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Foundry United Rev. |
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“Until Christ Comes…Wait” Sunday, November 25,
2007 |
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Isaiah 40: 28-31
Rev. |
Advent,
which begins next Sunday, is the season of waiting. In terms of the biblical
drama, it is a reminder of the generations of the faithful who waited for a
messiah to be born and who died never having seen the fulfillment of the
promise they believed in. But
waiting is much more than a season of the Christian year. In fact, each of
the seasons of the Christian year actually focuses on aspects of life that
are part of our experience of life all year long and all life long. The
seasons of the Christian year are times we focus on fundamental aspects of
universal human experience. We lift them up for a time to pay attention to
them, but the reality of them is with us year long and life long. So
during the Advent season we focus our attention on waiting, but waiting is
not just an Advent experience. It is a part of life many of us find difficult.
The
most clear-cut experiences of waiting may be at the beginning and the end of
life. There is no way to hurry a pregnancy…and we would not want to. The new
life that is coming into being inside a mother’s womb needs time to grow
slowly and to take shape and form. Parents-to-be can eat right and exercise
and anticipate but, really, there is not much else to do but to wait. We
would not want to not wait. And any
of us who have sat next to the bed of a loved one who is approaching the end
of life knows that this too is a matter of waiting. You can be with someone
in the last hours of their life; you can make them as comfortable as
possible; you can try to communicate your love; but really there is not much
else to do but to wait. Even in
those aspects of life over which we like to think we have greater control,
there is an element of waiting. Graduating
from school involves a lot of study, work, writing, achieving, but there is
an element of graduating that is just waiting for graduation day to come. You
can complete the work, but you still need to wait. You can
do your job well in anticipation of the next thing you anticipate doing; you
can work hard and excel; you can position yourself but there is still an
aspect of waiting until the next opportunity or challenge appears. When
illness comes, you can go to the doctor, take medicine, change your life to
become healthier, but you still need to wait for health to come. You can
work for justice in the world; you can organize and press day and night for
some element of injustice to be corrected; you can give it everything you
have, but you will still need to wait for justice to come. There
are some situations in life when it seems as though the only thing we can do
is wait…we have little or no control over what will happen. But even in those
situations of life where we like to think that we are in control, we are
never fully in control and there is a part of even these aspects of life that
require us to wait. This is
especially true in matters of the heart…there is no healing, no trust, no
forgiveness, no hope, no love that doesn’t require waiting. No healing, no
trust, no forgiveness, no hope, no love that doesn’t require us to wait for
it. I
suppose some of us are better at waiting than others. Some of us are not so good
at waiting. This is
the time of the year when clergy are asked by our bishop to do our annual
evaluations. One of the tools the bishop has suggested we use as part of our
self-evaluation is the book Now…Discover
Your Strengths put out by the I took it again this year and
one of the strengths it identifies for me is called “activator.” The two
sentence description for this so-called strength is: “People strong in the
Activator theme can make things happen by turning thoughts into action. They are often impatient.” A
lot of us who are get-things-done, action-and-results-oriented, a lot of us
who find our way to I’ll
never forget the story the Washington
Post wrote about the former pastor of National Presbyterian Church Craig
Barnes several years after he had become the church’s pastor.[ii]
He talked about the experience of being a get-things-done,
action-and-results-oriented person coming to be the pastor of a congregation
of get-things-done, action-and-results-oriented people. He said that he
realized one day that he was equipped with just the right neurosis to pastor
a church in Shortly before he became the pastor of
National Pres, Barnes was diagnosed with an illness that sapped his strength.
He couldn’t drive ministry the way he used to. He had to learn how to do ministry
in a new way. He had to learn that he was not fully in control of his
ministry, his success, or of God. I think he had to learn how to wait for
others and how to wait for God. Many of us, I suspect, need to learn how
to wait. Waiting is hard. Waiting makes us feel
weak and impotent. It is a harsh reminder of our limitedness. It is a
reminder of our need for others. It is a reminder of our need for God. Impatience is an expression of our
longing for wholeness and justice to come, but it can also be an expression
of faithlessness and, frankly, arrogance. It is as though the universe has to
move according to our schedule and expectations. It is as though healing and
justice and good were dependent upon us rather than woven into the fabric of
God’s creation. It is as though we did not trust God. Waiting is a part of faith, which is
finally trust. Perhaps the reason so many of us find waiting so difficult is
because we really aren’t very trusting…not trusting of others, not trusting
of the world, not trusting of God, not even really trusting of ourselves. The prophet Isaiah says that waiting can
be a source of strength. He writes: “Those who wait for the Lord
shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they
shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.” (Isaiah 40: 31) Is it possible that the reason we are
often so weak and ineffectual is because we are operating at the furthest
edges of our own capabilities and beyond rather than waiting for the movement
of the Spirit of God in our world and in our lives. I was eating with family members at a
restaurant this week, a new restaurant recently opening by a family of
immigrants to the I wonder if we are sometimes like this
with God: so eager, so driven, so wanting to succeed, wanting to do well…that
we unnecessarily wear ourselves out and thoughtlessly irritate God in the
process. Being attuned to God, moving in tune with
divine rhythms, paying attention and waiting, this renews our strength so
when the moment is right we can mount up with wings like eagles and we can
persevere for the long haul and run and not be weary.
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