January 20, 2008

 

Scriptures:     Isaiah 49:1-7

                        John 1:29-42

                        I Corinthians 1:1-9

 

            Little Benjamin sat down to write a letter to God asking for a little baby sister.  He started the letter out:  Dear God, I've been a very good boy.  . . .  He stopped, thinking, "No, God won't believe that."  He wadded up the paper, threw it away and started again:  Dear God, most of the time I've been a good boy. . . .  He stopped in the middle of the line, again thinking, "God won't be moved by this," so into the trash can went the wad of paper.

 

            Benjamin went into the bathroom, grabbed a big terrycloth towel off the bar, brought it into the living room and laid it on the couch.  Then he went to the fireplace mantel, reached up and brought down a statue of the Madonna, the mother of Jesus, that he had eyed many times.

 

            Benjamin placed the statue in the middle of the towel, gently folded over the edges, and placed a rubber band around the whole thing.  He brought it to the table, took another piece of paper and begins writing his third letter to God:  Dear God, if you ever want to see your mother again. . . .  Benjamin wanted God to act.  He wanted God to act now!  We get like that sometimes.

 

            Members of the early church got that way at times.  They wanted Christ to come back for them.  He said He would return and they wanted it to happen now.  It was not easy to be Christian in their world.  They found solace in the thought that someday Christ would return and their faithfulness under fire would be vindicated.  In the meantime all they could do was "wait," as the Apostle Paul put it for the "revealing of the Lord Jesus Christ."  Sometimes that is all we can do as well.

 

            Most of us do not like to wait.  One guy said, "I need to take a lesson in patience.  Do you know where I can take a crash course?"  I believe that pretty much describes where most of us are in life.  Patience is another way to talk about waiting.  Here a couple of quotes—picked from the "Quote Garden:"

 

            How can a society that exists on instant mashed potatoes, packaged cake mixes, frozen dinners, and instant cameras teach patience to its young?  (Paul Sweeney).

 

            One moment of patience may ward off great disaster.  One moment of impatience may ruin a whole life.  (Chinese Proverb).

            For a few moments I want us to consider what it takes for us post-modern Christians to experience waiting in a way that helps us rather than hurts.  Attitude is a key factor.  It is always interesting to me, as I look at Paul's letters, how the apostle takes on or takes issue with prevailing attitudes in a particular congregation.  He either encourages or admonishes depending on the situation.  There is a little of both in I Corinthians.

 

            What did these Christians in Corinth have to do as they waited?  What must we do when we wait?  The first thing that must be done is to admit there are some things that are not under our control.  Most of us would like to believe that we are in control.  We imagine that we are masters of our destinies.  If we work hard enough, if we are sufficiently prepared, if we just concentrate, we can make life work.  And we can—to a point!  There are some things, however, that can't be hurried:  recuperation from surgery, the grief process, a young person learning responsibility.  What did Phillips Brooks say in a moment of fitful agitation?  "I'm in a hurry but God is not."  That, my friends, takes humility to accept.  Since humility is not one of our strengths, we work ourselves into a frenzy over things that only time can remedy.

 

            Children are often more patient than grown-ups.  Don Edwards, a newspaper columnist, wrote of the little fellow standing at the bottom of a department-store escalator.  Intently looking at the handrail, the small boy would not take his eyes away.  A salesperson asked, "Are you lost?"  "Nope," came the reply, "I'm waiting for my chewing gum to come back."

 

            The ability to wait is one of those child-like qualities that say, "Hey, there are some things in life I cannot control.  But Someone is in control."  It takes humility to wait.

 

            It takes Faith to wait as well.  Faith is the conviction that there is One who is in control Whose nature is Love.

 

            Sometimes that is a faint hope to hold on to.  Fatigue and desperation suggest:  "throw in the towel; give up."  How often we need to remember the words of the psalmist:  "Keep company with God, get in on the best.  Open up before God, keep nothing back; He'll do whatever needs to be done."  (37:4, 5 The Message).  But we are in a hurry and God is not!

 

            The lives of Christian workers in the past seem to verify this truth.  Take abolitionist, Wilber Wilberforce, for example.  It was when he was on his deathbed, exhausted from his nearly fifty-year campaign against the practice of slavery that the British Empire finally abolished it.  Martin Luther King, in his I HAVE A DREAM speech saw the Promised Land but his death by assassination kept him from experiencing its fullness.

 

            One writer observed, "The principal part of faith is patience."  The Christians at Corinth and the Christians at St. Peter's share the same need:  to wait upon the Lord.  But you know it takes humility to do that and it takes a lot of faith as well.

 

            Finally, the right kind of waiting can be a creative strategy for dealing with life's disappointments.  Here is a story from Guideposts I'm sure you have heard before.  It is so right for today's message.

 

            It was the day after Easter.  The pastor paused for a moment at the top of the steps from his church to the avenue, now crowded with people rushing to their jobs.  Sitting in her usual place inside the small archway was the old flower lady.  At her feet corsages and boutonnieres were spread out on a newspaper.

 

            The flower lady was smiling, her wrinkled face alive with joy.  The pastor started down the stairs, then on an impulse turned and picked out a flower.  As he put it in his lapel, he said, "You look happy this morning."  "Why not?  Everything is good," she answered.  She was dressed so shabbily and seemed so very old that her reply startled him.  "No troubles?" he responded.  "You can't reach my age and not have troubles," she replied.  "Only it's like Jesus and Good Friday."  She paused for a moment.  "Yes," prompted the pastor.  "Well, when Jesus was crucified on Good Friday, that was the worst day for the whole world.  And when I get troubles, I remember that.  And then I think of what happened only three days later—Easter and our Lord arising.  So when I get troubles, I've learned to wait three days—and somehow everything gets all right again."  And she smiled good bye.

 

            The old flower lady's advice would help many of us:  "Give God a chance to help—wait three days."  What did the psalmist say?  "Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord."  (Psalm 27:14 The Message).  In fact, the word wait appears 106 times in the Scriptures.  In our personal lives we find ourselves waiting for answers, waiting for direction.  In our life together as a faith community, we are waiting for answers, waiting for direction.  At this point are we that much different than the early church the Apostle Paul writes to?  I think not!  Like those early Christians and like the early church, we can only wait, watch, and work.  Such waiting requires humility and faith simply to persevere.  Sometimes it is the best and most creative way to respond to difficult situations.  "Remember Jesus and Good Friday," said the old flower lady, "give God a chance to help—wait three days."

 

            Even as the early church waited for the revealing of the Lord Jesus Christ, in a very spiritual sense, we wait to see Him revealed in our midst as well.  Amen.