Today’s commentary is light and unimportant. More correctly put, it is seemingly light and unimportant. I am going to talk about punctuality. That’s right, punctuality.
Everybody has friends. Some of them are always on time. One member of my Bible study is so predictably punctual that if he is not there by 7:00 on the dot we know he will not be able to make it at all that evening. Others can be counted on to be tardy to every single event.
I was a campus minister for some twenty years, which accounts for many of my human behavior observations. I’ll never forget the time I surprised my parishioners with an entire sermon on punctuality. It was fun to watch the looks on their faces when I did not ask them to turn to Romans or Galatians. To assure the startled group that my subject matter was more important than one might think, I reminded them (a group of young marrieds mostly, many of whom had me officiate at their weddings) how important their wedding day was.
“Next to the day you gave your life to Christ, “ I said. “This was the most important day of your life and many of your dearest friends missed most, if not all, of the ceremony because they couldn’t drag their bones out of the house on time. How did that make you feel? Or how many Bible Studies and meetings are interrupted by those who roll in at any old time, disrupting the teaching by turning to somebody immediately, asking what they missed or what chapter we were on?”
That’s what I said to my congregation. But if you aren’t religious, I have no desire to leave you out. Have you noticed that when you go to a movie somebody always comes in late? Generally speaking, the later they are, the noisier they are. You’re trying to watch the movie while some yutz mumbles, bumbles and stumbles his way in, or some mother tries to quiet her children as they look for a seat. “Excuse me, excuse me. Pardon me, pardon me.”
Before I continue, yes I’m aware that one can never control every circumstance, so naturally there are times when all of us are late. I’m talking only about those who make it a habit. Frankly, I do not even consider it a problem when a person is late by only 5 or 10 minutes. Unfortunately, the lapsed time is usually a great deal longer. Making people wait, shows inconsiderateness at the very least, and causes terrific inconvenience at the very most.
I did campus ministry for 5 years in Santa Barbara. Several times a year we went away on weekend retreats. Students would meet at our host church, where we would all get on a bus together. Many of the students were consistently a whole hour late for the rendezvous. As the years went by, I decided to be strategic. I announced that we were departing an hour earlier than we really needed to leave. If I felt we had to be on the road by 4:00, I told people to meet at the church at 3:00. Pretty smart, huh? Not really. The whole thing backfired in my face. Sooner or later, word began to spread, “When Bob says 3:00, that means we aren’t really leaving until 4:00. So I’ll just get there at 4:00.”
But because this was a person who always ran an hour late, it meant that they arrived at 5:00! Meanwhile, our newest students showed up at 3:00. Dumb kids. They just didn’t know any better. They figured that if I said 3:00 we were going to leave at 3:00. Now they had to wait around until 5:00.
I realize that people do not get out of bed, look at themselves in the mirror and say, “I think I’ll be late for all important events.” True, one might make it a point to be fashionably late at a party, but with important commitments, nobody is going out of their way to make a poor showing. With this in mind, I want to suggest that as human beings, we are creatures of habit and we can just as easily develop good habits. The only reason we don’t, is that we are telling ourselves we can’t.
During this same era of campus ministry in Santa Barbara, one of my assistant staff was always showing up 15 minutes late for our meetings. OK, that’s not as bad as an hour, but since he was a leader and an example, I felt I needed to broach the subject with him.
“Would you say you are disciplined or undisciplined where punctuality is concerned,” I asked .
“Well, I guess your going to tell me that I am undisciplined.”
“Not so,” I said. “As a matter of fact, you are very disciplined. You show up at our meetings exactly 15 minutes late every single week. It takes discipline to show up at the same time on all occasions. What you need to do is harness this same discipline and be there on time. If you can make it by 7:15 you can just as easily make it by 7:00.”
All right. Maybe not the most important subject in the world, but it is important. Somebody had to say something. It may as well be me.
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