lent two

chronos and kairos

‘in the midst of the ordinary time (chronos),

extraordinary time (kairos) happens’

mark freier

chronos & kairos

3For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:

2 a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted;3 a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;4 a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;5 a time to throw away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;6 a time to seek, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to throw away;7 a time to tear, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;8 a time to love, and a time to hate; a time for war and a a time for peace.

Ecclesiastes 3:1–8

Some people think they have all the time in the world. Well, they don’t. They only have a limited amount of time and they should be making the most of every passing second There really is no rush. Life is about the journey, not the destination. Take your time I feel we’re too hung-up on punctuality in our culture. When I was in Spain last year, my friend threw a huge party. No one cared if the guests arrived early or late, just as long as everyone had a good time when they got there. It was about the event, not the start time. I like that God has given you one life, don’t waste it Good things take time. I’m not stressed about how much time I do or do not have. Things will happen when they’re good and ready

the conversation

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join the conversation… Our culture has many ways to describe its experience of time. We talk about ‘spending’ time; ‘investing’ time; or ‘saving’ time. Time ‘flies’ when we’re having fun, but ‘drags’ when we’re bored. What other idioms, metaphors, or analogies have you heard people use to talk about time?discuss… Discuss one or two general assumptions we make about time in our culture?

“Let us remember that the life in which we ought to be interested is “daily” life. We can, each of us, only call the present time our own … Our Lord tells us to pray for today, and so he prevents us from tormenting ourselves about tomorrow. It is as if [God] were to say to us: “[It is I] who gives you this day [and] will also give you what you need for this day. [It is I] who makes the sun to rise. [It is I] who scatters the darkness of night and reveals to you the rays of the sun.” Gregory of Nyssa

consider… Do you feel anxious about an event in your future? Take some time to read and meditate on 1 Peter 5:7. Ask God to give you what you need to get through today. Trust that God will take care of your future.

“Go on, lean in,” whispers Professor John Keating to his class in a scene from the movie Dead Poets Society.

“Listen, do you hear it? Carpe! Hear it? Carpe diem! Seize the day, boys. Make your lives extraordinary.” When we come across the word ‘time’ in the New Testament, it is a translation of one of two Greek words— chronos or kairos. Chronos refers to linear or sequential time. From this Greek word chronos we derive English words such as chronic, chronicle, and chronology. “Thus,” explains Fr. Patrick Redon,

the image

the path

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“we call an illness chronic if it lasts a long time. A chronicle is an account of events through a sequence of time. Chronology is the itemized, studied measurement of time.” Chronos is the time we measure on the clock, it’s time passing, and it ticks by in hours, minutes, and seconds. It’s the time in which we make appointments, and which we race if we’re facing a deadline. Chronos is the ordinary time of everyday life in which we go about our business. We schedule our days by it. Many of us feel we never have enough of it. Kairos, on the other hand, means “’the appointed time in the purpose of God’, the time when God acts. Kairos is time in a qualitative rather than a quantitative sense,” explains Amy Orr-Ewing. It is time as a significant event, “a stirring breakthrough”, a seasonable time, a decisive moment. In 1985, a group of black South African theologians wrote a response to the recent crackdown of the Apartheid government. It was called the Kairos Document. And it began: “The time has come, the moment has arrived”. The document was pervaded with a strong sense that God is moving and that the time was right for change. It is in this sense that the New Testament writers use the word kairos to communicate the idea of God’s time: “it is eternal reality breaking into the now,” Orr-Ewing says. Kairos is God’s time intersecting with ordinary everyday chronos time. You won’t find a kairos moment scheduled on a calendar. However, by being aware of kairos time, by seizing these moments of opportunity, we can take the everyday chronos time and turn it into, to borrow the phase of Professor Keating, something “extraordinary”.

discuss…Have you travelled or lived in a country that takes a more relaxed attitude to the passing of time? Did you find this freeing or frustrating? Share your experience with your group. consider… It can be quite eye-opening to compare attitudes toward the passing of time in different cultures. Did you know in Madagascar it’s perfectly acceptable to wait hours for a bus? And in Arab countries it’s considered rude to turn up on time for a meeting. In fact, most people will arrive an hour after the scheduled meeting time. This would be considered extremely rude in our culture. Why?

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The author of Ecclesiastes struggled with what he perceived to be the futility of the relentless march of chronos time (1:3-11). Yet even at his most cynical the author could perceive moments within the passing of ordinary time where the wise, those who feared God, could seize a moment in which to encounter God; when God’s kairos time intersected with our ordinary chronos time. The poem in chapter 3:1–8 lists 27 events (kairos) where such moments may take place. Today, God’s kairos time, “the eternal reality breaking into the now,” has become fused with our ordinary chronos time. Orr-Ewing again captures this beautifully when she says,

“When Jesus stepped into our chronos time to proclaim the kingdom among us, he came to show us in chronos the reality of kairos.” This is what Jesus means in Mark 1:15 when he says,

“The time [kairos] has come. The kingdom of God has come near.” Echoing Jesus’ words the Apostle Paul would later write,

“I tell you, now is the time [kairos] of God’s favour, now is the day of salvation.” What Jesus is declaring and Paul after him is that God’s time (kairos) has decisively and permanently broken into our world of chronos time. Within the hustle and bustle of daily life, amid our speed-driven and stressed out world, God has placed opportune times for us to encounter him. These “kairos moments” intersect with the ordinary passing of time (chronos). It is up to us if we are content to merely count the hours or will we turn aside and “seize” these moments as a gift from God, and turn our ordinary lives into something extraordinary.

consider… Each time you check your watch this week you might like to pray this simple prayer: Lord help me to notice the kairos moments in every situation. Amen.

the word

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Occupy our calendarsOur times are in your hands: But we count our times for us; we count our days and fill them with us; we count our weeks and fill them with our busyness; we count our years and fill them with our fears.And then caught up short with your claim, Our times are in your hands!Take our times, times of love and times of weariness, Take them all, bless them and break them, give them to us again, slow paced and eager, fixed in your readiness for neighbour. Occupy our calendars, Flood us with itsy-bitsy, daily kairoi, in the name of your fleshed Kairos. Amen.

Walter Brueggemann

the response

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