James 5:7-8 * December 19, 2007 * Midweek Advent 3 * Chaplain Steven Stern

“Living in Hope of Christ’s Second Arrival”

I would say that sitting in a waiting room is not what any one would choose to do if he had other choices. I know of people that would rather have a root canal than have to sit in a waiting room wondering if their name is ever going to be called. To be in this situation is to be stuck in a place where you have this dead time and not much you can do to fill it. Faced with this I see some people take a nap, some people read or play hand held video games, and some people chat with other people who are stuck in the same boat.

It seems to me that a lot of people are living their lives as if they are stuck in a waiting room. I see young people spending hours in their rooms on their computers and cell phones, surfing the net, going on chat rooms, text messaging their friends. I see elderly people sitting around in easy chairs, watching TV, gazing vacantly out into space, seemingly wondering if the day is ever going to end. And in between these age groups are lots of people running and rushing around who are very busy and yet they wonder why am I pushing all this paper around, why am I making all these phone calls, why am I meeting all these deadlines, why do I do so many things for my family? When all is said and done what does it matter? What is the point of it all?

As Christmas looms just around the corner some of us feel the weight of these questions all the more. We seem to live in a world that is so frantic , so disjointed, so disconnected, so lonely, so pointless we may wonder what are we supposed to be doing with our lives?

So the thought of Jesus’ second coming again at the end of time is something we need to think about and hang onto. If He is coming again that means we need to be doing something while we wait for his arrival. We need the hope of His arrival to fill our lives with a sense of urgency and with a sense of purpose and calling.

James has some good words for us in this regard. He takes an image from the world of farming and tells us that we need the farmer’s vision and understanding if we want to have hope in our waiting for Jesus’ arrival. Let’s ponder what the farmer can teach us as we think about how we need to be connected to God and then let’s look at how we need to be connected to each other.

Some of you who are familiar with farming and crops know that there is quite a time spread from the moment you plant the seed until the moment you harvest the crop that grows from that seed. Crops like oats and wheat will take from three to four months from planting time to harvest. Corn usually takes a month or so longer.

As James looked at this fairly long process he talks about the need for patience. The farmer has to wait patiently for things to unfold. It takes rain and sun to germinate the seed and get the crop going. It takes rain and sun all along the way to continue to help the crop to grow and ripen. So the farmer doesn’t work the soil, put the seed in it and then go off to Florida until harvest time. He has to stay connected to his crop. He can’t make it rain but as things progress he needs to be around to cultivate the crop. To keep the weeds out. To keep the soil loose so the rains can soak in. To fight the bugs and birds and worms and any one else that might want to eat this crop before the farmer gets his harvest. The farmer understands that he has to stick around and be patient because the growing of a crop is almost a year long process.

Not living on the land and farming for a living I wonder if we have lost sight of something very spiritual and profound here. Isn’t the life of faith that we have with our Lord very similar to the farmer and his crop? As the farmer has to stay connected to his soil and his crop we have to stay connected to our Lord. This is also a life long connection.

This is also a work of patience. For us as believers the time of planting is at our baptism. Then as we become toddlers we learn our prayers. My grandson is content to say, “Come Lord Jesus be our guest” and then he says Amen and reaches for his spoon. This shows me that it takes time for children to understand that there is more to the prayer. And after the prayers come the stories where we learn how the world began and where things went wrong and what God did about it. And then we learn more details and we learn enough to say we know the faith and we get confirmed.

But as we grow up we see that there are many more questions we hadn’t thought of. There is a lot of injustice and suffering and heart ache and disappointment in life and we have to keep on seeking and searching and learning and growing. And then I meet elderly people whose health is failing and cancer patients who are losing their battle with their disease and I see that the hunger to find peace for their souls becomes even more intense. They hunger to find the connection that will join them to the heart of God. If they have lost the connection they search to find it again. If they have the connection they come to see the mystery of it and the wonder of it and the power of it all the more.

As we think about this ongoing need for connection. As we think about our need to learn and grow and be open to God, to think about Him, to meditate upon Him, to let Him work in our hearts and show us His ways, we need to ask ourselves where are we in this process? Did we think confirmation was the end of the process? Did we grow disenchanted with the church in our college years? Did we get too busy for spiritual things when we got into the work world? Have we become bitter and cynical as the years have passed and our hopes and dreams have turned to dust? If we are feeling disenchanted, disconnected, empty and lonely. If we come to church but our thoughts are somewhere else. If we have to hurry to take communion and then leave before the service is over are we admitting we have lost patience?

We have put God on our time line and if He doesn’t meet our time we are moving on. If we are especially frazzled by the world we live in then now is the time to regain our perspective and our patience. In connecting with our Lord, going at his pace, walking with Him every day, listening to Him, talking to Him, reaching for Him, we shall find that the rains of His mercy will come to our hearts and they will bloom and grow once more. To be patient is to slow ourselves down. It is to hear what we have blocked out. To is to see what we have overlooked in our haste and preoccupation. Perhaps in getting more in tune with the seasons of the earth, with the flow of God’s time, with the slowness that God takes to make the earth fruitful, we begin to see that what God wants to do within us will take many years and much patience on our part.

And the interesting thing is that when the farmer is patient and remains connected to his soil and his crop another connection arises from that first connection. The farmer finds that he can’t take care of his crop by himself. He needs to have others join with him to get the job done. In some cases those others will be his children and in some cases he will have to hire others to work with him but as they work together they both see the beauty and bounty of the earth. They see themiracle of life. They see one seed produce a stalk that now holds a hundred seeds. They see that the God who produces this harvest is gracious beyond measure.

In laboring together teaching takes place. Lessons are learned. Truths are passed on to the next generation. Those who are taught and who labor together with the farmer also become connected to the Creator. As a child who had to walk the soybean fields with my parents and hoe out the volunteer corn and the thistles and the cockle burrs I have to admit honestly I wasn’t seeing the miracle at the time I was trudging those rows. It is only now that I look back on that and thank my father for showing me something that my eyes couldn’t see until many years later.

So as we patiently work to stay connected to God in our lives we come to realize that we must also stay connected with one another. We can’t connect with God without also wanting to connect our children with God. We find joy in teaching them prayers. We find joy in sitting with them nestled under our arm as we read God’s stories. We treasure the times our growing and challenging children ask us deep questions that allow us to ponder and dig and increase the strength of the bonds that hold us together as parents and children.

And when those times come that our children don’t always want to hear or see what we are trying to connect them to we do not lose patience. We pray. We keep loving. We keep teaching. We know it is a long season. We believe that God will send the rains and the soil in our children’s hearts may yet bear fruit.

As I think about the hard work of raising children I remember talking with Mike in the clinic about a year ago. Mike was losing his battle with his cancer and his heart was focused on his son. His son was somewhere in Minneapolis out on the streets. Lost in his addition to drugs and alcohol . Mike wanted to drive up to Minneapolis to find his son and speak to him before he died but he wasn’t strong enough to make the trip. He felt so powerless and frustrated to not be able to do anything about his wayward son.

I had no magic answers for Mike’s dilemma but I said to him, “Mike, I’m thinking about the story of the prodigal son. One of the things that touches me about that story is that the love of that Father was so powerful it reached across the miles and I think was the one thing that called that son back home when he reached bottom and his eyes were opened. Mike, keep praying for your son. Maybe those prayers will reach to Minneapolis.”

A couple of weeks later I saw Mike back in the clinic and when he saw me he had a big smile on his face. He said, “Aaron called. I was sitting in my living room chair one day and the phone rang and I picked it up and I heard a voice say, “Dad?” and I said “Aaron? Is that you? And he said , “Dad I thought you were dead.” And I said “Aaron I didn’t know where you were and I didn’t know if you were alive.” And in that moment this father and son renewed their connection and Mike realized that all of his efforts, his hopes, his prayers had not been in vain. Do you see how much patience it takes to keep and maintain our connections with those we love?

Our Lord has come to be among us. He is among us as we connect with Him. He will come again to connect us with Him eternally. Is there anything more profound that this mystery. He is coming again. And while we wait for Him we realize that He is at work among us. This is what helps us to understand that Christmas is not just a day. It isn’t just a four week season. Patiently working with Him like the farmer of old we realize that every day is Christmas.

To help us keep this truth in our hearts might it not help if we had a quiet place where our hearts could hear and receive Him? A place where we could slow things down, get away from the noise, look away from the stupidity, the greed, the madness that surrounds us on every side?

And if we do this we will not only reinforce our connection with our Lord we will begin to see those who have lost their connection to God and see that we are being called to go to them. That elderly aunt living out her days in a nursing home, that dear friend dying of cancer, that angry and withdrawn teenager, that lonely widow sitting by herself longing for the days when she was not alone, to this person we must go and share what we know. This is our calling. This is our world. We are not trying to fill dead time in some waiting room. We labor patiently until He comes.

Amen.