Spare Time

I have always won­dered what Jesus did dur­ing his time off. We know that he often retreated to the hills to be alone, but out­side of that there just isn’t any infor­ma­tion. There is lots of spec­u­la­tion, but no real his­tory on this one. Bet­ter yet, I won­der what he would do with his time off if he lived now. Would he play golf? Was he a weight room sort of guy (some­one that loves the rush of adren­a­line and the buzz/burn of mus­cles well expended)? He might go fish­ing. I have trou­ble see­ing him as a hunter, but he might just fit right in and own an arse­nal. Would he do jig­saw puz­zles? How about play­ing a lit­tle chess?

I guess he left all of this up to our imag­i­na­tion. It has been said that a person’s true reli­gion is what he or she does with their time off. That insight is a bit of a rev­e­la­tion about things we do not want to admit. Also, though I believe that Jesus had proper respect for the Sab­bath con­cept and tra­di­tional prac­tices, I also know he was will­ing to vio­late the Mickey Mouse rules that had been attached to the real pur­pose of the Sab­bath. I know he took time off, but he also had a way of get­ting in trou­ble over it.

At issue here is what he con­sid­ered work and what was recre­ative for him. Heal­ing some­one was appar­ently recre­ative (re-creative). He did good regard­less of the petty rules. If he lived today, he would abide by some high man­ners while he vio­lated all sorts of polit­i­cally cor­rect terms and schemes. He was a man of heart, not a Phar­isee try­ing to insu­late him­self from ver­bal social risk. He would speak his mind with the motives of absolute love and let the chips fall where they may. I am sure he would not lower him­self to word games.

Back to spare time: I can see him hik­ing, walk­ing in gar­dens, vis­it­ing the most for­got­ten peo­ple on the planet, laugh­ing, play­ing with chil­dren, in an intense game of bas­ket­ball (and not using his mirac­u­lous pow­ers to win), play­ing ten­nis, and just enjoy­ing life for all it has to offer. I can also see him try­ing out new restau­rants, going to con­certs, tak­ing a cruise, work­ing on an ocean freighter just for the pas­sage, and going to col­lege foot­ball games (no doubt yelling his lungs out).

Our spare time says more about us than our work. This is not a guilt trip. Quite the oppo­site! The Sab­bath is the most vio­lated prin­ci­ple on the planet. We have all become work and service-a-holics. Our Amer­i­can prag­ma­tism has built an incred­i­ble mate­r­ial struc­ture and rel­e­gated time off to mere amuse­ment. No won­der we spend so much on com­pen­satory phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals.

I am going to goof off a lit­tle today and see if I bump into the Spirit of Jesus (I am bet­ting that I do).