It was a snowy day here in Halifax.  14 came to service.  Here is the sermon.

Advent 3A-2013

2 minutes of not starting the sermon

Be patient, therefore, beloved, until the coming of the Lord.

A man observed a woman in the grocery store with a three year old girl in her cart.

As they passed the cookie section, the little girl asked for cookies and her mother told her no. The little girl immediately began to whine and fuss. The mother said quietly, 

“Now Monica, we just have half of the aisles left to go through; don’t be upset. It won’t be long.”

Soon they came to the candy aisle, and the little girl began to shout for candy. And when told she couldn't have any, began to cry. The mother said, 

“There, there, Monica, only two more aisles to go, and then we’ll be checking out.”

When they got to the check-out stand, the little girl immediately began to clamor for gum and burst into a terrible tantrum upon discovering there would be no gum purchased. The mother patiently said, 

“Monica, we’ll be through this checkout stand in 5 minutes and then you can go home and have a nice nap.”

The man followed them out to the parking lot and stopped the woman to compliment her.

“I couldn't help noticing how patient you were with little Monica,” he said.
Whereupon the mother said, 

“I’m Monica . . . my little girl’s name is Tammy.” 

 The farmer waits for the precious crop from the earth, being patient with it until it receives the early and the late rains.

Chinese bamboo is crop demanding, producing patience.  The first year a seed is nurtured and watered; it doesn’t grow even an inch.  The second growing season the seed is nurtured, watered, fertilized; and again it doesn’t grow even an inch.  Year three the seed is cared for and again it doesn’t grow even an inch.  The fourth year, the same outcome.  Then in the fifth year an amazing thing happens, the bamboo shoots from the earth and grows to 80 ft. in height; all in one year!  What really happens is that the seed grows a system underground where the farmer cannot see it; roots spread far and wide, growing a foundation to support the upward growth of the stalks for years to come. 

The farmer is patient over the seed, until it sprouts in abundance.

You also must be patient.  Strengthen your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is near.

How many of you were agitated waiting for the sermon to start?  You were patient enough not to call out and ask what-on-earth I was up to; patient enough not to get up and walk out; patient enough not to talk with your neighbour.  Where you patient enough not to reposition yourself, cough, play with your hands, or reread the bulletin?

Patience.  In the four verse reading from James this morning, we heard reference to patience four times.

Patience is often described or thought of as a passive personality trait; with the feeling that if one only had patience, life would somehow be easier, or at least not as frustrating.  The verb used by James is one that means not only patience but “to wait with patience.”  To wait with patience is not like a child waiting for Christmas, for when Christmas comes the event does not really change anything; the child just has more stuff. However, waiting with patience is like the farmer, who patiently is waiting “over” something (the seed) until a significant change happens (growth all over the place). 

How many of you would like to be more patient?

Robbie MacKenzie a youth pastor in Tennesee, commented on a blog that the two top reasons for impatience are that one: we are selfish and secondly, we are limited in seeing the big picture. 

Selfish –means that we seek instant gratification, instant everything: whether it is instant mashed potatoes, answers via our Smart phones,   or relationships requiring little effort.  We don’t have time to wait for seeds to grow.  We want what we want when we want it. 

Limited in seeing the big picture, is that our lives get muddled up in day to day tasks, things we think are important; our eyes are done, focused, and concentrated...but if we looked up, towards the horizon, what a different view.  Yesterday’s newspaper had a story that is a fitting example: the story is told of a geologist who was doing research on the Arctic glacier, he measured the distance to the edge of the glacier from a set point.  At the set point he built a cairn out of rock and buried a bottle with the data he collected.  This bottle has just been found by geologists from Quebec.  They re-measured the distance, added a note to the note, and reburied the bottle, requesting that those who find the bottle send the data to the address given.  In 1959 the geologist expected, in a time before global warming was even thought about, that the ice was significantly changing.  He would wait patiently for someone else to contact him in years to come with the new data. 

Beloved, do not grumble against one another, so that you may not be judged.  See, the Judge is standing at the doors!

James gives an example to guide us as to how to be patient. Imagine the big picture, if everyone, or even just a few us seriously practiced to not grumble against one another; to practice setting our hearts toward being mature and continue growing; in this exercise we would learn patience. 

There was once a very, very big mountain where there were lots of trees and bushes. It was also the home of a group of humans that lived in caves dug out of the mountain rock. In fact, there were two families there. One lived in a grey-coloured cave, the other in a greenish cave (which was due to the type of rock). Naturally, they were known as the Greys and the Greens.

The Greys had a father, a mother and a fourteen-year-old son called Peter, while the Greens had a father, a mother, a four-year-old boy and a wise old grandfather.

The two families sometimes ate together, when they would talk about the mountain trees and how to fell them to obtain the wood with which to make fire and heat. One time, Peter felt he was ready to join the conversation. The wise grandfather listened intently to the young man, because Peter believed that the trees were there to be felled, and that it didn’t matter if they were replanted or not because they took so long to grow back.

Once Peter had given his opinion, the wise grandfather told him this: “Nature is patient, and we humans must be patient too,” and he proposed a challenge: “I’m going to shave all my hair off, and we shall see what nature does to maintain the balance on my head. Come and see me in a month.”

Young Peter couldn’t understand what on earth the grandfather meant by this, and went home none the wiser.

The wise grandfather from the Greens waited exactly one month inside the cave for Peter to come. He knew that all he needed was patience for his hair to grow back, and to teach the boy a lesson.

At the end of the month, Peter entered the Green cave and was surprised to see the grandfather with a full head of hair again. But he understood the grandfather’s message, and said: “Thank you, Grandfather Green, I’ve learned a lot from you. You have taught me two things: the first is that we must look after our natural resources in order to continue using them, for example by replanting the trees we have cut down. The second is that I must be more patient with nature and try to learn from it.

To become patient is to not grumble at others, to listen to wisdom of those who are becoming patient, and to continue to learn, and thus grow.

As an example of suffering and patience, beloved, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord.

A colleague shared online, that they were talking with a woman who was facing circumstances of terrible hardship. She was telling of a friend who had encouraged her significantly.  The colleague was keenly interested to know what the friend had done to minister to her. "What helped me the most," she recalled, "was that he reminded me with assurance that these circumstances will come to an end. It looks so dark and unending now; I needed to be told that it would not last forever."

That is what James is encouraging the readers of his letter with, his persecuted readers are being encouraged with the hope of Christ's return and so helped them choose a stance of patience.  Isaiah’s poetry, Mary’s magnificat song, do the same thing.  When heard the words expand one’s view to a wider vision, turning one from selfish thoughts to the possibility of significant change and growth: waiting in patience.

Jacques Ellul is a cultural analyst who specifically speaks about the dehumanizing function of money. In both capitalism and socialism he says that money functions as measuring value and worth. Under this principle what happens in the world is that lives are lived from a bases of having to have something rather than being something.  For those who have seen the movie “The Iron Lady”, based on remembrances of Margaret Thatcher, the film has her declare more than once that people and politicians especially, care more about having than being.

We are asked by James to BE patient, not have patience, but to be patient.

Monica who was in the supermarket with her little girl was on her way to being patient.  Every time she spoke over the situation in which she was in, she did not grumble about her little girl’s tantrums; she spoke words to change her vision; she spoke words to invite herself to mature, to wait with patience for the seed to grow, to endure, and in the end she became patience; wisdom; significantly changed.

Go not seeking to have patience but rather to be patient; waiting with patience for Lord, for a time beyond what we can see when God will surprise and whelm with the fulfillment of the big picture.