Time Will Tell

But not caring, they went away, one to his own field and one to his trading Matthew 22:5

Not Caring – The parable of the wedding feast is often interpreted as though it is only about accepting the invitation to salvation. But there is another message here; a message that strikes at the very heart of our world. It is the message about the god of time.

Jesus’ story is about men who are so taken up with the activities of their own worlds that they do not care about the invitation of the king. The Greek word is a little more harsh. It is ameleo; a word that literally means “to show no concern”. These men were just too busy. They didn’t have time to attend a wedding feast. After all, there was work to be done.

The story aims its barb at more than social impropriety. It speaks directly into the heart of those who serve another god; the god of the necessary. This god, whose temple is found attached to the wrist of nearly everyone I know, is incredibly demanding. He allows no reprieve, no excuse. In fact, if you serve the god of time, you will soon discover that he never gives as much as you need and always demands more than you have. Most tragically, he blinds all of his devotees with spiritual darkness. When they are invited to the feast, all they see is the waste of time it will take to attend. What they never understood is that the Lord of the feast is also the lord of time. Only He can redeem our moments. To dismiss His invitation is to proclaim that He is not God over all.

This world revels in its worship of time. “Time is money”, we say and we mean it. We long for lost youth, despise those who squander it, stretch ourselves to breaking in order to capture a few “extra” moments and constantly race “against the clock”. We are people “under the gun” and the trigger is the second hand. We rush through life and then regret doing so. Faster, a book by James Gleick, says it all. Time torments us.

The irony of time is that God has more than enough for everything that matters. The tragedy is that when we serve ourselves, we cannot share in the glorious abundance of His eternity of time. Greedy for more, we become inheritors of less.

The wedding feast is a time of extravagant celebration without concern for the time spent celebrating. After all, it’s God’s time.

And what about your life? Is it a life of ameleo? Whom do you really serve?