Three Stories Of Waiting
The Lord said to Samuel, “How long will you grieve because I have rejected Saul as king of Israel? Fill your horn with oil and take it with you. I am sending you to Jess of Bethlehem; for I have chosen myself a king from among his sons.”
Samuel asked Jesse, “Are these all the sons you have?” “There is still the youngest, replied Jesse, but he is looking after the sheep.” Samuel said to Jesse, “Send and fetch him; we will not sit down until he comes.” So he sent and fetched him. He was handsome, with ruddy cheeks and bright eyes. The Lord said, “Rise and annoint him: this is the man.” Samuel took the horn of oil and annointed him in the presence of his brothers, and the spirit of the Lord came upon David and was with him from that day onwards. Then Samuel set out on his way to Ramah.
There lived in the land of Uz a man of blameless and upright life named Job, who feared God and set his face against wrongdoing.
When the Adversary left the Lord’s presence, he afflicted Job with running sores from the soles of his feet to the crown of his head, and Job took a piece of a broken pot to scratch himself as he sat among the ashes. His wife said to him, “Why do you still hold fast to your integrity? Curse God, and die!”
When Job’s three friends heard of all these calamities which had overtaken him, they set out from their homes, arranging to go and condole with him and comfort him. But when they first saw him from a distance, they did not recognize him; they wept aloud, tore their cloaks, and tossed dust into the air overt their heads. For seven days and seven nights they sat beside him on the ground, and none of them spoke a word to him, for they saw that his suffering was great.
In the first part of my work, Theophilus, I gave an account of all that Jesus did and taught from the beginning until the day when he was taken up to heaven, after giving instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles whom he had chosen. To these men he showed himself after his death and gave ample proof that he was alive; he was seen by them over a period of forty days and spoke to them about the kingdom of God. While he was in their company, he directed them not to leave Jerusalem. “You must wait,” he said, “for the gift promised by the Father, of which I told you; John, as you know, baptized with water, but within the next few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.”
In Between
Between Christmas and Lent
January, between Holidays
All of us have times in our lives where we are just “in between”
Basically, a sense of waiting
Which raises an interesting question: What do you do while you are waiting, while you are “in between”
Earlier we read three stories from the Bible of people who were waiting.
What did they do?
The Disciples had the easiest time. They knew how long they would be waiting, a few days. And they knew something about what they were waiting for: baptism by fire, by the Holy Spirit. I don’t think they had any idea what that meant. But at that point they were so used to radical changes that they were just waiting to see what happened.
The young David had less information. He knew that he had just been annointed King of Israel, which was a little awkward since Israel already had a king. What he didn’t know is when he would be king. Although he had a good idea from the way Samuel snuck into and out Bethlehem that it was not going to be real soon. So, he waited.
And Job, waiting in the ashes scratching his diseased skin. What was Job waiting for? He didn’t know; perhaps he was just waiting to die. As you go further, it seems like Job was waiting for some answers. And while he waited in the ashes, his three rather meddlesome friends, who were so stunned by what they saw that they simply sat with him; what were they waiting for? I don’t think they knew even that.
What did they do while they were in between, while they were waiting?
One: they didn’t try to change the waiting time; they didn’t try to force the action to happen. They didn’t insist on their own timetable.
That was wise, because you can’t rush God. And the Universe really doesn’t care about our timetables.
We have our plans and schedules, we get upset when things don’t happen on schedule.
Two church buildings illustrate that for me. When we bought this building, nothing happened the way it was supposed to work. Nothing happened on time; we prayed for money, for miracles. And usually, the only miracle was a little more time to wait.
After a while, I got used to the idea that we weren’t going to see a major event, a huge check, a long-term commitment of money. Instead, we were going to live month by month, never sure what was going to happen or if we would even still be in this building in two or three months.
And yet, here we are. Fully paid off for the rectory and the main building. Looking back, we talk about is like a single event: we bought the building and God saw that it was paid for. Believe me, while it was happening it was long, and slow, and painful. But God showed absolutely no concern for our schedule.
And then there is Graffitti. They have opened up a wonderful new building on East 7th. It gives them ministry abilities they have never had; it is so clearly the right thing.
I was on the original Board of Directors and helped take care of the incorporation, so there would be a legal entity to own the property they were about to buy and the building they would own. It was exciting. It was 1986.
Things worked out; very slowly. No one dreamed it would be this long; but no one dreamed that the new building would be nearly as large or as beautiful as it turned out. Our dreams were too short, and too small.
But you can’t just say “I’m waiting on the Lord, and start hibernating.” You can’t abandon hope.
It seems a simple point, but if you give up hope, if you declare the waiting over, if you decide that you are not “in between” but at “the end”, you will probably be right.
If the disciples had said, we are tired of waiting and dispersed throughout Israel, what would have happened? I don’t know, but it would not be what we see in the Bible. Something wonderful would have happened, since God the Creator is nothing if not creative. But I don’t think it would have happened to them. They would have taken themselves out of the play.
I use that term almost literally. Disciples, David and Job, when the time came, were in their places and on their marks. Since life is more improvisational theatre than scripted, they didn’t quite know what their lines would be. But they were ready, even though neither of them had a clue about the exact nature of their role or how to play it.
What—besides hope?
One of the most important things they all did was build a community of people who could help. Even Job, who was more afflicted with friends than blessed with them, never ordered them to go away. The disciples actively rebuilt their community. They filled the vacant slot that had recently opened up, when Judas left to pursue other opportunities. And they met together constantly, building their friendships and their community for whatever might be ahead.
David was one of those people who seemed to pick up friends like a magnet, as he walked by. But an important part of that is how he handled his newfound future. Compare him to Joseph, who managed to alienate everyone around him, so that even his brothers couldn’t stand him and tried to kill him. There is no sign of that arrogance with David, no sense of sudden entitlement, no sense that he was suddenly above these mere commoners.
David never had a list of people he refused to work with, people who weren’t allowed into his community. He collected friends; he didn’t reject them.
That is a key lesson when you are “in between”; don’t assume you know who you will need when things start to happen again.
The thing that has always amazed me about the current leadership of the Religious Righteous is the wastefulness of their positions on people. Think about it: they have decided they don’t need women in any kind of leadership roles, they don’t need liberals, they don’t need moderates, they don’t need gays or lesbians, they don’t even need SpongeBob SquarePants.
It must be comforting to be so sure of what the future holds that you can just refuse to accept help from such a large percentage of God’s creation.
But that works only if you know where you are going and what and who you will need along the way.
The story of Gollum from the Lord of the Rings is a perfect illustration. This was someone, or some thing, that no one wanted around. Yet he was absolutely essential to their journey.
For people who are genuinely in between, who are waiting for something they don’t know or understand, we can’t afford that kind of waste. We need more community, more friends, more different kinds of people with different kinds of talents. Because who knows what we will be facing?
Beyond community, you see something in David from his earliest days. He enjoyed God. Not just life; lots of people enjoyed life. David enjoyed God. He sang to God, wrote poems to God, and relied on God.
David knew the difference between God and religion; he broke more than a few religious rules in his day. But he always enjoyed God, whether it was singing his songs to God, or dancing naked in the streets with the sheer joy of God’s presence.
I think that is why God forgave David so much; because David was always happy to be with God.
That sense of enjoying God is rare. There is usually a sense of obligation, a lot of fear, a lot of duty, a lot of reverence for the past bordering on ancestor worship, but little real sense of enjoying God.
You see the same thing in another one of God’s favorites; St. Francis of Assissi. I discovered reading the Wittenburg Door’s recent issue that St. Francis and his followers were known as Le Jongleurs de Dieu: the jongleurs of God.
Some translate that as jugglers of God, which is correct but not complete. Jongleurs were wandering entertainers, part juggler, part singer, part standup comic.
The early Franciscans gladly accepted this label, because they said it was their role simply to show people God’s joy, the happiness in God’s world. Basically, they spent their time enjoying God.
All of which brings me to Metro.
We are clearly “in between.” The buildings are paid for, they aren’t falling down – much. 9/11 is over three years past.
We are waiting. But for what?
I don’t know what we are waiting for or when it will happen.
In this time of waiting, of “in between”, what do we do?
Well, if you have been listening, in addition to drawing, you have some ideas.
First, we build community. We welcome new people, new ideas, new talents. And we build the strengths of the community that we have.
In order to build for the future, and not our past, we have to agree that we don’t know exactly what is going to happen and what we will need. We need to banish the words “we haven’t done that” or “that’s not what I expected” from our vocabulary.
This is where the community comes in. Because if the community doesn’t accept, if the community doesn’t welcome new things and changes, they won’t happen.
It may just be inertia, the result of too much “in between” time. It may be beliefs we bring forward from our past that we are imposing on our futures.
But each of us needs to understand that now, when we are not under huge stress or crisis, is the time when we are free to explore the new and the unexpected. Now is the time to be sure that when the “in between” time ends, we will have developed the people and the abilities to meet those times.
That is one reason I have been doing strange things; because I think the most deadly words you can hear are “but we don’t do that in church.” Precisely.
That is why I want you to start developing your artistic muscles in church in addition to your sitting muscles. We may need you to do more than just sit politely in orderly rows of chairs.
Beyond that, we need to start enjoying God more in our worship service. We need more fun. I don’t think we need to begin or end all of our services with a large ball bouncing around the sanctuary; sometimes we might throw streamers of paper.
But we need to constantly remember that entering the presence of God is entering the source of light, entering the source of creation, entering the presence of fun.
Many of us have spent a lot of time in church services, doing our duty. And I have to tell you, as I have gotten older, I have started to think that God doesn’t really enjoy people marching in and doing their duty. Nobody was more dutiful than the Pharisees, and Jesus could barely stand being in the same room with them.
I know for myself, when I think back on all the associate attorneys who have worked for me over the years, the ones who were the most useful were the ones who brought something more than a sense of duty. They were the ones who saw beyond the expected, who didn’t just give me what I expected.
We need to go beyond duty in our worship, and in our community. We need to enjoy God, to become “jongleurs de dieu.”
We choose how much of the creative side of each other we will allow.
We as a community will only be as creative as we allow ourselves to be. We will only enjoy God as much as we allow ourselves to enjoy.
We are in between. We are in the perfect time to expand our community, the perfect time to begin to really enjoy God.
Now is a wonderful opportunity. Don’t blow it.