Sermon delivered Sunday, Nov. 18, 2012 (25th Sunday after Pentecost, Year B, Proper 28), at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Franklin, TN (1 Samuel 1:4-20, 1 Samuel 2:1-10, Hebrews 10:11-25, Mark 13:1-8)
The season of Advent is still two weeks away, but the Advent themes of expectant watching and waiting for the coming of Christ – both the remembrance of Christ’s birth in Bethlehem and the anticipation of his Second Coming – have already begun to seep into our liturgy. Have you noticed?
In last week’s collect, we prayed that we might purify ourselves as Christ is pure so that we may be made like him “when he comes again with power and great glory.” Our passage from Ruth (Ruth 4:13-17) told of the birth of Obed, the father of Jesse, the father of David – the lineage through which Jesus would come. (Think of how many Christmas songs refer to Jesse and David!) The passage from Hebrews last week concluded with a pronouncement that Jesus would “appear a second time, not to deal with sin, but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him” (Hebrews 9:28). As we continue reading in Hebrews today, we hear about the importance of encouraging one another as we see “the Day” – that is, the final judgment, the end times – approaching (Hebrews 10:25).
And today we also hear a story about the birth of a long-expected child: not Jesus just yet, but the prophet Samuel. Samuel is not crucial to the lineage of Jesus like Obed from last week’s reading, but his mother Hannah’s song of praise at his birth bears a striking similarity to the Virgin Mary’s famous song of praise, the Magnificat (Luke 1:46-55), that she sings after the Angel Gabriel tells her she will bear the Christ child. Both women sing of their soul rejoicing in God and exult in God’s power to bring down the proud and raise up the lowly, to turn the world’s social structures upside down and to bring hope and life from unexpected places.
And then in the Gospel passage for today, we’re back to that Second Coming, apocalyptic, end times kind of stuff. Jesus foresees the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem and tells the disciples that much conflict and calamity will precede the end times and the renewal of creation. He tells them not to see social and physical upheaval as a sign that the end is near; though there will be wars and rumors of wars, earthquakes and famines, these things are “but the beginning of the birth pangs” (Mark 13:8).
Jesus’s use of birthing imagery is interesting, especially given the focus on birth in the Hebrew Bible passage for today, and the focus on birth that will come with the seasons of Advent and Christmas. Both Hannah and Mary rejoice in the birth of long-awaited sons, but Jesus’s words in Mark remind us of the fear and pain that often accompany birth. Before the joy of welcoming a new person into the world comes the pain of labor, the sweat and tears and blood, the worry about the health and safety of the child, the inner doubts about whether or not we will be capable caretakers of this utterly vulnerable life about to be entrusted to our care. The transition of this broken and sinful world into the promised world to come will be like this, Jesus tells us. The birthing of a new creation will bring the waves of pain and fear that women in labor experience in bringing new life into this world. Just as the birthing process is unpredictable – even with the marvels of modern medicine! – as to when it will begin and how long it will take, so is the birthing of the new creation. Just as the onset of contractions does not necessarily mean that the baby will arrive within minutes, so the pains of the conflict and suffering of this world do not mean that the end is here. Jesus’s use of the metaphor of “birth pangs” conveys the idea that wars, earthquakes, and other disasters will come in waves, like labor pains, each one seemingly unbearable while we are in the midst of it, and leading us to believe that surely things are almost over, but not necessarily immediately bringing forth the new life that we are so eagerly awaiting.
Like the birth of a new child, the coming of the new creation promised by God is something that we may both long for yet fear.
And although childbirth is our dominant metaphor this week, there are many other things in the human experience that we may find ourselves both longing for and fearing at the same time. This week, I asked several friends what they longed for yet feared, and got a variety of responses. One friend said the thing she longed for yet feared was “freedom. For everyone.” A friend in Nebraska who is a hunter said he longed for yet feared “a really big whitetail buck.” Several single friends said they longed for yet feared intimacy, a soulmate, a loving relationship. A friend with three children shared that she longed for yet feared having a fourth child. Other responses included longing for yet fearing a call from God, and longing to be with departed loved ones and friends but fearing death itself.
Looking at the themes that emerged in this survey, I wonder if the root of this archetypal fear of the very thing we desire is a fear of vulnerability, of loss of control. We know that in order to experience love, or to allow for the full flourishing of human life, or to let God into our lives to guide us, we must let go of our need to control outcomes and our desire to protect ourselves from pain and surrender to the power of something bigger than ourselves. And yet, we fear things that are bigger than we are, things that have the power to destroy us. So we hold on all the tighter to those “security blankets” and defense mechanisms that ironically, are actually keeping us from reaching or achieving the things we say we so long for.
Yes, we want that new heaven and new earth where there is no longer any mourning or pain or grief, where God himself will be our companion and comfort, where Christ will be king rather than the powers of this world. But between us and that beatific vision, according to the tradition we’ve been taught, lies the apocalypse, armageddon, the end of the world. Wars, earthquakes, and famines are just the beginning of it, Jesus says. That doesn’t sound like something we want! We want the reign of God on earth, we want peace and an end to humanity’s restless warring and relief from the natural disasters that devastate communities, but we fear the conflict and upheaval that Jesus tells us will inevitably precede it. We long for the new life, but we fear the birthing process.
But the word of hope for us in regard to all the things we long for yet fear, is that Jesus tells us not to be alarmed! Some of Jesus’s most common words in the Scriptures are words of comfort to his followers: “Do not be alarmed. Do not let your hearts be troubled. Do not fear.” Jesus promises to be with us, even to the end of the age (Matthew 28:20). Trusting in that promise offers us the possibility of a life freed from the shackles of fear, in which we can experience the love, joy and peace that we so long for. When we encounter conflict or pain, instead of being paralyzed by fear and reacting as if it were the “end of the world” – literally or metaphorically – we can move through the fear and respond in love to whatever is struggling to be born. Rather than turning away from the disasters of our age with a detached fatalism, shrugging our shoulders and saying, “What can you do? Jesus told us that ‘these things must take place,’” we can step in like a calm, collected midwife, seeking to ease the pains of the birth of the new creation by helping with disaster relief, feeding the hungry, and advocating for peace. We can let go of our fear if we trust in God’s promises, opening ourselves to potential pain and conflict because we have full confidence that our ultimate longing will be fulfilled in the embrace of Christ.
Showing posts with label waiting. Show all posts
Showing posts with label waiting. Show all posts
Sunday, November 18, 2012
Wednesday, December 14, 2011
What happens when we get what we are waiting for?
Sermon preached at Wednesday Morning Prayer, Chapel of the Apostles, Sewanee, Tennessee.
The reading from Matthew this morning (Matthew 24:45-51) comes from the apocalyptic discourses towards the end of that Gospel, those series of parables about what the last judgment and the kingdom to come will be like. The common theme is that it will come when we least expect it, and we should remain watchful and be attentive to how we are living our lives, lest we be caught off guard when the end comes.
Keep awake! Be watchful! Be alert! These are themes of Advent, which invites us into a period of holy waiting and expectation.
But today, thanks be to God, our expectant waiting for the end of the semester has finally come to an end. Juniors, you’ve survived your first semester of seminary! Middlers, you’re halfway through your seminary career as of today. And Seniors, well, we’re gearing up for our transitions out of this place, with only one semester remaining before graduation.
So here’s a question for us to ponder as we come to the completion of another semester and as we move closer to the arrival of the Christ child at Christmas: What happens when we get what we’ve been waiting for? What happens to us emotionally, psychologically, and spiritually, when the object of our expectant longing and hopefulness is suddenly realized?
Sometimes there can be an anti-climactic moment when we you get what you’ve been waiting for. The day after the graduation or the wedding you don’t really feel all that different than you did the day before. Or the day after the big party, you feel the loss of all the excitement you’d felt in preparing for it.
It can also be disorienting to get what you’ve been waiting for: suddenly your identity, which for so long had centered around waiting for that day when you would finally graduate or finally meet that person with whom you would share your life, has changed. If you’ve spent years of your life working for a certain kind of social change and you actually accomplish your goal, what then? If your identity has become that of an “anti-war protestor” and the war comes to an end, who are you now? You’ve gotten what you were waiting for, but now you don’t know who you are. Perhaps this is why common wisdom advises us to “be careful what you wish for – you just might get it.”
As Christians, we teach that our hope and longing will never be fully realized until the Second Coming. We talk a lot in seminary about “realized eschatology,” about the “already” and the “not yet,” but the Advent themes of waiting focus more heavily on the “not yet” part. To be a Christian means always to be waiting, not just during Advent, but throughout the church year. No matter how many To Do lists we check off and no matter how many major life transitions we experience, there will still be something we have to wait for. We will never “get what we’re waiting for” until the Second Coming.
But the “already” part of the equation says that we have gotten what we’re waiting for. The incarnation of God in Christ has “delivered us out of error into truth, out of sin into righteousness, out of death into life.” Part of our story as Christians is that we have gotten what we are waiting for – or at least, that the Israelites have gotten what they were waiting for in the Messiah.
So what happens when we realize we have already gotten what we are waiting for? Disorientation? An anti-climax? A loss of a sense of identity? The early church certainly went through these things, and I suspect we continue to experience these responses as we get things we’ve been waiting for in our lives. But there can also be great peace, contentment, and joy in getting what we’ve been waiting for, in seeing our hopes and dreams fulfilled.
As we enter this liminal time between the semesters, we have much still to wait for and anticipate: our final grades from the semester; a visit home to see family and friends; for us seniors, the dreaded GOEs. But in a twist from our usual Advent theme of waiting, as get what we’ve been waiting for today – the end of the semester – and as we draw nearer to Christmas Day, I invite you to reflect a bit more on what we have already received: the gift of Emmanuel, God with us.
Whatever awaits us, whatever things are unfinished, however much the Christian tradition looks forward to that final re-creation of a new heaven and a new earth, we have already gotten some things we’ve been waiting for: a God who offers us unconditional forgiveness and love, a God who took on human flesh, lived as one of us, and died in order to free us from the powers of sin and death. In John’s Gospel, Jesus’s last words from the cross are, “It is finished.”
What more could we be waiting for?
The reading from Matthew this morning (Matthew 24:45-51) comes from the apocalyptic discourses towards the end of that Gospel, those series of parables about what the last judgment and the kingdom to come will be like. The common theme is that it will come when we least expect it, and we should remain watchful and be attentive to how we are living our lives, lest we be caught off guard when the end comes.
Keep awake! Be watchful! Be alert! These are themes of Advent, which invites us into a period of holy waiting and expectation.
But today, thanks be to God, our expectant waiting for the end of the semester has finally come to an end. Juniors, you’ve survived your first semester of seminary! Middlers, you’re halfway through your seminary career as of today. And Seniors, well, we’re gearing up for our transitions out of this place, with only one semester remaining before graduation.
So here’s a question for us to ponder as we come to the completion of another semester and as we move closer to the arrival of the Christ child at Christmas: What happens when we get what we’ve been waiting for? What happens to us emotionally, psychologically, and spiritually, when the object of our expectant longing and hopefulness is suddenly realized?
Sometimes there can be an anti-climactic moment when we you get what you’ve been waiting for. The day after the graduation or the wedding you don’t really feel all that different than you did the day before. Or the day after the big party, you feel the loss of all the excitement you’d felt in preparing for it.
It can also be disorienting to get what you’ve been waiting for: suddenly your identity, which for so long had centered around waiting for that day when you would finally graduate or finally meet that person with whom you would share your life, has changed. If you’ve spent years of your life working for a certain kind of social change and you actually accomplish your goal, what then? If your identity has become that of an “anti-war protestor” and the war comes to an end, who are you now? You’ve gotten what you were waiting for, but now you don’t know who you are. Perhaps this is why common wisdom advises us to “be careful what you wish for – you just might get it.”
As Christians, we teach that our hope and longing will never be fully realized until the Second Coming. We talk a lot in seminary about “realized eschatology,” about the “already” and the “not yet,” but the Advent themes of waiting focus more heavily on the “not yet” part. To be a Christian means always to be waiting, not just during Advent, but throughout the church year. No matter how many To Do lists we check off and no matter how many major life transitions we experience, there will still be something we have to wait for. We will never “get what we’re waiting for” until the Second Coming.
But the “already” part of the equation says that we have gotten what we’re waiting for. The incarnation of God in Christ has “delivered us out of error into truth, out of sin into righteousness, out of death into life.” Part of our story as Christians is that we have gotten what we are waiting for – or at least, that the Israelites have gotten what they were waiting for in the Messiah.
So what happens when we realize we have already gotten what we are waiting for? Disorientation? An anti-climax? A loss of a sense of identity? The early church certainly went through these things, and I suspect we continue to experience these responses as we get things we’ve been waiting for in our lives. But there can also be great peace, contentment, and joy in getting what we’ve been waiting for, in seeing our hopes and dreams fulfilled.
As we enter this liminal time between the semesters, we have much still to wait for and anticipate: our final grades from the semester; a visit home to see family and friends; for us seniors, the dreaded GOEs. But in a twist from our usual Advent theme of waiting, as get what we’ve been waiting for today – the end of the semester – and as we draw nearer to Christmas Day, I invite you to reflect a bit more on what we have already received: the gift of Emmanuel, God with us.
Whatever awaits us, whatever things are unfinished, however much the Christian tradition looks forward to that final re-creation of a new heaven and a new earth, we have already gotten some things we’ve been waiting for: a God who offers us unconditional forgiveness and love, a God who took on human flesh, lived as one of us, and died in order to free us from the powers of sin and death. In John’s Gospel, Jesus’s last words from the cross are, “It is finished.”
What more could we be waiting for?
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
Preparation
Today was filled with preparations for my upcoming trip. I took a day-long trip to Nashville so I could run errands, get my International Driver's Permit (yes, I'm going to rent a car -- just during the time I'm in the Sea of Galilee area, though, where public transportation is less accessible), and meet with my spiritual director.
In my spiritual direction session, I was saying how I wished I had done a better job of preparing for this journey. Yesterday, I ordered a few books from Amazon that I had first looked at back in February but then forgotten about. One of them, called Israel: A Spiritual Travel Guide: A Companion for the Modern Jewish Pilgrim, is written by Lawrence Hoffman (who is a rabbi), and recommends taking three weeks to prepare for a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, the three-week motif borrowing from ancient rabbinic wisdom about preparing for Passover (17).* The rabbi offers two ways of moving through his eighteen reflections -- one each day for three weeks, or six reflections on each of the three Sabbaths leading up to the pilgrimage. As I read the rabbi's words, I felt a twinge of guilt:
"Whether you cover one reading a day or six on each Shabbat, the main thing is to take three weeks to go through them all. Do not cram the night before you leave." (17)
Gulp. This book will arrive on my doorstep tomorrow, May 18. (I'm able to quote from it now by using Amazon's "Look Inside!" feature.) I leave May 19. What was this about not cramming the night before you leave? Whoops. Sorry, Rabbi Hoffman.
My spiritual director asked me what it would look like to be "spiritually prepared" for such a journey -- i.e., what do I wish I had done in the weeks preceding this trip?
My answer was that I wish I had read and meditated on more Scripture, and kept more silence in order to open myself to whatever stirrings within may be communicating God's word to me at this particular moment. I've done a pretty good job of the physical and logistical "preparations" -- hence my frantic day of errands today -- but I have neglected the spiritual preparations.
In the course of our meeting, my spiritual director offered that she thought it might be a good practice for me to remember to be still during this pilgrimage. My mind (and my mouth!) tends to run a million miles an hour at times, and slowing down has always been an important spiritual discipline for me. During my discernment year in Nebraska (2006-07), I discovered the immense spiritual value that silent retreats have for me. I made it a goal to spend one full day in silence each month. I did that for the rest of my time in Nebraska, but once I moved to Atlanta I never recovered the practice and I haven't since then.
Lately I've been allowing myself to go months without a day of silence, relying only on the seminary's required "Quiet Days" twice a year to give me space for silence -- and they aren't really quiet days anyway, considering that at least half the time is spent listening to a speaker. My idea of a quiet day is that NOBODY talks, all day. I don't talk to anyone and I'm not talked to either. I need the intentional stoppage of the constant informational input in order to be still long enough to listen to God. That's not something I can do in one hour of silence between lectures. I need a good eight hours or more before my mind really starts to quiet down.
I've intentionally designated several days during the three weeks to be silent days. After my meeting today, I think I'll give a bit more attention to those days.
* Numbers in parentheses refer to the page number in the aforementioned book where the material comes from.
In my spiritual direction session, I was saying how I wished I had done a better job of preparing for this journey. Yesterday, I ordered a few books from Amazon that I had first looked at back in February but then forgotten about. One of them, called Israel: A Spiritual Travel Guide: A Companion for the Modern Jewish Pilgrim, is written by Lawrence Hoffman (who is a rabbi), and recommends taking three weeks to prepare for a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, the three-week motif borrowing from ancient rabbinic wisdom about preparing for Passover (17).* The rabbi offers two ways of moving through his eighteen reflections -- one each day for three weeks, or six reflections on each of the three Sabbaths leading up to the pilgrimage. As I read the rabbi's words, I felt a twinge of guilt:
"Whether you cover one reading a day or six on each Shabbat, the main thing is to take three weeks to go through them all. Do not cram the night before you leave." (17)
Gulp. This book will arrive on my doorstep tomorrow, May 18. (I'm able to quote from it now by using Amazon's "Look Inside!" feature.) I leave May 19. What was this about not cramming the night before you leave? Whoops. Sorry, Rabbi Hoffman.
My spiritual director asked me what it would look like to be "spiritually prepared" for such a journey -- i.e., what do I wish I had done in the weeks preceding this trip?
My answer was that I wish I had read and meditated on more Scripture, and kept more silence in order to open myself to whatever stirrings within may be communicating God's word to me at this particular moment. I've done a pretty good job of the physical and logistical "preparations" -- hence my frantic day of errands today -- but I have neglected the spiritual preparations.
In the course of our meeting, my spiritual director offered that she thought it might be a good practice for me to remember to be still during this pilgrimage. My mind (and my mouth!) tends to run a million miles an hour at times, and slowing down has always been an important spiritual discipline for me. During my discernment year in Nebraska (2006-07), I discovered the immense spiritual value that silent retreats have for me. I made it a goal to spend one full day in silence each month. I did that for the rest of my time in Nebraska, but once I moved to Atlanta I never recovered the practice and I haven't since then.
Lately I've been allowing myself to go months without a day of silence, relying only on the seminary's required "Quiet Days" twice a year to give me space for silence -- and they aren't really quiet days anyway, considering that at least half the time is spent listening to a speaker. My idea of a quiet day is that NOBODY talks, all day. I don't talk to anyone and I'm not talked to either. I need the intentional stoppage of the constant informational input in order to be still long enough to listen to God. That's not something I can do in one hour of silence between lectures. I need a good eight hours or more before my mind really starts to quiet down.
I've intentionally designated several days during the three weeks to be silent days. After my meeting today, I think I'll give a bit more attention to those days.
The Kabbalists [Jewish mystics] begin their prayers by saying, 'Hin'ni mukhan um'zuman' -- 'Here I am, ready and prepared.' But why both 'ready' and 'prepared'? Why the redundancy? 'Ready' means outfitted physically -- prayer book in hand, dressed correctly. 'Prepared' means outfitted within, like an athlete or musician who knows that running shoes and tuned violin strings are only half of what goes into a great performance. The other half is kavvanah [literally, "directed intention," a rabbinic term used to describe mental devotion in prayer.] .
--Lawrence Hoffman, Israel: A Spiritual Travel Guide (18)
* Numbers in parentheses refer to the page number in the aforementioned book where the material comes from.
Friday, February 18, 2011
Waiting
Sermon preached at Morning Prayer (Friday, Feb. 18, 6 Epiphany, Year One) in the Chapel of the Apostles, the seminary chapel at Sewanee.
I assume that that concluding statement from 1 Timothy, “Do not ordain anyone hastily,” was especially poignant to this crowd of seminarians.
The Episcopal Church certainly seems to have gotten that one right! We don’t take anyone’s claim to a call from God at face value. No, we test it and investigate it and analyze it and then we make them wait... and wait ... and study ....and spend a summer dealing with the existential angst of patients in a hospital... and wait some more... and study... and take some tests... and wait... and go before various committees... and wait... and wait. No, it could not be said of us that we ordain anyone hastily!
And despite the frustrations and difficulties that this process can bring, it is a wise and good thing that our church has heeded the words of Scripture and does not ordain anyone hastily. There is wisdom in the church’s tradition and in the vetting process for the ordained ministry. In fact, a similar vetting process used to be required of anyone who wanted to join the church at all, not just those who wanted to be ordained. The ancient practice of catechizing adult converts to the faith, who would become “candidates for baptism” only after an extensive process (as we eventually become candidates for holy orders), ensured that those joining the church were seriously committed to Jesus Christ and to serving him in and with their lives. Perhaps we would be wise not to baptize hastily any more than we ordain hastily.
Waiting can be a good and holy spiritual discipline. Scripture is full of exhortations to “wait on the Lord,” for God’s deliverance and mercy in the midst of trouble. As Christians, while “we remember Jesus’s death” and “proclaim his resurrection,” we are also perpetually “awaiting his coming in glory,” as Eucharistic Prayer B says. Whole seasons of the church year, like Advent and Lent, are devoted to intentional waiting.
Waiting is a forgotten virtue in our modern culture, so focused on instant gratification. Why wait for months for a letter from a loved one when you can text message them and get a response within seconds? Why take the time to prepare a rich, wholesome meal for family and friends when you can get one at the push of a button at your local fast food restaurant? But even within our fast-paced culture, we still value most those things that come at the expense of a significant investment of our time and energy: that promotion that required that we work extra hard, the friendship that was built on years of shared experiences and hardships. Anthropologists have observed that across cultures, people value more what costs them more. Instead of catering to the quick-fix culture, we as the church should be about the business of stressing the value of waiting, of not getting what we want immediately, of putting things off for the sake of spiritual growth.
And we seminarians should be thankful for this opportunity to experience a holy waiting, as we muddle our way through the three years of “liminal” space in seminary. The good news about waiting is that it is something we can actually DO. Some of you might disagree – you might be more of a Tom Petty-ite, affirming that “the waiting is the hardest part.” But think about it. You don’t actually have to DO anything to wait. You can just sit there. Surely it’s easier to “wait for the Lord” than to “love your neighbor as yourself” or to “sell all you have and give it to the poor?” In any case, we have no choice about waiting – unlike the more action-oriented commandments, waiting is forced upon us. We can and do wait, whether we like it or not. It’s not actually hard to wait; the hard part is to wait with a good attitude, with a posture of faith and trust in God.
Some of you may have heard a saying that is popular with people of many faiths who have a meditation or silent prayer practice: “Don’t just do something, sit there!” This inversion of the traditional saying draws our attention to the importance of being over doing, and the value of waiting in stillness and silence before the Divine Mystery.
Oh, but I know, I know. There is so much to be done. You need to find a place to live this summer during CPE. And there’s so much paperwork to be done before scholarship applications are due and commissions on ministry meet this spring. And what if you haven’t found a job come graduation time?
Just remember – there’s a reason we don’t ordain anyone hastily. And the next time you find yourself feeling pressure to do, do, do... don’t just do something, sit there.
I assume that that concluding statement from 1 Timothy, “Do not ordain anyone hastily,” was especially poignant to this crowd of seminarians.
The Episcopal Church certainly seems to have gotten that one right! We don’t take anyone’s claim to a call from God at face value. No, we test it and investigate it and analyze it and then we make them wait... and wait ... and study ....and spend a summer dealing with the existential angst of patients in a hospital... and wait some more... and study... and take some tests... and wait... and go before various committees... and wait... and wait. No, it could not be said of us that we ordain anyone hastily!
And despite the frustrations and difficulties that this process can bring, it is a wise and good thing that our church has heeded the words of Scripture and does not ordain anyone hastily. There is wisdom in the church’s tradition and in the vetting process for the ordained ministry. In fact, a similar vetting process used to be required of anyone who wanted to join the church at all, not just those who wanted to be ordained. The ancient practice of catechizing adult converts to the faith, who would become “candidates for baptism” only after an extensive process (as we eventually become candidates for holy orders), ensured that those joining the church were seriously committed to Jesus Christ and to serving him in and with their lives. Perhaps we would be wise not to baptize hastily any more than we ordain hastily.
Waiting can be a good and holy spiritual discipline. Scripture is full of exhortations to “wait on the Lord,” for God’s deliverance and mercy in the midst of trouble. As Christians, while “we remember Jesus’s death” and “proclaim his resurrection,” we are also perpetually “awaiting his coming in glory,” as Eucharistic Prayer B says. Whole seasons of the church year, like Advent and Lent, are devoted to intentional waiting.
Waiting is a forgotten virtue in our modern culture, so focused on instant gratification. Why wait for months for a letter from a loved one when you can text message them and get a response within seconds? Why take the time to prepare a rich, wholesome meal for family and friends when you can get one at the push of a button at your local fast food restaurant? But even within our fast-paced culture, we still value most those things that come at the expense of a significant investment of our time and energy: that promotion that required that we work extra hard, the friendship that was built on years of shared experiences and hardships. Anthropologists have observed that across cultures, people value more what costs them more. Instead of catering to the quick-fix culture, we as the church should be about the business of stressing the value of waiting, of not getting what we want immediately, of putting things off for the sake of spiritual growth.
And we seminarians should be thankful for this opportunity to experience a holy waiting, as we muddle our way through the three years of “liminal” space in seminary. The good news about waiting is that it is something we can actually DO. Some of you might disagree – you might be more of a Tom Petty-ite, affirming that “the waiting is the hardest part.” But think about it. You don’t actually have to DO anything to wait. You can just sit there. Surely it’s easier to “wait for the Lord” than to “love your neighbor as yourself” or to “sell all you have and give it to the poor?” In any case, we have no choice about waiting – unlike the more action-oriented commandments, waiting is forced upon us. We can and do wait, whether we like it or not. It’s not actually hard to wait; the hard part is to wait with a good attitude, with a posture of faith and trust in God.
Some of you may have heard a saying that is popular with people of many faiths who have a meditation or silent prayer practice: “Don’t just do something, sit there!” This inversion of the traditional saying draws our attention to the importance of being over doing, and the value of waiting in stillness and silence before the Divine Mystery.
Oh, but I know, I know. There is so much to be done. You need to find a place to live this summer during CPE. And there’s so much paperwork to be done before scholarship applications are due and commissions on ministry meet this spring. And what if you haven’t found a job come graduation time?
Just remember – there’s a reason we don’t ordain anyone hastily. And the next time you find yourself feeling pressure to do, do, do... don’t just do something, sit there.
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