On Time: Chronos & Kairos
By: The Rev. Gigi Miller
I’ve been thinking a lot about time recently, but probably not as much as Mother Brenda has. I’m not sure she’s counting the minutes until her sabbatical begins, but the screen saver on her phone is a picture of fireworks.
The kind of time we spend most of our lives in is one of schedules, appointments, and calendars. It’s chronological from the Greek work “chronos”, the idea of linear time – we get up in the morning, do whatever we do to get ourselves and anyone else in our house out the door, rush to get to class or a meeting on time, work on a deadline, get children to practice, exercise, make dinner, and go to bed, and do it all over again the next day. Common phrases show how important chronos is – “time flies”, “time is money”, “time waits for no one.” Though our devices may silently keep track of time, the unyielding “tick, tick, tick” of the clock provides the soundtrack of our lives.
But there’s a different kind of time; time measured in moments, not minutes. In the Greek, it’s kairos. Mystic and theologian Richard Rohr calls it “deep time, time as significance, time when it comes to a fullness and reveals the meaning of chronos.” It’s the moment when the Divine breaks through sequential time and shows us God - eternally pursuing the world’s restoration. The author of Revelation is referring to kairos when describing God as “the Alpha and Omega, who is and who was and who is to come.”
It's hard to remember all this philosophical discourse and feel God’s presence when we’re sitting in traffic, already late for the dentist. But we can see glimpses of God’s abiding nature, even during our chronos-driven lives. The ancient Celts called these sacred moments “thin places”, places where the boundaries between the physical, chronos, and the spiritual, kairos, times are blurred, allowing for deeper connections. I entered just such a thin place of kairos as I experienced the birth of my first grandchild. My daughter labored for over 30 hours, and as we all expectantly waited for the new arrival, I felt the Holy Spirit supporting us.
In today’s Gospel, Jesus’ disciples are decidedly living in chronos time. They’re traumatized by the merciless trial and murder of their teacher and trembling in fear of “the Jews.” It’s important to pause and recognize that the Christian Church has used this phrase and others like it to promote anti-Semitism and harm our Jewish siblings in faith. Modern scholars note that here John means “the Jewish authorities” who were complicit with the Roman imperial forces, the actual perpetrators of Jesus’ execution.
But I’m guessing the disciples were not just afraid of being targets of state oppression; they were burdened by guilt at abandoning Jesus and denying their association with him. They’d heard the “idle tales” of the women who had entered their own thin places at the tomb. These faithful witnesses of Jesus’ crucifixion said they saw angels and the risen Jesus himself. And a few of the disciples had seen the empty grave for themselves. If he was alive, would Jesus reprimand them for their betrayal?
Jesus slips through the locked doors of the room in which they’re hiding and into the thin places of kairos. Jesus isn’t a ghost, but unlike the risen Lazarus, he’s not quite human either, although Jesus shows them the marks of his death. Jesus’ first words to them are shalom – “peace.” They never needed to doubt either Jesus’ resurrection or his forgiveness; God’s mercy was, is, and will be always with them. In a foreshadowing of Pentecost, Jesus breathes the Holy Spirit on them and tells them to go into the world, spreading God’s merciful forgiveness.
But what about Thomas? He isn’t with them during Jesus’ first appearance, and it’s a little unfair that he gets this “Doubting” nickname. After all, the women at the tomb, Peter, and the rest of Jesus’ disciples were all initially stuck in chronos, forgetting Jesus’ promises of resurrection until they received what Thomas demanded – flesh and blood proof of Jesus’ return. I’m not sure Thomas doubted Jesus, so much as he doubted his friends’ excited testimony. After all, why were they still afraid and hiding, if they’d seen the Messiah? Why weren’t they out spreading the Good News of Jesus’ triumph over death?
A full week later, they are still locked in that room, this time with Thomas, when Jesus suddenly shows up again. Now Thomas enters the thin place of kairos and, not needing to touch his wounds, immediately declares Jesus’ divinity, the first of his followers to identify the resurrected Jesus as the incarnate God. Maybe the other disciples needed Thomas’ revelation to move past their fears and into their Spirit-infused call.
Addressing us, his future disciples, Jesus says “Blessed are those who have not seen but have come to believe.” We don’t need to see Jesus to believe in his enduring grace; our trust in him should give us the courage to leave the safety of our own locked rooms and share God’s love. As Dr. Jer Swigert of the Global Immersion Project puts it, “We cannot keep telling resurrection stories in our sanctuaries if we’re unwilling to practice resurrection in the streets.”
God - the Alpha and the Omega, who is, and was, and is to come – has a way of breaking through the hurried pattern of our lives. We sit with a sick friend or count butterflies with a child, and we move outside chronos into the liminal places of kairos, where God is waiting. Like Thomas and the rest, we move through unbelief into belief, but since this is kairos, it’s not a linear movement. There are tough times ahead to be sure, times that may test our hope in God’s justice and mercy. It’s important to remind each other of the ways we see God at work in the world – to bring back postcards of kairos into our chronos-led lives.
Very soon, Mother Brenda will go on sabbatical, leaving behind the chronos of responsibility and accountability to discover occasions of kairos with Sts. Teresa of Avila and John of the Cross. Though we’ll miss her guidance, our St. Andrew’s community will experience holy revelations together, and we’ll all be able to share our God sightings on Mother Brenda’s return. As our beloved brother in Christ, the late Pope Francis remarked, “I think this is truly the most wonderful experience we can have: to belong to a people walking, journeying through history together with our Lord who walks among us! We are not alone; we do not walk alone. We are part of one flock of Christ that walks together.”
Alleulia! Christ is risen!
