Be patient

MP - Daily Office Year 1
Readings: Ps 30,32; OT- 1Kings 12:1-20; Epistle- Jas 5:7-12,19-20



Almighty and everlasting God, by whose Spirit the wholebody of your faithful people is governed and sanctified:Receive our supplications and prayers which we offer beforeyour for all members of you holy Church, that in their vocation and ministry they may truly and devoutly serve you;through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
This prayer, that in our vocation and ministry, we may truly and devoutly serve God, seems particularly relevant as we start this year.
Probably most of us have at least a few questions about how this will work out.
Looking around, we might be thinking…
Can I relate to these people? Should I really even be here?
What if the teachers have some crazy theologies or weird ideas about liturgy?
What if these students have some crazy theologies or weird ideas about liturgy…
We all likely have uncertainties: some small, some enormous, some hanging right overhead, and some foggy, off in the distance.
What about field work and church assignments – What if people don’t receive me? What if I’m supposed to be leading and nobody wants to follow?In the epistle, James urges, "Be patient, beloved…"
But what about the future? What happens at the end of this process? What will this be like long-term? What will when Bishop Wimberly retires? Will we get shuffled off in a corner somewhere and ‘set aside?’
How can I make promises to serve here without knowing what I’m getting into exactly?
What’s going to happen to the National Church – what’s going to happen to the Anglican Communion? Am I really in the right place?
"Be patient …"
That could sound dismissive, like I’m trivializing what it’s like to make a commitment, not knowing what it may cost. But in today’s epistle, patience and endurance are not trivial.
I want to examine ‘patience’ and ‘endurance’ here, trying to get a handle on what they may have implied to their early hearers.
It’s always a challenge to convey the meaning of one person’s words using someone else’s words, especially if they’re several hundred years apart in different languages. Images can be more direct, so along with explaining, I want to show you some things.
Ed and Cynthia have very gamely agreed to help.
I’d like you to see, so please move up if you need to.

The first word for patience we’ll show you, hupomone, is translated in this passage as ‘endurance.’
[Cynthia lies down on the floor, and Ed puts his foot on her neck]
According to Strong, this word has a literal meaning of something like ‘stay under’ and it has the sense of living under some oppressive situation, or undergoing suffering….
Look for a moment and notice what reactions you have to this image.
How do you feel about it?
Does it make you think of anything? Is there any situation you relate it to?
…
How does this image track with the passage?
"You have heard of the endurance of Job…"
Job seemed to feel God had a heavy hand on him, causing him all manner of suffering. At one point, he says to God,
"Does it seem good to you to oppress? … Remember that you fashioned me like clay; and will you turn me to dust again?" (Job 10:3, 8-9)
And he complains, "If it is a contest of strength, he is the strong one!" (Job 9:19)
By ‘staying under’ a difficult situation, the word also means not giving up – and not giving in to despair. Job is neither resigned nor stoicly silent. He bears the suffering, and refuses to curse God, though he doesn’t refuse to question or challenge."Be patient, beloved…"
"Have you considered my servant Job?"
Who else is noted in this passage for patience?"As an example of suffering and patience, beloved, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord."Looking at this image, it’s not an unlikely parallel to recall Jeremiah– wearing a yoke on his neck, telling the people and the king to submit to Babylonian rule.
Becoming a prophet was not something he ever wanted to do in the first place. And even though he was doing it as service to his people, at God’s command, no one listened to him, and more often than not, they wanted to kill him.
We talked some last night with Mary about the risks inherent in acting on a call – and the way people may respond. It’s not always supportive.
The word translated ‘patience’ here is makrothumia. It means being ‘long-tempered.’ It’s sometimes translated ‘long-suffering’ or ‘forbearance.’ We describe some patient people as having ‘a long fuse,’ and this is part of the meaning here also. Earlier in James, we read, "Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry…"(Jas 1:19)
Patience can mean sticking with something or someone regardless of what happens to provoke or discourage you. It can have a lot to do with forgiveness, with keeping anger in check to allow fellowship to continue.
This is patience as a willingness to trust, even to suffer at each other’s hands and forgive.
There are some weighty examples of this kind of patience in the scripture.
Looking at this image, can you see Isaac submitting to his father? Can you see Christ?
One further aspect of ‘patience’ in the Greek turns this image of long-suffering and endurance around, adding another dimension.
If Cynthia and Ed were to change places - [they change places]
if the guard were to suddenly be at the mercy of the prisoner, -
how would that change the dynamic?
What would it mean now for Cynthia to show patience?
"… you have seen the purpose of the Lord, how the Lord is compassionate and merciful."
This kind of patience is rooted in God’s patience.
God is so faithful to us, so patient with us, choosing to suffer because of us rather than break fellowship. We’re called to be patient with each other and with all whom we serve, to forgive as we’re forgiven, to love as God loves us
[Ed and Cynthia sit down]
What would it take to develop patience like this – to put yourself here?
Do you have the feeling that it’s what we’re doing here now in this formation process - laying our lives on the altar, for God to change us however he plans, re-forming us to give his life and his promises - in us - to the church and to the world?
"Be patient, beloved…"


Another part of James’ message about patience has to do with what we’re waiting for. In the OT reading, we heard about King Solomon’s son refusing to lighten his father’s oppressive forced labor policy, threatening to be even more oppressive. So all Israel deserted him. All but Judah. Judah stayed; it doesn’t say how they felt about it but just that they stayed – Judah was committed to the promise of a Messiah who would come from the house of David. So they stayed even under this arrogant, oppressive king and served him, waiting for the promise.
The prophets – those patient prophets - repeatedly asked, "How long…?"
Perhaps we should think about the same questions; we’re right at the beginning of some new works here. It may take a while to see where it’s going exactly. How long can we live with difficulty, with uncertainty, with each other? How long can we wait for promises we may never see?"Be patient…"
"Be patient, beloved, until the coming of the Lord. …Don’t grumble against one another… Strengthen your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is near."

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Given to the Iona School for Ministry

Sept. 8, 2007

Palm Sunday ("I am with you")

Year C, Palm Sunday
Liturgy of the Palms - Gospel: Luke 19:29-40
Liturgy of the Word - Passion Gospel: Luke 22:39-23:56


At the beginning of this service, we heard about Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem. People were singing, "Hosanna!" "Save us!" In the Passion Gospel, this tune changed to "Crucify him!"
The Passion means so many things, but one thing it means is that Jesus knows what it's like to be hurt - really, really hurt. He even knows what it's like to die. One of our beliefs as Christians is that Jesus' suffering and death can offer comfort to us, but it's not perhaps the kind of comfort we'd prefer.

Passion
What does it mean to describe this part of the gospel story as 'the Passion' ?
The way it's most commonly used, you'd think passion means long, slobbery kisses in romance movies. There's nothing like that in this story, though - there's a lot of shouting and hitting and pushing and crying; a man gets his ear cut off, and a whole group of people kill someone who's innocent and a couple other people who are probably guilty, but there are no passionate love scenes.
There is a sense in which passion means love, and so Jesus' Passion also means love, but it's a complicated kind of love. Real love, though it can involve kisses, also often involves tears - pain, sadess, confusion and other very difficult things - that's when the idea of passion gets closer to its real meaning.
The word passion comes from a Latin word that means 'to suffer.' And Jesus suffered - a lot. So it's called the Passion because it's about Jesus' suffering.

Suffering
The fact of suffering is one of the most difficult things we have to deal with in life, both because it hurts so much and because it doesn't make sense. Most of our hardest questions for God have to do with suffering.
Jesus' interactions with different people in the story illustrate, I think, questions people still have about pain.
The soldiers blindfolded Jesus and hit him, saying, 'Prophesy! Who is it that struck you?' It's like they were saying, 'If you're God, you should know everything, so where does pain come from?'
The chief priests and elders say, 'If you are the Messiah, tell us.' Jesus says, 'If I tell you, you will not believe...' I think this mirrors the confusion and frustration many of us feel at the fact that God is not tangible in ways we want or expect him to be, and we have to act so often on faith, hoping in things we can't see.
Even if he thinks they won't believe, why won't he tell them? I think because the whole point of his coming here, the whole point of the Incarnation was not to tell them a message anymore but to show them, because they hadn't been able to believe the message they were told.

Two Criminals
Perhaps the most important interaction occurs between Jesus and the criminals executed with him. One of the criminals questions him sarcastically: 'Are you not the Messiah? Save yourself and us!'
The second criminal denounces him, saying, 'Do you not fear God?' He then says, 'Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.'
The first criminal's question is really a hard one. Why would Jesus, if he's God's Son, not use his power to get himself - and us - out of our pain?
I don't fully know the answer.
But I think Jesus' response to the second criminal gives us some idea. 'Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise.'
It seems to me these two criminals are both saying essentially the same thing - the same thing everyone had been shouting on the way into Jerusalem the week before - "Save us!" They, and the crowd, and Pilate and the chief priests and elders and everyone else there, and we today, all want relief.


What relief?
What relief does Jesus' suffering offer for our suffering?
I think the 23rd Psalm, which has so often provided comfort in sorrow, offers part of the answer, and one passage particularly: "though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me."
One message of Jesus' Passion was this: I am with you .... I am with you in your suffering.

There is no attempt to answer our 'Why?' with any sort of 'Because...' He simply says, 'I am with you.'
The meaning of compassion, literally, is to 'suffer with' someone. Their pain is your pain. Because of his Passion, his suffering, Jesus is able to have true compassion for us, to suffer with us - our pain is his pain. I am with you in your suffering.

The corollary comes next week, at Easter, when we say that his victory and his joy will also be ours - I am with you in suffering, and you will be with me in Paradise.

In the film, Shadowlands, about the life of C.S. Lewis and particularly his marriage to Joy Gresham, Joy contracts cancer not long after they get married. Though she is dying, there are periods of relative health, and during one of these, they go on a belated honeymoon. While on a walk in the countryside, it begins to rain and they run for cover under an awning. Joy turns to Lewis and begins to talk about what will happen when she dies; she wants him to look after her son. He doesn't want to talk about it, though. A minute before, they had been laughing, and it had almost seemed possible in that moment for him to forget she was dying.
'Don't spoil it,' he says.
'It doesn't spoil it,' she says. 'It makes it real. The pain then is part of the happiness now.'

I think that is also part of the message of the Passion.
God is with us in suffering - and we will be with him in Paradise.
The pain now is part of the happiness then. It doesn't spoil it. It makes it real.
Amen.

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Given to Vidor Presbyterian
Palm Sunday, 2007