Waiting is hard. I don’t know too many people are really good at waiting. I will admit that I am not good at waiting. Waiting makes me anxious. Anxiousness makes me grumpy. I am no fun to be around when I am grumpy. I don’t like to wait around for something to happen whenever. No, my expectation is something is going to happen and it is going to happen right now . . . or maybe an hour or two later, but pretty much right now. When my expectations don’t happen I get anxious and then grumpy. I do not wait well and neither do most the people I know.
We humans are an impatient lot. The day and age we are living in does not help for we are living in a time of instancy. Technology has spoiled us into believing that we can get anything and everything in an instant . . . push a few keys on the keyboard of our computers, tablets, or cell phones . . . and, poof! It is there . . . information, pictures, products, and even the latest gossip. Think about our news. What used to take days or hours to get to us as news is now instantly breaking into our worlds as “breaking news”. Based upon this we have come to expect things in our lives and world to be instantaneous . . . right now!
No one likes to wait.
How ironic it is that our reading today deals with “waiting” . . . and how poorly people wait. In our reading the writer is confronting the impatience of the people to wait. What are they waiting for? They are waiting for God to reappear again . . . for the new heaven and new earth . . . for God’s Kingdom. And, in the minds of the people being addressed, they have been waiting for a long time . . . way too long in their minds. Their expectations are not being met. They are drifting off . . . losing sight . . . and, becoming hopeless.
It does not hope that the writer tells the people that God . . . nor Jesus . . . ever gave to anyone an exact day, time, or location for this expectant coming of the kingdom. Nowhere is such information shared. In fact, the writer attempts to explain that God has a whole different sense of time. Tells them that “with the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day.” God doesn’t see it like we humans do.
One day a man was praying to God to have an audience with God. He had some questions he wanted to ask God. Much to his surprise God appeared and wanted to know what questions he had. The man said, “First of all, what is a day to you, Lord?” God replied, “A thousand years.”
Then the man asked, “Lord, what is a million dollars to you?”
“A nickel,” replied the Holy.
The man pause for moment and you could see his mind working. Finally he spoke, “Lord could I have a couple of those nickels?”
The Lord shot back, “In a day or two!”
God does not see things the way that we humans do and this can cause some frustration, anxious, and grumbling on our parts. Where God is patient, we are impatient. Where God can wait, we want results right now. The writer attempts to point this out to the people. But it does not matter, they are going to sit around and complain.
So, the writer wants to know, “Whatcha doing?” Though the writer does not say it as bluntly or directly as that that is what the writer wants to know. What are you doing as you are waiting?
Nothing! The people are doing nothing. If there is a word I think every parent cringed upon hearing from their children it is “nothing”.
Whatcha doing? Nothing.
Parents cringe because they know that what they are really witnessing is a waste of time. Instead of sitting around doing nothing while waiting, they could be doing something . . . anything but sitting there doing nothing!
That is how the writer feels. Though the writer sees that there have been some who have not wasted their time, but have fallen back upon doing things they shouldn’t be doing . . . for the most part the writer sees people wasting their time. Which is a shame, because even though God does not view time in the same way that humans do, God did warn the people that the arrival of the kingdom could happen at any time. There would be no warning. “But the day of the Lord will come like a thief,” recalls the writer of God’s words.
As far as the writer is concerned there is no time to sit around doing nothing while waiting for God’s Kingdom to show up. Waiting is not to be wasted at doing nothing. In fact, the writer has some specific instructions as to what the people are to be doing in their waiting: “So then, dear friends, since you are looking forward to this, make every effort to be found spotless, blameless and at peace with him.”
I want to share two quotes. The first comes from Joseph Campbell a professor of literature in comparative mythology and religion. He says, “We must let go of the life we have planned, so as to accept the one that is waiting for us.” The second quote comes from former president Barack Obama, he says, “”Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.”
The object of our waiting is to be shown in our living . . . it is how we live between the “now” and “then”. It is not in our sitting around doing nothing while we wait. It is in doing something as we journey towards what we are waiting for. It is the journey that counts. In that, I think that the writer would agree with both quotes . . . we must let go of where we are and do something to get to where we are going. As the writer states: “So then, dear friends, since you are looking forward to this, make every effort to be found spotless, blameless and at peace with him.”
In our waiting there is movement. There is movement towards that which we are waiting for. There are things that can be done that provide that movement towards the realization of God’s Kingdom. Jesus gave us the template . . . “’Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.”
Love God. Love others. In how we do these shows our intentions in the movement of our waiting for what is to come . . . we strive towards it in our actions in how we live each day.
The season of Advent is always filled with expectation . . . a sense of anxiousness . . . because it is built around the idea of waiting. And, waiting is difficult. Yet, once again we are served a reminder. Waiting is not doing nothing. No, waiting is shown in our living . . . shown in how we live between the “now” and “then”. It is a movement towards the goal . . . towards God’s presence . . . towards God’s Kingdom. It is in our loving of God . . . in our loving of others. Neither of these are things we should put on the back burner for that fateful and faithful day when God suddenly appears. We are to move towards God . . . always towards God and God’s Kingdom.
Again, we are reminded by the writer that God is patient. That God is waiting for us. Because of that we cannot sit around doing nothing as we wait. We are to do something. We must let go and move on to that which is promised. We cannot wait for others to do this for us . . . we cannot wait for God to magically appear and change everything; no, we must be the agents of movement and change. We must love God . . . we must love others.
It is a journey, this season of Advent. It starts with each of us as individuals and as the followers of Jesus. When asked by the world around us, “Whatcha doing?” Let us not respond, “Nothing.” Let us be about the business of moving towards God. Isn’t that the journey we make as we journey towards Bethlehem? A movement towards God. Amen.
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