Tuesday, December 9, 2014

Waiting for the Return

Advent 2
Year B
St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church

Therefore, beloved, while you are waiting for these things, strive to be found by him at peace, without spot or blemish; and regard the patience of our Lord as salvation.” In the name of…

Imagine if you will that you are ten years old, and you are waiting for Christmas day.  

Now, imagine that instead of Christmas morning being one morning, Christmas could come for every different family on a different morning over the course of the month of December.  So, imagine going to school and having your classmates wear their new clothes or talk about their new bike, but Christmas could be for you as late as December 31st.  Imagine how much harder that would make the wait!

For Laura and I, this is what it felt like 15 months ago as we were waiting for Colin to be born. We had a lot of friends who were expecting around the same time, and we knew that babies have their own schedule, but the two weeks before Colin’s due date really sharpened our sense of expectation. And we waited, and watched our friends have their babies, sometimes on time, sometimes early, but each time we saw a birth announcement, it increased our own sense of impatience.  So, for us, we had a month of acute waiting. We waited the two weeks before the due date, and then for two weeks after the due date.  Waiting for the really hard experience of giving birth that neither of us had gone through. Waiting as we had to live with the tension of making plans for those weeks but hold enough flexibility that we would be able to drop everything at a moment’s notice. 
Waiting for how our life would change in ways we could not yet comprehend.  And the preparations to be made.  Finishing a nursery.  Figuring out the carseat. 

It was hard to wait.  But we didn’t have much choice. 
We were living on a schedule not under our own power or control.

It is one thing to wait for something that has an appointed day of arrival, known in advance and easy to count down to. It is another to wait for something with more uncertain timing—more surprise, and less in our control. It’s like walking across a dark room and wondering when you might hit the far wall. It is even more so to wait for something that seems to tarry for generations. For centuries. 

So here we are, in another season of Advent. Advent is the time that the church remembers Christ’s promise of a second coming as we prepare to celebrate the anniversary of his first coming. As such, Advent is a time of expectation and waiting, but also of repentance and purification. 

Recall our collect for the day, in which we pray that God give us the grace to heed the warnings of the prophets and repent of our sins. Think about John the Baptist and his proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.  Think about his heralding of a coming baptism by fire. While this sounds rather like a bummer of a message, the purpose of such preparation is so that we may greet Christmas with joy in celebrating Jesus’ birth and earthy work yet remain in hope for the time in which perfect peace, justice, and mercy will hold sway over all.

Another season of Advent. Another season of waiting in a long series of seasons and years of waiting. Why bother waiting? Why not just be surprised when or if Christ comes back? Why do we even bother putting much stock into such an idea as Christ’s return?

Our generation is not unique in facing the question of what it means that we are still waiting for Christ’s second coming. 

In the epistle of 2nd Peter which we read from today, we find the author addressing just this issue. What do we make of our wait for Christ? This was no mere theological exercise; the author is challenging a very particular group of people.  A few verses earlier than what we read today, the author names his opponents, saying:

3First of all you must understand this, that in the last days scoffers will come, scoffing and indulging their own lusts 4and saying, ‘Where is the promise of his coming? (2Peter 3:3-4)

The scoffers ask why Christians so foolishly wait for Jesus’ return.  “Why not instead indulge themselves and live for the day?”[1] For the scoffers, “not only is Jesus’ return in glory
not a legitimate expectation, but such a return would interrupt their worldly lifestyle.”  

Still, it is easy to at least see the scoffers’ point and the questions that come up. 
The second coming hasn’t happened. 
Has God forgotten us? 
Does God not care about the suffering in the world? 
Is God powerless after all? 
Is there even a God? 
If not, why bother with being good?[2]

“In the face of these questions, the author objects by pointing out that the scoffers have failed to take three things into account: The power of God’s word to both create and destroy (vv.5-7), the difference between the reckoning of God’s time and human time (v. 8), and the character of God (v. 9). In other words, there is at once a power, a patience, and a graciousness that characterize this God.”[3]

Unlike some images present in our society that see God as vengeful, as perfectly willing to condemn billions to eternal torment—unlike some Christians who write about the end of time
as an elaborate revenge fantasy with what can only be described as a sense of glee at the prospect of watching the slaughter of the unfaithful—there is instead the words from this epistle.

Hear the words again:  “The Lord is not slow about his promise, as some think of slowness, but is patient with you, not wanting any to perish, but all (*all*) to come to repentance… [therefore] regard the patience of our Lord as salvation.” 

Instead of a God who shuts down the world in a fit of exasperation, who destroys the creation in a rage; we serve a God who in love approaches us and the end of time with patience
and proclaims purification as though through the refiner’s fire.  This is the picture of a God who remains faithful to us and to all of creation, even when we find our patience tried and at its end.

The question remains, then as now:  what disposition will our waiting take? 
For the author of 2nd Peter, the proper response to God’s gracious patience is a life turned toward repentance and growing in greater and greater holiness. And this holiness goes beyond our relationship to God, but expands outward to all whom we meet.

The call to repentance and the admonition to be found blameless is a serious matter even though God’s patience stretches so far over humanity’s experience of time.  While the scoffers claim God’s supposed absence or tardiness frees us from consequence, we are not at liberty to say that God offers a blind eye or unqualified affirmation to everything humanity does.  The same loving-kindness that God shows to us is shown to all of creation. For if God offers an unqualified patience and affirmation to everything we do—even those things which harm others—then the Gospel holds no good news for the many who suffer for the sake of the comfort of a few. 

The prophets’ call to repentance is the reminder that we are not individually God’s sole project on this earth. The call to repentance is misunderstood if it is seen only as a project of personal improvement.  That is too small a glory for the Kingdom of God we proclaim as “on the way”—a Kingdom proclaimed by building communities that practice love in spite of our fears and our lusts for power and control over others.

As we work toward this kingdom, we wait.  
And in this season we are invited to cultivate a patience markedly different from simply keeping ourselves occupied until the End. 
And Lord knows we are so very occupied this time of year. 

Soon, very soon,
we will commemorate a very special birth even as we await for Christ’s return.
Will you slow down? 
Will you wait? 
Will you hold yourself to a schedule not under your own power/control, but one that promises a world better than we can ask or imagine?  
Will you watch for new heavens and a new earth? 
Will you proclaim a Kingdom to come? 







[1] This sentence and the following rely heavily on the work of Lee W. Bowman, Found in Bartlett, David L., and Barbara Brown Taylor, eds. Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary (Year B, Volume 1). Louisville (Ky.): Westminster John Knox Press, 2011.  40).
[2] Disclaimer:  I believe that non-Christians can be ethical people.
[3] Bowman, 40.

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