A podcast host recited his away message from one holiday season: “I will be out of the office until January 3. If it’s an emergency and you need to reach me, please realize that there is no such thing as a podcast emergency.” Many of us could set a similar auto-reply this Christmas.

Unless you are a first responder, there are few jobs where a true emergency—something involving violence or threat of danger—occurs regularly. While events arise that expect our immediate attention, they are rarely life-or-death situations. Yet we treat them and much else in our work culture as if they have to get done—and stat!

We mark our emails as urgent. Those working from home must always be reachable. And, most notoriously, the dings from our phones and smartwatches are designed to make us to check them instantly. 

Social expectations for these non-emergencies have us hurrying at a pace unmatched in history.

An Inefficient Messiah

It’s an interesting thought experiment to consider why Jesus came to earth when he did, without cars or the internet. If his goal was to change the world, one would think he could have used these modern conveniences to spread his message more quickly and widely.

For example, Jesus walked almost everywhere he went. How much more of the world could he have ministered to by plane, train, or automobile? Or there’s the groaner that Jesus would have had only twelve “followers” on social media. But would there be any unreached people groups today if his hearers could have retweeted clips from the Sermon on the Mount?

Like Esther, Jesus was born for such a time as then. In his incarnation, he accepted the first century’s limits on travel and audience engagement. Yet by no means did this impede his work.

Writer Laura Zifer Powell observed that Jesus’ daily ministry was inefficient by today’s practices. Jesus had a lot to do in three years, she notes, but he was not in a hurry to do it. Think of when he took time out of his day to pray with little children. Or when he held one-on-one meetings with Nicodemus and the woman at the well. Or when he slowed a pressing crowd desperate to see him save a dying girl to heal an unclean woman. 

Jesus had plans, but he didn’t worry about sticking to a schedule. So what’s our rush?

The Heart of Hurry

The United States idealizes efficiency and productivity. Capitalism favors punctuality and quantitative success. These may be positive standards, but we should admit that they are cultural values.

As mentioned, people in biblical times could go no faster than their feet or beast of burden could go. In modern Latin America, the days start and end later than they do in the U.S. In Europe, diners eventually ask for their check; they aren’t rushed from their table to make room for the next party. 

Today’s expectations of timeliness are relative to technological capacity and societal values. We don’t have to hurry.

We might say, “I’m not in Argentina. Here, being on time is too late!” Or “I’m rushing because someone is waiting for me.” Or “I need to answer this email now because if my boss thinks I’m unavailable, I’ll get fired.” These are responsible reasons to hurry. Hurrying itself isn’t the sin—the sin is worrying through it and neglecting others in our rush.

When we worry as we hurry, we trust the anxiety to control the situation more than we do God. The anxious person meditates on the what-ifs instead of these words:

Can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?… Therefore, don’t worry about tomorrow because tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. (Matt. 6: 27, 34)

Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit; but with humility consider one another as more important than yourselves; do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others. (Phil. 2:3-4)

If the hurry is a result of us procrastinating, we are simply reaping what we sowed in laziness. But when we hurry to a non-emergency, we can remember Jesus’ model of inefficiency. All that he did was at just the right time because he was in his Father’s will. 

Peter wrote that “With the Lord, one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day.” Therefore, if we can remember that God controls our lives outside of time, we may slow our frenetic reach for our phones just long enough to ask, “What is my hurry?”