JOY IN PATIENCE

Sermon                                          JOY in PATIENCE

December 15, 2013

Text:  Isaiah 35

           James 5: 7-10

           Isaiah 35:1-10

Dr. Jacquelyn L Foster

Compton Heights Christian Church

(Disciples of Christ)

Every one of us has had some moment of JOY when our hearts overflowed and we simply could not contain the Joy that was beyond anything we had ever experienced.

That moment of pure, deep love first experienced and shared.

The sight and touch of a newborn child

And the moment years later when that child succeeds in attaining a dream,

  reaching a goal.

The awe of mountain beauty that takes your breath away.

Or the very simple gift of a hot cup of tea when you have walked a long way in

the cold.

Witnessing someone you love make marriage vows when they have waited so

long to celebrate their love in the company of family and friends.

The news that one you love has come out of surgery is going to be okay.

The first breath of freedom when the prison that has held you is opened and you

step into the light.

Last weekend I was decorating our Christmas tree, when the doorbell rang.  When I opened the door I saw the familiar face of a young woman I’d not seen for a long time.  She used to live on our street and occasionally came to worship here.  We had many talks  in the past and often she had asked for money, which I tried not give her because it would go for drugs.   This time she said, “Pastor Jacque, do you remember me? I said “Yes, of course I do.”  and she said, “I saw you, in the window, decorating your tree, and I just wanted to tell you that my mother died.  She had a stroke and then she just gave up. She was only 57.  I guess you’ve seen people give up like that.”  I invited her in: it was such a cold evening, but she said  “No”.  We talked about her mother and her loss a little bit.   Then she said,  “I’m still in the shelter but it’s really good for me. I’ve been clean for 7 months.  I just wanted you to know.  I like myself a whole lot better now.  She just wanted to stop and tell me that she’s “doin’ good.”  … and she was off down the street.

When I went back to placing ornaments on the tree, I could hardly see.  The lights were just all blurry.  It was joy.

The Prophet Isaiah describes a JOY that extends across creation –

 The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad, the desert shall rejoice and blossom; like the crocus ²it shall blossom abundantly, and rejoice with joy and singing.

 Those who are of a fearful heart, “Be strong, do not fear! Here is your God.

^…  the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped; ⁶then the lame shall leap like a deer, and the tongue of the speechless sing for joy. For waters shall break forth in the wilderness, and streams in the desert; ⁷the burning sand shall become a pool, and the thirsty ground springs of water; the haunt of jackals shall become a swamp, the grass shall become reeds and rushes. ⁸A highway shall be there, and it shall be called the Holy Way; the unclean shall not travel on it, but it shall be for God’s people; no traveler, not even fools, shall go astray.

The Promise, the Assurance is life-giving –  yet if we can’t hear and hold on to the promise,  it is tempting to give up.  The question that stirs in every hearer – is “When?”  When we will pain cease, when will thirst and hunger and need by satisfied?  When will our broken relationships be made whole?  When will the conflict that tears at our hearts come to an end, and peace settle in? When will waters break forth in the wilderness and streams in the desert? When will the Holy Way be made plain?  When?  We want it NOW!    Patience does not come easily. 

James 5 calls God’s people to patience.

When the Writer of James talks about patience, he sees it as an alternative to the life of grasping and exploitation that is described in James 1 and all through the earlier chapters of the letter. It is important that we read these verses on patience in the context of the whole book.  Before James dares tell anyone to be patient, he spends the early chapters calling the rich to stop exploiting the poor.  He calls those who desire to be great to stop oppressing and defrauding others to give themselves higher status.

So James is careful that before encouraging patience on the part of those in need, he is clear about the responsibilities of everyone who claims commitment to Jesus Christ.

Yet patience is vital.  READ James 5:7-10

The Greek translated patience here in James, is Long anger, long wrath, long temper.    Patience is essential to heal the grasping greed at the heart at of exploitation of others.  Patience is the ability to wait.   And patience is essential to the real healing and reconciliation with those who have been oppressed.

Susan Eastman, who teaches at Duke Divinity School, in her reflection on this text, suggests that:

  “Patience involves … a capacity to live with unresolved problems and relationships. We do not need to impose a quick fix on messy situations; rather, because we live in the light of God’s judgment and salvation, our job is to cultivate mutual understanding. We don’t have to make this world our Zion, we don’t have to force events into a situation favorable to us, or to manipulate relationships in order to get what we think we want. Rather, we have the room and time to grow into the kind of fellowship James describes in 5:13-20. At the heart of that fellowship is the honesty enjoined in 5:16: “confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed.”

At last, Eastman reminds us that:  patience is essential to the process of becoming a peacemaker. The premature resolution of conflict usually inflicts some kind of violence on one of the parties involved, by silencing them. The patience to listen, to withhold judgment, to attend to each person’s or group’s or country’s concerns, is a major part of diplomacy, whether in marriage counseling, family life, church politics, or international relations. James calls this kind of diplomacy the “wisdom from above,” which is “pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, without uncertainty or insincerity” (3:17). And he adds, “And the harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace” (3:18).

Still we ask “When?” and “How?”  It is hard to be patient when shootings continue in our schools.  We need it to stop NOW.  Where is the Joy in an increasingly violent society?

Surely the reason Nelson Mandela was successful in moving S. Africa toward reconciliation was that he exercised patience – finding more value in reconciliation than revenge.

Surely the reason Dr. Martin Luther King was successful in moving the United States forward was that he exercised patience.  This did not mean that he did nothing!  In fact we remember his response to the clergy of Birmingham who asked for more patience on the part of Black people fighting against segregation.  His was the patience of persistent, enduring non-violence resistance, not the patience that is passive.

Advent is a time of waiting.  Waiting for the Christ to come to us. But this kind of waiting is active – not passive.  We are developing our patience, nurturing our ability to listen. It is fitting that this is a conscious time of waiting, because in our culture, Christmas is a time of grabbing for what we want; making sure that everything is just right for us.

Yet Christ’s coming slows us down and makes it possible for us to wait with God and each other, and to wait for God and each other – in expectation – assured of the Promise of Joy.