On Haste…
Genesis 3: 1-24
Haste
At first it was beyond comprehension and surprising, almost unbelievable. Then it got interesting. Now it’s getting long…and boring. When is this ever going to end? Do people really know what they are doing? I want to go on with my life! These are all thoughts running through many people’s minds during lock-down.
Last week I told you about how during this time of lock-down, I rediscovered something I really like to do. How I love going on hikes. This week I need to tell you about something I discovered about myself that is less of a pleasant discovery. It is called haste. Impatience. I suffer from it. Even when we go on a hike, as we get close to the end, I feel this need to get it over and done with. Isabel remarked at how my change in temperament is tangible. How I am less present and becomes someone that sucks the fun right out of the hike in stead of making the most of the last few kilometers.
I rarely thought of my haste as a sin. I ascribed it to my A-type personality, me being a driven and motivated individual. To be honest in my own mind I elevated my haste to a status of being a virtue rather than a vice. Not a sin. And then, when reading a narrative I must have read thousands of times before, I made this horrible discovery: what I glorified as a virtue was not only a vice but also a sin. Let me explain…
I easily miss the fact that when God prohibited Adam and Eve to eat from the tree in the middle of the garden, He did not say that they won’t ever be able to eat from it. He said that for the present time being, they should not eat from it. I grew up with Mango fruit and loved it. Then on a trip to Malawi in my twenties, mango trees were all around, but they were not in season. I saw the children eating the green Mangoes like apples and thought they might be on to something. I ate some like that and became very sick. Malawians stomachs were ready and able to digest those green mangoes and mine was not. Maybe we should think along these lines when it comes to the tree of good and bad in the middle of Eden. Maybe its fruit wasn’t yet ripe or maybe human beings’ bodies and cognition weren’t developed adequately to digest it.
And this would make the first act of disobedience not just and act of greed but an act of haste. To rush to something that you are not yet ready for. Or to grab something that is not yet good for you to behold. We all agree that cancer is bad, right? Do you know what the definition of cancer is? Cancer is cells that grow too much, too quickly. Such cells threaten life and quality of life. When human beings skip steps, when we rush to things too quickly and grow some aspect of our lives out of sync with growth in other areas of our existence, we become cancerous. We then become thieves of life and quality of life. Bubbles burst.
Cancer cells does violence to the body. Haste does violence to time, time that is a gift from God. “Get there quick”, “skip steps”, “become instantly rich”, “buy it right now, worry about how to pay for it later”. These are all favourite temptations of Evil. Haste was actually a main ingredient when Satan tempted Jesus in the dessert in Matthew 4. He basically said to Jesus: “Get it all right now, skip the steps in between”. He did not offer Jesus anything God didn’t promise Him. He just offered it instantly whereas God offered it on the appropriate time. Do you hear this temptation echoing in your own life?
Shane Wood, writes the following about haste:
“Haste seizes the fruit of Eden and assails the fruit of the Spirit. Peace is not possible when you live a life of haste. Haste is rarely gentle or kind, for traditionally, immediacy demands a zeal forceful enough to break laws, to break our word, to act unfaithful. Haste does not produce goodness or love, even as it attempts to do both…Joy fades into the distance in haste’s presence, for accepting the here and now is no longer possible since haste lusts for the future”
Haste fades joy. That is why my wife says I suck out the fun, when I get hasty on a family hike. That is one of the reasons a lot of good things ended and bad things crept in when Adam and Eve got hasty. That is also why it could be catastrophic if we get too impatient and hasty as lock-down time goes on and on. We need a remedy for hastiness!
Un-enemy Time
You know how you could unfriend someone on Facebook? I think we should think of ways to un-enemy people and things as well. It is said that one should chose your enemy well because in time you become like your enemy. We really need to scrap time off our enemy list otherwise we might become obsessed with it.. Have you noticed how people speak when it someone’s birthday? When it is a kid: “My word look at how big you got!” “If you are this old, how old am I now?” And then when it is an adult: “Don’t worry, life begins at forty!” or “You are really getting old now?”
We speak about time like is an adversary! Whole industries thrive on setting back the clock. There is a magazine such as longevity and if you dare to reach 100 years of age, magazines are quick to interview you to get to your “secret”. We envy youth and resent time. There are even more and more people that wonder if it wouldn’t be worth it to “just let old people die”. In all generations up to know old age were respected and seen as a source of wisdom and guidance for generations to come. Now for the first time, it is looked down upon. We made time a measurement of decay, not of virtue.
We need to think differently, more positively about time because Jesus has redeemed time. It is now not one slippery slope to death but a vessel on its way to glorification and new life. God is not (just) outside of time or disinterested in time. God is inside time, acting for our good. If we know God is forever acting in time and in a timely fashion, it frees us from anxiety, frantic business for the sake of just being busy and…haste.
You see time, our time is the stage on which God is the main actor. Nothing worse can happen on a stage than a supporting actor trying to take a main actor’s place. Such a person could spoil the whole experience for everybody. And that is what we do, if we try to fight time, control time and rush time.
In Psalm 31 David goes on about enemies and distress and safety until he says: But in you I trust God. My times are in your hand. Suddenly the lamentation turns into a confident hope in the midst of turmoil. David knew what he was talking about. He had to tend sheep and later hide in caves for hours on end. The realization that God has his time in His hand, gave him peace and it should give us peace.
Jesus often looks like He is too late
It is interesting that Jesus was often perceived as being a tad late. When he arrived at Lazarus’s grave, people thought he was late. When he arrived in villages, people were rushing towards him. When he calmed the storm, the disciples wish He would act sooner. Yet with hindsight, bible writers and us alike calls what Jesus did as acts in the “fulness of time” What does “the fulness of time” mean? It means just at the right, God ordained time. Chronos time is watch time. Kairos time is God’s time. We need to embrace a Kairos understanding of time rather than just a Chronos one.
A great metaphor to help us with this this, especially considering that we are on the brink of spring, is gardening. Those of you that invested in it will know that a lot of what you put in seems frivolous for a long time. Tilling, taking out weeds, planting, watering and what not. You have to rely on the wisdom of those that have done it before you see any results. But when the sprout breaks the ground or the flower or fruit comes, everything seems worth it, what is more you realize that even long before hard labour transformed into fruit, it transformed you because you invested in something without being guaranteed about the results. After the fall gardening is way more tough but who knows, maybe because it is difficult and slower, it is also more rewarding. Gardening is therapeutic because it teaches you the value of slowing down.
I like to think of Covid as something being used by God. And I think one of the ways in which God uses lock-down, is to slow us down. For a while we will see no fruit from it. As a matter of fact, we will see all the bad consequences of this in the economy, but maybe God also allowed this time because he knows that it will bring forth the fruit he wants to see at just the right time.
The difference between a sense of urgency and haste
Jesus illustrates well what the difference between a sense of urgency and haste is. The former is good and has to do with knowing what is priority. Haste is bad; it is putting your selfish needs and desires before everything else. Jesus did operate with a sense of urgency. He was always busy with things that mattered in the Kingdom. We even read that He had very busy days (like in John 6) but I cannot think of one place where it says Jesus was in a hurry. Last week we read about the guys on their way to Emmaus and there is an unhurriedness noticeable throughout Jesus’s engagement with them.
I disagree with the notion that BUSY stands for “being under Satan’s yoke”. We are always busy but being meaningful and unselfishly busy is tricky. Therefore, Jesus said in the sermon on the mount: “Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and all these things will be added to you”. Prioritizing what is truly important seems to be the suggested way to get rid of an anxious fearful filling of time by mere business. Are Jesus really as concerned with the things you fill your hours with? During lock down some people try to fill their hours with as much of the things they did before lockdown, which is all good and well if those things were important things to God. But many have an opportunity to take important things neglected off the backburner and don’t utilize it. Things like playing with and reading to your children, having hard conversations or eating healthier. Don’t let the opportunity that this crisis gives you to reprioritize your life, slip bye you.
Close
Before Covid we looked up to people who speed things up. Race car drivers, album popping celebrities, restaurants with fast food and instant loan providers. Nowadays we look up at people that slow things down. Doctors and nurses that slows down the spread of the virus. Elderly and vulnerable people who reminds us that their contribution is important because it reminds us that life is not all about speed.
Maybe our relationship with God will also be better if we stop expecting him to speed up delivering the things we want and trust him to bring the things we need in His time.
Our God is mighty slow. But He is always on time!
Amen