs" is to make a conscious effort to experience Christmas in a new way. We’re going to help you with that here at Grace. Over the next few weeks, listen to what Scripture says about Christmas. Listen to the story we relay through "A Christmas Carol". See if your Advent celebration doesn’t bring you something new and amazing. You see, Jesus calls us out in the turmoil of our lives. He calls us to trust Him to bring calm in our restless seas. In response to God’s word, we’re going to sing about that. I hope you listen to the words you sing and let them be your closing prayer. So I invite you now to stand as you are able and let’s sing together, "Jesus Calls Us O’er the Tumult". Number 398.
E-mail Comments to: Reverend Dan Sinkhorn