Today, Stéphane Forget focused on this phrase from the Gospel according to John: "How long will you keep us in suspense" (10:24)? While these words are spoken by Jesus' detractors, they nevertheless reach into the depths of our hearts as we, too, ask 'how long?'
We all experience hardship and suffering in our lives, and we find ourselves asking God: how long will these troubles beset me? How long, O Lord, before you take them from me?
Today's Psalm (23), so often read at funerals, brings us to a place where we ask: how long do we have? How much life do we have left, Lord?
The story of Tabitha in Acts has people wondering how long it will take Paul to get there, whether or not he will be in time to help. We, too, find ourselves waiting. We wait for many things -- for God, for events, to be healed, to die. How long, O Lord, how long until what we are waiting for arrives?
Finally, the reading from Revelation reminds us that what we are waiting for is the end of time: the final coming of the Lamb and the manifestation on earth of God's Kingdom. How long, O Lord, until the last day, the end of times?
We had a few technical problems today as we tried three times to get a song to play. This reminded me that our waiting is full of uncertainty. We think a thing will happen but it doesn't. We've given up, and unexpectedly, it does. We are anxious and impatient, resolved and despairing, uncertain and convicted. We know that everything happens for a reason and that God's timing is not our own. But none of that knowing robs our waiting of the tension we experience in it.
In our waiting -- our asking, 'how long, O Lord?' -- we feel many things, perhaps most of all uncertainty. We are uneasy. In this discomfort, in whatever kind of waiting we find it, we encounter the Lord Who told us he will come like a thief in the night. In our looking forward, whether in hope or dread, we must strive to be ready, because we do not know when or in what way our call will be answered.
Stéphane left us with this question: how long will we listen to God's word and do nothing?
What are we, as a community, looking forward to and preparing ourselves for?
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Hey "Anonymous",
ReplyDeleteGreat summary of my sermon!!! I don't think I could have done any better ... Super.
Stephane
I very much enjoy (probably selfishly) the "View from the Pew", as well. The irony of the "how long" of technical difficulties, though I'm sure not easy on Stephane's nerves, was poignant in underlining our uncertainty, as our reviewer accurately points out.
ReplyDeleteThis is one of the toughies: God doesn't wear a watch or consult a calendar. We are told that everything happens in His time and He works good, even through sinful and tragic events, in His time. But we are a society of the NOW! and patience is a virtue that looks so good in the rear-view mirror. This, too, is one of the amazing things that Jesus demonstrated in human form: take time to just decompress, take time to pray, take time to reflect. It's a constant struggle for me to give over my worries and fears and just let God work.
Jeff A.