I like shortcuts. I like to find a road that gets me there in less time and less distance. I love shortcuts, even when they are complicated. You may have to be a trained navigator to follow my shortcuts, but I like them.
Years ago, in order to take my son to sports events, I worked out the shortest route from my home to RFK Stadium. If you go down New Hampshire, cut off over Third Street to South Dakota, then down Twelfth Street Northeast and around Israel Baptist Church and the Brentwood Post Office, angling around Mt. Olivet Cemetery and Gallaudet, up past Hechinger Mall on Seventeenth Street, left on East Capitol, there you are. I love short cuts, even when they are complicated.
This past Thursday I used my accumulated shortcut knowledge to get from here to Woodside Nursing Center to Shady Grove Adventist Hospital to the Hebrew Home and back in time to say grace over Thanksgiving Dinner! With ten whole minutes to spare, because of short cuts! I love shortcuts.
But every now and again the shortcuts catch up with me. Every now and again something sneaks up on me, catches me by surprise. Sometimes soon is sooner than it was!
I found a shortcut to my doctor’s office. Her office is in Laurel. You can get there using the main highways, but it’s longer to do that. I found some back roads, including one that goes through a gravel pit and is pocked with potholes. But what’s a pothole when you are saving time? What’s a blown out tire when you have trimmed a couple of hundred yards off your travel distance? I like that shortcut, gravel pit and all. But more recently I found a shortcut to the shortcut. I found that if I turn off the main road one intersection earlier, there is a spur that will shoot me over to my gravel pit a lot faster. So now I take the shortcut to the shortcut. But there is one problem. There is just one issue: the turn to that spur is hidden among a clutter of buildings; it’s not well marked, and so I get to it before I’m ready. All of a sudden there it is, it’s time to turn – NOW! And you know, the other drivers are so nice about that! Why they just respond to my “Honk if you love Jesus” bumper sticker! But when it’s time to go, it’s time to go, ready or not. Soon is sooner than I thought it would be.
I
“Soon” is the key word for today. “Soon” is the word for this last Sunday of the Christian Year. The Festival of Christ the King reminds us that the one who was with the Father before all time, the one who came as an infant at Christmas, the one who went to cruel Calvary and who rose victorious from the grave, the one who ascended to places unseen – this same one will come again. This Jesus Christ is on a march toward the end. He will complete all human history. The day is coming when, as the Book of Revelation proclaims it, He will become “King of Kings and Lord of Lords” and “every eye shall see Him.” This world around us is temporary. This history we live – it had a beginning and it will have an ending. The Lord Jesus is coming again.
The Bible does not permit you to calculate when that will be. Lots of misguided people have tried and failed. We do not know when He will return. But at the same time, the Bible does give one clear word about the end. The Scripture does speak one powerful syllable about when it will happen. That word, that syllable, is “soon”. “Soon”. Three times in this last chapter of the Bible, the Lord says, “I am coming soon”.
Well, how soon is soon? Nearly two thousand years have passed since this book was written, and so “soon” may look like an exaggeration. “Soon” does not appear to mean soon. And yet, given that God’s measure of time is different from ours, is it possible that soon is sooner than it was? Is it possible that the Lord might indeed be on His way? I don’t read tea leaves, but this I do know: I want to be ready. Don’t you? I want to be ready. I need to get ready now, because soon is sooner than it was. And like that turnoff to the gravel pits toward my doctor’s office, it may come before I really expect it to. We need to be ready. What do we do to get ready?
II
There’s a little exercise that helps me in my daily work. I use this to help me figure out what I need to be doing. I’ve reproduced it in your bulletin. Let’s look at it a moment.
It works around the words, “urgent” and “important”. “Urgent” and “important”. Some of the things I do are urgent; they have to be done now, not tomorrow, not next week, but now. But some things are not urgent; they could be done later with no damage.
Then the exercise also asks me to consider whether what I do is important or not – will it make a difference? Does it really contribute anything? What I do every day – is it urgent or not urgent, is it important or is it not important?
Now here is where things get interesting. I’ve discovered that some thing are both urgent and important – they need to be done now and they will make a difference. If I see a child wander into the traffic, I need to respond to that now. It’s urgent and it’s important. But some things that seem urgent are not important! They don’t matter. They are products of anxiety! Like last Wednesday when I found a mistake in the church’s financial report, and spent most of the morning getting it corrected and getting the reports reprinted, all the while knowing that when you got the report you would probably not even read it! It was urgent in my own mind; but not really all that important. That urgency came out of my anxiety and not out of anything real. So the first issue is, are you doing anything that’s urgent? And, if so, is it really important?
But then there is the other part of the grid. The rest of the grid speaks of things that are important but not urgent, and things that are neither important nor urgent. Some things are really not urgent but they are important. Like shopping at the grocery. Everybody has to go to the grocery at one time or another. I’ll bet that if I were to hang out at Safeway for three days I would see more church members than I see at church in three months. Everybody has to stock up at the grocery. But is it urgent? Is it hurry-up? I don’t see anybody today who appears to be about to starve. You need to get your food, but not necessarily right now. (Oh, I must admit that on the last day of the month, it gets urgent around our house, because the coupons are about to expire, and we are not going to miss those doubled coupons even if we already have two dozen boxes of detergent and fifty bottles of salad dressing!) Some things are important but not urgent.
But, oh, my brothers and sisters, some things – too many things – are neither urgent nor important. Too many things do not have to be done at all, and if they are done, they certainly don’t have to be done right now. But where do you think many of us spend our time? Where do many of us invest our resources? Where does too much time and energy and talent and money go? Into things that are neither urgent nor important; trivial things, little nothings that while away the hours, but nothing is accomplished, not even our own refreshment. Too many of us have given ourselves to things that are neither important nor urgent. They make no difference whatsoever.
Jesus says, “I am coming soon”. And if soon is sooner than it was, what about our priorities? To what do we give ourselves, if He is coming soon? May I suggest this morning that the Christian spots on this grid are with what is both urgent and important, and with what is important, even if it is not so urgent? If we are to be faithful to Christ, if we are to live knowing that He is coming soon, we need to give ourselves to what is important. Some of it will be urgent and some of it will be not so urgent. But we always need to give ourselves to what is important. We always need to devote our resources to what makes a difference. Because soon is soon. And soon is sooner than it was.
III
I made that trek to my doctor’s office this week. I had had bronchitis back in September, and thought I was over it. But I began to sniffle and snort again a few days ago. I put off doing anything about it. However, my wife said, “Something was wrong with your voice when you were preaching last Sunday.” Oh, if it’s about preaching, then that gets my attention! That’s urgent. And so off I went to see the doctor. I drove through my shortcut, you know, the shortcut to the shortcut, the quick way to the gravel pits, because I didn’t want my voice to be a gravel pit on Sunday morning! My need was both urgent and important, so I went there.
In these critical days, we need to identify the people who have urgent and important needs, and tackle those needs now. Not tomorrow, not whenever it is comfortable, not when we get everything else done, but now. All around us there are people with urgent and critical needs, and if we do not understand how important it is to serve them, we will lose our voices with them. If we do not respond when people hurt, we will have neither voice nor credibility. Serving the needs of others is urgent and important.
John says that the Lord said to him, “Do not seal up ... this book, for the time is near. Let the evildoer still do evil, and the filthy still be filthy, and the righteous still do right, and the holy still be holy.” I hear John telling us that things are not going to change on their own. But don’t seal up the book. Don’t quit. Don’t write anything off. Not yet. There are people with urgent, important needs to be met. There’s only a little time to meet those needs.
I cannot begin to count for you the number of people in our membership who are in crisis. Some have received serious medical reports. Some have physical injuries and others have emotional injuries. Some have no job and no prospects for a job. Some are facing marriage breakups. Some are struggling with moral issues. And some are dealing with children on the fast track to disaster. All around us are people with needs both urgent and important, and we must serve those needs now.
I don’t know about you, but I find that it’s so easy to promise myself, “I am going to visit that person. I am going to intervene with that family. I am going to confront that guy who seems bent on self-destruction.” So I put those folks right up here on my grid – urgent and important. But do you know what happens? I get to the office and someone has left a message about the sound system, and someone else is trying to set up an appointment to sell me something, and still another e-mails to ask a question about something I said in last week’s sermon. These are all legitimate things, nothing I can just blow off. So I give this one thirty minutes and that one ten minutes and the other one an hour. And what happens? What happens to urgent and important?
That feeling of urgency melts away. That determination to be on someone’s case fades. Why? Not because I do not care, and not because I am sitting in the old rocking chair. But because I did not commit completely to what was both urgent and important. I did not stay with what needed to be done now and what would make a real difference for someone. I let my anxieties get in the way, and I forgot what time it is. I forgot that soon is sooner than it was.
Have you had this kind of experience? Knowing about someone who was in crisis, have you heard that little instinct that says, “You should call so-and-so today. You need to intersect, you need to connect.” When I have followed that instinct, as often as not I have heard them say, “Pastor, how did you know to come now? Your timing is perfect. If ever I needed you, I need you now.” Sometimes just hours or days before death or some other critical moment. At times like that I have gone away with a spring in my step, for I knew that I had listened to the Spirit, I had heard the voice of the one who says, “I am coming soon”. It wasn’t my timing, but the Spirit’s timing, and I had dealt with something both urgent and important.
But oh, my friends, my head hangs in shame when I remember those times I did not deal with someone’s urgent need. My heart fills with sorrow when I recall those times I said, “I’m too tired, I’m too busy, it will keep until tomorrow.” And I put off connecting with someone I knew to be in crisis. I let doing good things become the enemy of doing better things. And then the phone would ring with someone saying, “Pastor, my mother just passed away. Did you visit her before her death?” “Pastor, we’ve decided to go ahead and separate; our marriage cannot be saved. I guess you didn’t understand how serious our conflict was.”
The poet says, “I am haunted night and day by all the deeds I have not done. Oh unattempted loveliness, oh costly valor never won.” There is something urgent and important to which the Lord calls you. There is someone whose needs are urgent and to whose life you could make an important contribution. Do not let the tyranny of the trivial distract you. For soon is sooner than it was.
IV
But now, notice that there is another place for Christians to be on this grid. There is another way to honor Jesus coming soon. And that is to do something that is important but not urgent. Important but not urgent. To prepare for the day when He comes. To prepare and avoid the crisis. If we’ll do important things now, we keep from having too many urgent times.
This doctor’s office thing. I haven’t always gone to see the doctor. I didn’t think I needed to. I felt fine. But several years ago my wife started telling me that I need to get regular physical examinations. She nagged me – I mean urged me – for years. Do you know she even dared to suggest that I might be getting older? Who, me, order? Not on your life! Finally one day she just made an appointment for me and said, “Here is when the doctor can see you. Now go.” So I went, to get all those tests done and find out where I am in my health history. By the way, you’ll love this – my doctor is the daughter of a Methodist minister. She said, “I guess you don’t really need a stress test; being a pastor is stress enough!” Amen to that!
But you know, the stress test showed up a few things to be concerned about. There were a few items – not urgent, true, but important, to work on. Cholesterol count, weight, high on the list. She promised that if I pay attention to those things – if I do these important things – I can avoid the really urgent things for a long time. I can avoid a health crisis if I just prepare.
He is coming soon. There are important things we need to take care before they become urgent. John says, “Blessed are those who wash their robes, so that they will have the right to the tree of life and may enter the city”. Robe-washing. Getting ready. We need to get to some important robe-washing. For soon is sooner than it looks.
We need to do some important things for children and youth. What we do today to develop young people will not be wasted; but anything we put off doing will create a crisis. The prisons are full of people in whom no one invested very much. My heart sang the other day when one of you came to me with a list of about ten children and young people she is nurturing and motivating. Praise God for Christians who care enough to invest in children and in youth. It may not look urgent, not yet; but it is important, very important. Soon is sooner than it was.
We need to invest in spiritual growth. We need to put energy into the things that help people become what God wants them to become. I am astounded at all the stuff we spend time doing. Clubs, fraternal organizations, athletic groups, civic associations, classes on everything you can imagine. But if there is no time left for Bible study, what have we gained? If there is no energy for developing our relationship to God, what will all the other stuff be worth? What are you doing with your time and your energy? Is it urgent? More to the point, is it important? We need to commit to what is important before our spiritual issues become devastating. For soon is sooner than it was.
We as a church need to invest in leadership. Ours has been a church that has had strong leaders. I have said often that in our church there is somebody who knows something about nearly anything. Praise God for the effective leaders we have had. But many are aging, some have moved to other places, some are tired. We need a whole new generation of leadership. We need to put energy and imagination and resources into young adults. This is an important priority. It may not look urgent, but the day is not far off when it will be truly urgent. New leadership. For soon is sooner than it was.
And finally, we need to get to work on our property. These facilities have served us for many years. But their condition is deteriorating, the vision is forthcoming, the time is now before the walls and windows literally collapse. Our building cannot be repaired with patches and promises. It is important that we create on this corner a facility that will serve Kingdom purposes for as long as needed. It is important; it is almost urgent. Soon is sooner than it was.
I like shortcuts. I even like shortcuts to the shortcuts. But the point is to get to the doctor’s office and be made whole, not just to shave seconds or mess with miles. Maybe there are no shortcuts to the Kingdom, for the point is to be ready when He comes. To heal those who hurt now; to bind up the brokenhearted now; to serve those whose needs are urgent and important. And to prepare, to invest in growth, because it’s about things that are important, though not yet urgent. There are no shortcuts; for soon is sooner than it was. Surely He is coming soon.
