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Filmmakers have a favorite time of day. They call it “magic hour.” More like twenty minutes, it’s that sliver of time when the sun has dipped below
the horizon but it’s not yet dark. It creates perfect conditions for photography.
With plenty of diffused light and no shadows magic hour allows cinematographers to open up their lens apertures...to shoot “wide open.”
In this kind of light, actors can open up their eyes and relax their sunshine squint.
To create the feel of early 20th century Texas panhandle life director Terrence Malick and his cinematographer Nestor Almendros shot most of their
celebrated film “Days of Heaven” using no electric lights. Pushing cameras, lenses and film-stocks to the limit, they created a film that was like
none other before it.
It’s an impulse that many artists who have mastered their crafts share: to toss out the tools - turn off the lights...break the rules...and make
something new.
It took Malick a long time to film “Days of Heaven” because he only had twenty minutes of daylight to shoot with every day. Filming heaven on earth
turned out to be a real pain.
I can imagine the 9th chapter of Matthew’s Gospel happening at magic hour. Jesus stands before a crowd of need in those few minutes before the sun
has dipped below the horizon.
The crowds are huge, sheep without a shepherd, with needs never stop. Up til now, Matthew’s story of God’s revelation has gone like clockwork.
Matthew’s Jesus appears right on time just as predicted in Hebrew scriptures.
This is Jesus’ resume, its the family tree, how we got from there to here - even the stars are aligned and pointing in the direction of the Messiah.
Matthew sweats every detail, to show us, to prove to us, that this is it. This is the real deal. This Jesus is the Messiah. Jesus gets right to
work, he teaches and cures, he performs miracles, and blows people’s minds.
Jesus is on a roll, finally setting things right, announcing that God is near. But here in Matthews 9th chapter is the first ragged edge. Jesus
stands before yet another crowd of need. He has barely begun his God-work,but already he’s on borrowed time.
He tells his unlikely followers to get ready to take the reigns. To get on with the work of healing, teaching proclaiming the dangerous, evil-busting,
unbelievable good news - that God lives.
In an instant 12 are named for this work. There’s not any time for second guessing or flipping through the textbooks because the harvest is plentiful
and the laborers are few. The training wheels are coming off.
Jesus doesn’t interview the best people for the job,and this is nothing new. Your bible is full full full of stories of people who had no business
being any where near the work of God Moses - who ascends a mountain and speaks to God almighty - stutters.
Peter - the rock on whom the church was built - was a scared as they come .
Paul - The most famous persecutor of Christians - turned out to be one of our most important God-thinkers and writers.
The central characters in the God story are people who discover that their work their true God work is simply to relax their sunshine squint and be
who they always were.
God doesn’t hold auditions or contests to see who will be America’s Next Top Follower.
God calls unlikely servants - no money - no luggage - no change of clothes. So much for tools the only thing needed for the work of ministry are
the laborers.
It’s easy to see the scarcity, decline, pain in our lives. It’s easy to feed on it. But - where is the plenty?
When was the last time you allowed yourself to have a magic hour? - even if only for 20 minutes? Showing up for magic hour can take us to places
we never imagined.
The harvest can come when we least expect it the harvest comes while we are on the way from there to here.
In the middle of things -
God meets us there
Not at the finish line
God meets us on the way
at the point where the grain has grown taller than we are and we wonder if we’ve got the energy to cut it down.
Jesus calls 12 they don’t say a word in reply they just go to work all they know is that they’ve been named.
Jesus wants us to get it - that to really be alive - we’ve got to be a part of the harvest. The giving and taking - the dying and rising.
Jesus is telling us that if we are gonna be alive we’ve got to get on with the journey.
I can get caught in what never was, what almost was - those hinges in life when i was younger or stupider or both. Those decisions that could have
made things different.
It’s easy for me to see scarcity - To get lost in what I’ve lost - I drown in what might have been.
But can you and I hear God call us by name? What is the harvest? Where is the abundance? What will you and I do with it?
Will we hear God call us by name? Maybe for the first time maybe one last time...
So often our churches are places of disappointment - of rules - of no’s - of broken promises. But that’s not church - that’s just our failure to be church.
God’s church is a place of magic hour - of possibility - of beginning - a place of hooray! God’s church is a place of welcome not “where have you been!”
The church of Jesus Christ is the place where we can maybe just for a few minutes relax the sunshine squint, open up the aperture - and let the light in.
Christ’s church is a place for us to rehearse our days of heaven. Christ’s church is a place of magic hour.
God knows we need a place of harvest and of hope, more than anything else we need that. We are hungry for that. So often we are like sheep without
a shepherd.
Hear good news: God is with us in the midst of change, on the margin, on the threshold, at the thin places that is where God likes to hang out. Not
in golden palaces - but on dusty roads with limited resources and unlikely characters leading the way.
The harvest is not a victory but a work in progress. It’s not the end of the line - it’s just the stuff that gets us from there to here.
A little flour, water, wine - these are the signs that point us in the direction of something we can’t yet see. Life with God means already -
it means - not yet. In the meantime we have this meal, this baptism, this book. We have each other for the journey.
And sometimes the only thing we know for sure is to keep eating together, to keep washing ourselves, to keep reading this book, and saying huh?
This table is where we bring the harvest. It’s our best so far. God takes it and makes it into something that we didn’t know was possible - something
that points way beyond us. This meal points to the mystery of our eternal life with God. This holy meal isn’t made out of fancy things from faraway
places but common things, brought from common life.[1]
We bring our damaged goods our common earthy material - bent, worn, but still shiny in some places to this table and it feeds us. This is magic hour
where we can relax our sunshine squint even if just for a few minutes and see.
God so badly wants for us - days of heaven.
The laborers are few, yes, but the harvest is plentiful. So come to the table. Sisters and brothers, there is more here than we can possibly eat.
