Learning to Wait (Luke 21:25-36)

Learning to Wait

      As a child, I took the teacher’s word very seriously.  “Now remember,” the music teacher would say. “You must be here by 6:30 PM sharp!  You cannot be late.”

      It was time for the grade school winter concert.  All of the children in the school would put on a two hour program, class by class.  It was a big year, I believe it was fourth grade, and my class had a big presentation of songs from around the world for the holiday season.  We had to be at the school music room by 6:30 PM….sharp!

      Telling my parents was another story.  My dad shook his head.  He asked, “You said 6:30 PM?”

      “Sharp!” I said.

      With a sigh, dad said, “Now, son, you know what will happen.  We live way out here in the countryside.  We’ll get there at 6:30 PM, and all of the town kids won’t be there until later.”

      “But the teacher said, 6:30 PM…sharp!”

      “It will be just like it was when I was a kid.  Hurry up so you can wait.”

      My father’s perspective didn’t sit well with me. “But, the teacher will be mad at me.  He said, 6:30 PM, shar--”

      “We’ll get there when we get there,” my dad said.

      For the rest of the afternoon and evening, I twitched and stewed.  At 6:10 PM, the very last second that it would take to leave that moment and make the journey into town from the farm, I started to shiver.  We’re going to be late!

      Sweating, I stewed about the predicament.  Six thirty PM was getting closer.  I frittered.  I contemplated hailing down a passing semi to get a lift into town.  I thought about hopping on the Snapper lawn mower.  It was the only thing I was allowed to drive.

      I frittered.  Tick tock.  Tick tock.

      I danced around my parents, as they put on their jackets.  I ran ahead and open all the car doors so they wouldn’t lose time getting in the car. My mother said to take it easy. 

      I frittered.  Tick tock.  Tick tock.  My entire life was riding on 6:30 PM, sharp!, and my sister wanted to pet a cat! Arrgh!  It’s nearly 6:30 PM, and she’s petting a cat!  It’s the end of the world, and my little sister is petting a cat!

 As the family left the house for the car, they moved as if in “slow mo”.   I wailed, “We’re going to be laaaaaate!” 

      After getting in the car, my father did the unthinkable.  He stopped short of turning on the car ignition and just sat there in the driver’s seat, looking back at me in the rearview mirror.  “Son, trust me.  We’ll hurry up so we can wait.”

      The next few minutes of travel were tense.  I was quietly willing the car to move faster, for the state trooper to be taking a nap on the other end of the county.  The tick tock sound in my head kept getting louder as I peeked up front at the clock in the dashboard.  Six thirty PM (sharp!) was nearing!

      We arrived at the school.  It was 6:29 and thirty seconds.  I leapt out of the car, racing through the school to the music room.  Being that I was a husky child, racing through the school did not happen even remotely at Olympic qualifying speeds.  Gravity and doughnuts, the bane of the husky child!  Aaah!

      At the entrance to the music room, I stood in the doorway, wheezing from the race and the anxiety, and then I noticed it.  The clock said, “6:31 PM”.  Funnily enough, I realized that I was the only person in the room.  The music teacher also had yet to arrive.

      A few moments later my father arrived.  “See, son? Hurry up, so you can wait.”

      (Out of full disclosure, I am required by pre-nuptial agreements to note this story sounds very much like Kerry’s experience of the last ten years of going to church with me each and every Sunday morning.  Pray for her….)

      The moral of the story, you ask?  It is this:   waiting is an art.

      Christianity has spent much of its time waiting.  Two thousand years ago, Christ said he would return.  We have been waiting ever since.  The New Testament bears witness to the all too human habits that developed soon after the Ascension of Christ.  Part of the New Testament predicts that the return of Christ shall come very soon, in the lifetime of the eyewitnesses and early believers. These sort of texts are bold assertions, overzealous or somewhat discrediting to the New Testament’s claims of divine truth.  Look for the signs!, the gospels and certain other passages claim.  Two thousand years later, these texts and their predictions seem a bit off.  Still no sign?   Does this sort of text lose its authority?

      Some readers have thought so, reading the texts with a grain of salt, believing in the gospel, yet finding such passages a little less of importance.  Hence, there is an uneasiness underneath with some readers, taking the fruit of Jesus’ teachings seriously, yet having little room for the “eschatology” of the New Testament.

      Eschatology is a theological word, meaning “the study of the End”.  Some call this “the End Times”, and I personally refrain from this term altogether, as I know a strain of Christianity much too obsessed with predictions of the “end times”.  I have read some of the “classic” best-selling books of this movement and recall during seminary the height of the “Left Behind” series (including the merchandising empire built around it, including a film or two and even the “board game”).   That is the sort of eschatology I do not go near. I believe Christianity has an eschatology, a vision of “the End” that is well worth keeping, as our faith has a word for how humanity should understand its past, present, and future.   I understand the Bible’s teachings on eschatology are complex, and often a reflection of the era in which a particular text was written.  Early Christians lived under very difficult circumstances, in contention with the Judaism of the day, and persecuted often by the Roman Empire.  As I read these first century texts that speak of Jesus coming soon as a twenty-first century Christian, I understand them as words of faith that may not have come true as the first century believers thought it might in their lifetimes, but I do not discount the belief motivating the words being written.  To believe God alone holds the final word is a deep core belief of the faith.  I go through these texts in the Bible with a sense of reverence, though markedly different than certain parts of the Church more in the conservative, evangelical, and fundamentalist movements.  The early Church lived in the same tension that modern day Christians live in:  somewhere between expectation and hope.  We believe Christ died, rose again, and ascended into heaven.  We believe Christ shall come again.  The creeds said more regularly in other Christian worship traditions affirm this belief each and every week.  Like the story that I began with, there is an art to waiting, and the sacred text offers us some very fruitful ways to live “in the meantime”.  

      Reading this text from Luke, we are told to look for the signs.  Some readers will focus on the spectacle of the text (earthquakes, chaotic seas).  Luke focuses on how to wait.  Do not cower.  Stand up with heads raised.  Be alert and prayerful.  These are not habits that are formed instantaneously.  You have to practice waiting, learning the ways of living faithfully for the long haul.  It is the same faith that sustained Christians through times of great challenge throughout the centuries.  A well-attuned eschatology becomes a spiritual lifeline for people living in difficult circumstances.  Take for instance, the recent story shared by our American Baptist General Secretary (and recent pulpit guest), the Rev. Roy Medley.  The General Secretary traveled to Malasyia “to see first-hand the situation of Burmese refugees in that country.”  He writes,

Throughout that week we heard heart-wrenching stories.  Some focused on the ordeal of slipping out of Burma and the dangers involved in fleeing to Malaysia.  Others focused on the constant state of fear they experienced as unrecognized refugees who were subject to raids by bounty hunters and deportation back to Burma.  Others reminded us of their poverty and the daily struggle to exist.

Yet, Sunday morning as this rag-tag band of Baptist refugees gathered to worship, they began their service with a gospel song, long-familiar to me:  “Count Your Blessings, name them one by one . . . count your many blessings see what God has done.”  Tears filled my eyes.

The General Secretary shares this memory with the denominational family as part of a letter celebrating the civic holiday of Thanksgiving, yet I cannot help but hear the Luke reading resonating with this reflection as well.  Luke’s first audience would have taken strength from the language of the Son of Man coming to bring the decisive word to a violent world that they knew all too well.  Eschatology is like the refugees, a people able to sing of a faith that empowers and strengthens them, a people who live with patience and certainty that no matter what, God will be with them.

The Bible’s teachings on eschatology are quite simply a message of radical hope and abiding trust.  I keep thinking back to the experience of friends who live in the South, or the southern U.S. states.  Talk about life long enough, and you will hear complaints of kudzu, a weed vine infamous for its ability to grow anywhere, and most often, in the oddest places.  Eschatology, in its truest, and I would say, most biblical of senses, is like kudzu: so tenacious, so full of life that you cannot keep it under control.

On this first Sunday of Advent, we remember that Christ came as the little babe of Bethlehem, yet the gospel text is always eschatological.  You cannot escape the other meaning of “Advent” for the Church.  We proclaim that Christ shall come again.  The texts call us to remember our faith has a remarkable strength, found not in obsessing about the future, but in the quiet strength of waiting.