Psalm 31:1-5, 15-16
Introduction
Perhaps this past week like me you heard a lot about the blue supermoon—which was a second full moon in the same month, while also being at its closet point to the earth.
The phrase “once in a blue moon” means something rarely happens, but truthfully, blue moons aren’t so rare. If we really mean something rarely happens, we should instead say, “once in a blue supermoon” because this phenomenon happens only every twenty years or so.
This, and our Psalm for today, got me thinking about something… Time. And not just because I was reading about the blue supermoon in Time magazine.
Time is always with us, around us, in front of us, and behind us. Time is an ubiquitous force, both a blessing and a curse.
All my thinking about time got me thinking about how we spend time. And all that thinking got me thinking about all innumerable number of time idioms we have in our vernacular that describe times. Idioms like…
It’s high time. Killing time. Make up for lost time. Go time. Turn back time. Have a whale of a time. Free time. Behind the times. Hit the big time. Too much time on one’s hands. Long time no see. No time like the present. Time flies. Save time. Spare time. As time goes by. Make time. Time for a change. Time is money. Time heals all wounds. Only time will tell. Time after time. Time off. A waste of time. A hard time. A stitch in time saves nine. Time is on my side. Living on borrowed time. All in good time. Time is of the essence. A devil of a time. A legend in one’s own time. A race against time. All the time in the world. At a set time. At no time. At the appointed time. Behind the times. Bide one’s time. Big time operator. Big time spender. By the time. Caught in a time warp. Crunch time. Time management. FaceTime. For the time being. Do the time. Downtime. Get the time. Give one a hard time. Good time Charlie. I hardly have time to breathe. I’ll catch you some other time. In the right place at the right time. Make good time. Make up for lost time. Once upon a time. Pressed for time. Sands of time. The time of one’s life. Time flies. Time to hit the road. Time works wonders. When the time is ripe. Withstand the test of time. Outta time. Times a wasting.
We are constantly aware of time. It’s always in the palm of our hands, or on our wrists. It’s in the corner of our laptops, at the top of our tablets. When driving, time glows from the dashboard.
In our kitchen we have the time on the wall, the stove, the microwave, and the coffee maker—each used every school day morning to keep Violet and A.J. from losing track of time and make sure they get to the bus, even if it’s in the nick of time.
Knowing the time is critically important in our fast-paced society, and because it is always in front of us we seldom need to ask anymore, “What time is it?”
So let’s—for a moment, rephrase the “What time is it?” question and instead ask: “Whose time is it?” Ask, “Whose time is it?” of the psalmist and he emphatically gives us the answer: “My times are in your hands” (v. 16).
He says such because time does not belong to us; it belongs to God. This question, and this answer, changes everything, revealing a truth that is both comforting and terrifying— terrifying because it is God’s time and not ours. And comforting, for the same reason.
Move 1
The notion that one’s life was in the hands of an eternal god and not in one’s own hands (or those of a pantheon of deities) was rather novel in David’s time 3,000 years ago. The Greeks and Roman understood the lives of human beings to be in the hands of a multitude of gods. David knew his life was in the hands of the one true God who listened to him, rescued him, and redeemed him. Even more striking, his monotheistic conception of God envisioned a deity who was in a personal relationship with him—which we see evidence of when he says in his psalms, “Blessed be the LORD, for he has wondrously shown his steadfast love to me!” “The death of even one of God’s ‘faithful ones’ is ‘precious,’ he writes elsewhere (116:15).
The Greeks, however, believed their gods dictated how long a person lived, their destiny while alive, and how much suffering and misery they would undergo. But David believed in God, and understood God to be his Creator who advocated for him and rescued him and who did not want to see him suffer. David, then, was willing to surrender his life to the providential care and protection of God. But there are times—even for David—when this way of time management isn’t so easy.
Move 2
When you’re staring into the face of your mortality, as David often was, you realize you’re living on borrowed time. Tomorrow is never guaranteed, which means we are always living on borrowed time. And we feel this most intensely when we’re in crisis. And as much as we believe in God, this uncertainty is problematic because we easily become tempted to take over the management of our lives ourselves. “Thanks God, but I’ve got this.”
But David shows us how to get past this hard time and get with the Godly times, when he writes, “My times are in your hands.” It is a revealing confession. David knows his future is uncertain. The time he has left on earth is borrowed time. We are the borrowers; God is the lender.
*******
In our text, Psalm 31, David makes it clear he’s in need of intervention. In verses 1-5, he uses expressions like deliver me, rescue me, save me, guide me, and take me out of the net that is hidden for me. He knows he’s living on borrowed time. For David, as for many of us, it’s crunch time, and when we understand this, we want to know who is keeping track of our mortality. “My times are in your hands.” Or, in the words of civil rights activist Ralph Abernathy, “I may not know what the future holds, but I know who holds the future.”
Adversity, just as much as faith, helped David understand he was not in charge of time, but merely a borrower of it. And whatever time may hold, in the fullness of time or the nick of time, God will come to David’s rescue— and to ours.
Move 3
It’s worth noting, David who wrote this desperate plea for deliverance was not always so time-conscious, nor was he always so willing to concede his “times are in your hand.” Follow David from his “stump of Jesse” roots, and you can glean such easily. David, like us, often thought he was in charge. But such thinking will inevitably lead us to the Yiddish expression, “Want to make God laugh? Tell God your plans.” Even when he was faithful to God, David still took his good ole time getting with the Godly times.
And when we still can’t bring ourselves to say to God, “My times are in your hands,” we often try to buy time against the day when we run out of time. The bible is full of these stories—especially with the prophets, and maybe even more so with Jesus. When Jesus was in the early stages of finding disciples, one would-be follower wanted to buy some time: “‘Lord, first let me go and bury my father.’ But Jesus said to him, ‘Follow me, and let the dead bury their own dead.’” (Matthew 8:21-22). Jesus knew the time was, and is always now. Right now is the time to follow God’s ways and God’s call.
So then… we’ve come to the time in the sermon where the preacher asks… Do you have a feeling God is calling you in some way? Calling you to something great with many responsibilities? Or maybe it’s smaller—a voice telling you to help with a project or ministry; or go visit someone; or reach out to that person you have been feeling you need to make amends with. Perhaps it’s resisting the temptation to pass on an untrustworthy tidbit of gossip. Maybe it’s making known an idea for a new outreach effort even though you know I will say to you, “I love the idea, how can I support you as you get that started?”
So often when it comes to call—to doing what God would have us do—we often try to call a timeout. We tell God, “You’re catching me at a bad time. I don’t have any time to even breath God. How about we do that another time?” But what we are actually saying is we are not ready to be mature Christians; we are not ready, or willing, to surrender everything and go all in. We are not ready to say, “My times are in your hands.”
When we need more time to make time of God’s time, or we’re looking for ways to postpone a timely commitment, we’re trying to buy time. But this is not how God works. God wants us to say to God about our times, what David said to God about his times… “My times are in your hands.” That is what God wants to hear from us. That is how God wants us to understand time. My time… Your time… Our time… It is all God’s times.
Conclusion
As those who aim to be God’s followers… As those who claim to be Christ’s followers, we need to ask ourselves, regularly… Is it high time for us to have— as David does in this psalm— a conversation with God, with the One who has our time in their hands?
When David wrote this psalm, he was ready to put his faith and trust in God and acknowledge and accept the truth that his time was not his time, but that it was God’s time. David is acknowledging his life and times are in the hands of God, showing he has arrived at a conclusion that was way ahead of his time. There is one God, and David put his trust in his God, and it was this trust that gave him peace.
Isn’t this where we want to be? Ahead of time. On time. Because right now, we are in the right place at the right time. But will we say, “now is the time” or will we try to call a timeout, or just bid our time until a better time and we say to God, “I’ll catch you another time”?
“My times are in your hands.” That is what God wants to hear from us. Not once in a blue moon. And definitely not once in a blue supermoon. God wants to hear from us, “My times are in your hands” today…now…and for all times. Amen.
Pastoral Prayer, September 3, 2023
Creator God, in the beginning you created. And from that beginning of time you only focused on making your creation good, calling into existence your vision and goodness. And then you gave it all to your children—no strings attached, giving your children dominion and responsibility.
And throughout the millennia your children have heard your call to heed our time, to spend our time as you would have us. Some stayed faithful and true. Others veered away. And we have seen what times come when they have stayed true. And we have seen what times come when they have not.
Holy God, we have tried to stay true to your times. We want to stay true to your times. But admittedly, as much as we want to put our times in your hands, we struggle. We struggle because there is so much to do but so little time. We become twisted and torn between what we think we must do, and what we truly must do. Because so often they look the same we know we want to spend as much time as we possibly can with our family, but we know we must provide for our family. We know how important it is to take time for rest and Sabbath, let me know how hard it is to rest and take Sabbath when there is still so much to be done.
And just for these reasons, and so many others of God that we really do need to put our times in your hands. For when we put our times in your hands and give control to you, we can find the insurance and the trust to know that you will guide us to the balance we need and crave. For we know that when we put all of ourselves into your hands, then every part of our lives, including our times, will be tended to, in all the ways you would have us live and serve and share of the time for your Good News is now, and for all time.
Hear now the prayers we need to lift, in this time of Holy Silence.
All this we pray in the name of the one who came for all times, Jesus the Christ, who taught us to pray saying, “Our…”