Five Minute Friday :: Hurry

Mid-June 2015 along Interstate Highway 8 in San Diego, California


• Five Minute Friday :: Hurry Linkup

Intro

FMF host Kate has been participating in a study of the gospel according to John at her church. When she mentioned they're using a book by Melissa Spoelstra, I lit up because I remembered Melissa's excellent study on Joseph and forgiveness I read and reviewed.

Although Kate observed that Jesus never seemed to hurry through his (three year long, according to John) public ministry, that really depends on which gospel account you're considering. John's Jesus feels focused, calm, and deliberate, because *even* more than synoptics Mark, Luke, and Matthew, John brings us realized eschatology of the right here, right now of the reign of heaven on earth. Celebrating at a wedding party is Jesus' first act of public ministry in John, so we've got the astonishing goods that happen "on the third day" at this very moment, in this very place, and it only will get better.

John is the latest gospel, and in many ways it's an outlier from the other three that made the canonical cut.

However, when we read Mark, the earliest and shortest gospel, all the action is urgent and the Savior moves nonstop. In Mark the transitional word "immediately, straightway/straightaway" occurs at least forty times. Just sayin'…


Hurry

As I write to Hurry alongside Kate's roadway traffic image, the vehicular freeway congestion and pollution that has emerged as an icon of American haste and ambition won't escape me. The worst part is that so few of us differentiate between ideas, activities, and outcomes that need to be treated as urgent, that must be attended to post-haste, and those that can take their time, those many that fare much better if they have time to wait, sprout, then finally blossom and bloom.

The day I took these photos along "The 8," or Interstate Highway 8 in Mission Valley, San Diego, I was on my way to a noontime meeting and intentionally captured the road without cars. That probably would have been impossible in Los Angeles, but San Diego is slower paced, hurries less, and leans into its small town heritage and personality more readily than places like ultra megalopolis Los Angeles (yet the city of LA has neighborhoods zoned for horses!). Does that mean San Diegans are better at discerning whether or not to hurry? To a limited extent, yes.

Whether within our family, at work, sharing the gospel, or caring for ourselves, we need to discern when to hurry ("time is of the essence!") and when hurrying is unnecessary or counter productive.


Heaven on Earth

Along with John's, the synoptic gospels all acknowledge the reign of heaven, God's Kingdom already is here on earth. A couple of proof texts, though God's presence, love, healing, and hope fills all the gospels:

• But if I cast out demons with the finger [power] of God, surely the kingdom of God has come upon you. Luke 11:20

The reign of heaven is here.

• But if it is by the Spirit of God I cast out demons, surely the kingdom of God has come unto you. Matthew 12:28

If. Since. Then. Surely. Without a doubt.

In the Spirit of Pentecost God's reign continues with the church in the world as the body of Christ. We often don't feel the calm deliberation of John's Jesus, but I love how we're slowed down and unhurried when we assemble on the Lord's day. In words from one of my favorite more recent hymns we acknowledge:

God is here!
As we your people meet to offer praise and prayer. …
Here are symbols to remind us of our lifelong need of grace;
here are table, font, and pulpit; here the cross has central place.

Written by Fred Pratt Green; please sing it to the tune Abbot's Leigh
# # #