Friday, August 10, 2007

Holding up the hourglass

I have written before about how it bothers me that we have a fixed time limit on meeting for worship. I have felt lately like meeting ended just as we were finally starting to settle in. This came to mind again this afternoon as I was going through George Fox's Epistle #58, which includes this line:

There is not a word in all the scripture to hold up the practice of sprinkling infants, nor the word sacrament, nor to hold up an hour glass, to preach by for an hour's time in a place; but the vain mind doth hold up many things, which Christ doth not command.


It's not that I think that by taking the time limit off of meeting for worship that everything would suddenly be better. Rather, I think of the time limit as an indication that maybe our devotion to God is not as strong as we might think. Perhaps one day when we really begin to feel that our time is God's time and that we don't have anything better to go rushing off to, we will be happy to sit in waiting worship until the Holy Spirit (and not the beeping of watches) tells us that it is over.