The Sixth Day of Christmas: The Politics of Time

 

The Politics of Time

The Sixth Day of Christmas

Wednesday, December 30, 2020

2 Peter 3:8-13

“With the Lord,” writes the author of 2 Peter, “a single day is like a thousand years, and a 

thousand years are like a single day.”

This, we might say, is kingdom time.

And kingdom time implies a certain politics, a certain way of living together.

“In the kingdom,” argues John Caputo, “the best way to raise the question of time is to begin 

with forgiveness.”

Because part of living together is the fact that we sometimes hurt each other, whether on 

purpose or on accident, the past holds a certain power over us. And this leads to a toxic 

and vicious cycle of resentment and revenge that undermines community.

But forgiveness, Caputo observes, “involves a readiness to wipe away the past in some way, 

a willingness not to hold on to it, to dismiss it.”

“I must give up the power,” says Caputo, “forgo repayment, or give away the advantage I have 

over you. I wipe the ledger clear so that the offense is gone, actively wiped away, wiped out, 

and you are released.”

But how does this relate to time?

Well, this is where things get interesting. 

“The wonder here,” according to Caputo, “the amazing grace, is not annihilation, for what is in 

the past is still there, but re-formation or transformation, where the offense is transformed in 

the moment of forgiveness into something that is no longer hanging over us, no longer between 

us, not anymore.”

Caputo calls this “the as-if time of forgiveness [because] we proceed as if it never happened.”

“Of course it did happen,” he is quick to remind us, “and it is retained, otherwise there would 

be nothing to forgive, but it is retained as forgiven.”

The past is still the past, the harm is still a harm - forgiveness is not forgetting. We can’t wipe 

our memory clean, but we can give it new meaning.

Caputo points back to the beginning of time, to the seventh day of creation, after God has said, 

good, good, very good, and then takes a sabbath rest. 

But, knowing how creation quickly turns into a bit of a mess, he argues that, for Jesus, “the 

seventh day is a day dedicated to healing and mending what has gone astray in creation, for 

reforming things first formed in creation.”

And so, in an interesting twist, he says that the past depends upon the future, for the “good” 

of creation is “both a proclamation and a promise.”

Creation is not over and done, but is still being formed and re-formed. And Caputo says that 

we are called “to make good on” God’s “good.”

At the beginning, God declared creation good. But creation depends on - God depends on - us 

to make it so today.

And that starts with forgiveness, letting go of that which is past.

By holding on to the past, we ensure that the future will be nothing but more of the same. 

Likewise, by holding on to the future we can see, the future we can predict, we prevent God 

from acting and prevent the kingdom from coming.

On the other hand, when we let go of time, when we let go of yesterday and tomorrow, we 

allow God’s newness, re-creation, to break through today.

And so Caputo points to the Lord’s Prayer: “Abba, give us today.”

“The kingdom lasts but a day,” he says, “but that day is every day, and it starts today.”

And that’s the key: “The time of the kingdom is neither a line nor a circle, but a new beginning, 

a fresh start - now.”