Impatience: How can this be?

Mark 13:24-37, Isaiah 64:1-9, Corinthians 1:3-9

Impatience is something I'm rather good at and I'm impatient whether the anticipated outcome is good or bad. If it is getting time to have a baby (I've just been teaching SME SS, where that happens rather frequently!), I'd just as soon the waiting be over. If I'm going to need to apologize to someone I've wronged, I'd like it to happen quickly so we can move on in the relationship. I tend to need lists of accomplishments at the end of the day.

So, I've never been particularly good at Advent. Advent is a time of waiting, of watching, of listening, rejoicing and wondering. It is a time to sit still and let God do. Me--I'd rather be out doing the doing. But over the last years, God has encouraged me to sit and watch and listen.

Advent is an awkward, between-the-times time. We are waiting for the birth of a Savior, but we know most of the details of that birth better than we know the details of our own. What we are really waiting for, watching for, is the second coming of Jesus. Advent is the time we bring these two waitings together: the well-known and the unknown.

The passages in Mark 13 assure us that there will be a second coming. This second coming will be so enormous and so complete that the very earth and heavens we now know will pass away. However, this passage makes clear, it is not for us to know when, but to know who is in charge and to watch for the signs.

You know, as a church, as human beings, we're not very good at watching for the signs of God among us. As we read the new testament, including this passage from Mark, we notice that the church is quite often asleep, not noticing at all what God is doing. When Jesus was struggling in the garden, were humans like us, the disciples, able to stay awake and pray? Did the disciples have any idea how important the night's events would be or how to react? When Peter got out of prison and knocked on the door, was the group expecting him? No, although they were praying for his release, they couldn't believe he was on the door step. Sleep, sleep, we humans are constantly asleep. And so Jesus, in Mark, knowing us full well, repeats, "keep awake." "Keep awake." "Keep awake."

Now there are many ways we can wait for the much promised second coming. Our opening prayers and the symbol on the front of the bulletin are evidence of one way, the way of anguish and wailing, "O, Lord, how can this be?" I'll admit, this way of waiting was not one I could identify with very well until. . . well.. .until you sent me to Haiti. You, as a congregation, almost exactly four years ago, sent me down with a Christian Peacemaker Team mission to find out what the Haitian people had to say to Oak Grove. As I moved among the people hiding because of the desperate state of that country, what I heard was this cry, "How can God have left us alone like this? Where is the world community? Where is the world wide church?" For the first time in my life, I understood the call of people for God to come. I came to understand what Advent is all about, this desperate need for God to tear open the heavens and come down and put things to rights. And so, in the passages in Isaiah and the Psalms, from which our opening words of worship come, we hear that desperate longing for God to come and rescue us from our enemies. So, one way of waiting for God is in deep despair.

Another way is evident in the Corinthians passage. I can identify much more with this passage as Paul writes to a congregation. Paul gives thanks for the many gifts the congregation has been given so that the testimony of Christ has been strengthened among them.

But in his letters, Paul often uses these heart-warming opening words of thanksgiving to point out the problems he will soon be addressing. And it isn't very far into the letter when Paul accuses the Corinthians of being too proud of their spiritual gifts. In chapter four he says, "don't be puffed up in favor of one against another." and "don't boast." And then, if we read further in the letter, Paul advices the Corinthians about how these gifts should be used to build up the body of believers. Paul is quite clear: waiting for the coming of the Lord did not give them an excuse for separation from the world and its needs. We might say the Corinthians were waiting the second coming of Jesus with smug superiority, with the feeling that they had it all together, that Christ had already given gifts of his presence which meant that he certainly would return soon. No, Paul says, patience; there is more to come. Wake up and watch. Don't get impatient or complacent. Watch. Like the Corinthians, we also need reminders of what God has already done among us and the encouragement to stand on tiptoes waiting to see what else God plans to do with us.

This complacency the Corinthians had--you know, it could easily kill the message of the gospel. And part of what Paul says in his letter can easily be applied to us--"you've got good news! Go out and share it! Have some urgency! Get moving!"

And this urgency brings us back to the refrain in the Mark passage. It brings us back to the good news that God wants to bring us a completely new life, wants to do away with what is and bring something better. But we--we want to just fix up what is a tiny bit better and then continue on. We're like a woman whose car was stalled at an intersection.
(Story from David McCasland, left out for copy right reasons. So very, very sorry!)

No, for Mark, the gospel isn't just a jiggling of the wires. It's a new life that God brings, indeed a new world. And, what people like me don't want to hear--God is bringing it. We just get to watch and wait and see it happen. People like me want to make it happen.

Which makes me wonder what type of God we envision? One who can only accomplish what we help God to do? Then of course, we are either in despair, because we know we just can't do it all or do it well enough or even begin to work in the right direction. Or we are smug--we are the instruments of God's design. WE know what God wants done and we're going to be sure to do it.

Instead, Advent is a time of knowing that God is going to do something so different, so revolutionary, than what anyone expects, that we should just watch the signs and wait. And wait. But watch.

The meaning of Advent the combination of these texts gives us is that the future is God's and our fate is God's. This is our hope, our only hope, our best, last hope. We needn't wait in deep despair, thinking we have to make everything turn out right. We shouldn't wait with smug superiority, assuming we are put here to bring about God's kingdom. But we are to watch for the signs, read the signs, and, as we come to understand what the signs mean for us, repent and prepare for Christ's coming.

Our task, as a community, is to keep alert, to keep watching for the signs of God's coming kingdom--as individuals, as families, as SS classes, as a congregation: what signs of God's coming do we see? Often, at New Year's, people who believe in taking stock of what has been and how that might lead to what might be, look back over their lives. Let's do that now, during Advent, as the people of God. What signs do we see of God's work among us? What is God trying to teach Oak Grove? What is God trying to get through to the people we live with? What is God trying to tell each of us this Advent? Watch, listen, get rid of your impatience. Don't be asleep.

Since last Easter, I've been reading C.S. Lewis' Narnian tales to the children. In The Silver Chair, the children are given signs to help them understand the important events they will experiencing. And they are told to repeat these signs to each other every night before they go to sleep. But they become complacent, certain that they can skip one night when they are extremely tired. Soon they miss several nights in a row. It's not long until the signs are only a dim memory and they have stopped watching. They lose precious time, make great trouble for themselves and come close to bungling their entire mission because they have stopped watching for the signs. Perhaps, this is the story of our churches today?

Seems like the next point in this sermon ought to be what the signs of God moving among God's people are. So we all can better be watching for these signs. But that will have to be your job, to search the scriptures and find what it is we should be watching for. I'll give you a hint, however, as to where I think you'll find some answers. Check Jesus' inaugural address in Luke 4.

Now, when we read the whole book of Mark, over and over we notice that to keep alert, that to watch, is to recognize the signs of God's movement in the world and respond by repentance. So, in this Advent season, be alert, awake and ready and don't be diverted by the cares of this world, the deceitfulness of riches, the complications of life. All of these are incredibly present in the rushed-preparing-for-Christmas season the world gives us.

Let's us, the people of God, instead get ready for the changes to come with Christ. Let us prepare anew for this salvation time. Let us use this time to repent. But then since I just can't stay completely away from doing, let's also stay awake by joining with the signs of God's movement toward a new world. With neither despair or superiority, let's call one another to participate with God in the new heavens and the new earth!