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The Wait of the World

Sermon by Rev. Doug Pratt — March 30, 2008
 

I am still confident of this: I will see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living.
Wait for the LORD; be strong and take heart, and wait for the LORD.
Psalm 27:13-14

Natural Gifts
At the age of five, Tiger Woods could hit a golf ball 100 yards. At the age of four, Mozart could play a minuet on the piano. Other prodigies in various fields also showed their promise early: Einstein with mathematics, Bobby Fisher with chess, Van Gogh with drawing. And even among children with less spectacular and precocious skills, we still see evidence early on of inborn and natural gifts.

God our Creator grants to us humans, who are His special creatures on earth, many wonderful abilities which are ours from our birth. Some of us are gifted with the ability to play or sing music. Some of us have a natural gift for art. Some are given gifts of hand-eye coordination that allow them to excel at sports and games, or at a career such as surgery or dentistry that requires precise movements with delicate instruments. Some are given intellectual gifts to succeed in school and in challenging fields of science and technology. While all of these gifts need to be developed and refined, they are with us from the beginning. What a thrill it is for a parent or grandparent to be able to witness in a child from their earliest years certain natural talents that God has given to them in their genes.

A Skill We Must Learn
But there are some things that none of us have genes for. There are certain skills in life that have to be learned by everyone, that are always difficult, that never come naturally. One of those is the skill of waiting patiently. None of us likes to do it, and none of us does it with ease. It’s hard to wait. We live in the midst of a society that doesn’t like to wait and doesn’t know how to teach it. But patient waiting is an essential part of the Christian life. It’s lifted up repeatedly as a virtue.

From the Psalms in the Old Testament to the letters of Paul in the New Testament, from the examples of Abraham and Joseph in Genesis to the admonitions of Jesus in the Gospels, over and over God’s people are told they need to learn to “wait for the Lord,” as our text says. Some of us are struggling to master this virtue right now; it’s the toughest challenge we’re facing.

When Waiting Is NOT a Virtue
When Scripture tells us to “wait for the Lord,” that does not include all experiences in life. Sometimes waiting is not a virtue; it can, in fact, be a blunder, a mistake, even a self-destructive act. For example, sometimes people wait when they should act. Waiting can be a form of procrastination. It can come from laziness or indecisiveness. It can perpetuate a lifestyle of denial.

One of my favorite holiday-themed movies is the comedy Christmas Vacation, starring Chevy Chase as Clark Griswold, the quintessential family man. Just before Christmas, the Griswolds receive an unexpected visit from Cousin Eddie, a loud, uncouth slob who pulls into their driveway in an RV that looks like it’s traveled through a meteor shower. Eddie announces that he and his wife and kids will be staying for a few weeks, or more. Eddie’s wife reveals that he hasn’t had a job for seven years. “Why not?” Clark’s wife asks. “Surely he can find some kind of work.” “Well, he’s holding out for a position in management,” she replies. That kind of waiting — living in fantasyland — is not the biblical virtue of patience; it’s laziness.

A couple weeks ago golfer John Daly was publicly blasted by his former coach. “John’s first priority is getting drunk,” Butch Harmon lamented. Daly replied defensively that he wasn’t an alcoholic, and he didn’t need to go to rehab or a support group. He can stop drinking any time he wants. He’s just waiting for the right time or the right reason to do it. Clearly he’s not following the biblical injunction to “wait for the Lord.” John Daly is originally from the state of Arkansas, but his current address is somewhere in the state of Denial. There’s no blessing in that.

When Waiting IS a Virtue
The kind of patient waiting the Bible lifts up as a virtue of the Christian life comes from situations where we have done everything we can do, and now things are outside of our direct control. Every one of us — no matter how smart and well-educated, how successful and affluent, how strong and physically fit, or how confident we may be — will encounter situations in this world where we are not in control. Life is bigger than all of us.

• There are wise and careful bankers and Wall Street financiers and corporate managers around the world, people who have done the best job they can in risk-management and planning and conserving resources, who, nevertheless, find themselves today in a difficult business climate of a credit crunch and a recession and a “bear” stock market. And the best thing they can do now is wait it out.
• There are people in our congregation and community who have had surgery or are taking a regimen of chemo or radiation treatments, and they’re really feeling the effects. The best, and only, thing they can do now is to patiently wait for the healing process to be completed.
• There are homeowners in our country who are ready to sell — either to move up or to downsize — and they have to wait on the market and the right buyer to come forward at the right time.
• There are Christian parents and grandparents in this congregation who have loved and cared for and prayed for their families, and yet are anxious about the poor choices a child or grandchild is making. They can offer their wisdom, if it’s accepted; and they can keep praying. But they also need to “wait for the Lord” to intervene in the life of that person they love, to change their heart and behavior.

At times God speaks to us loudly and clearly. At other times it feels as if He is silent. If we are stirred to wonder by God’s voice, we are baffled by His silence. Today we are going to think about how to listen to the silence. Wouldn’t it be great if the Lord would just send us an email each morning, explaining to us His plans for us that day and helping us to see His overall purpose in the events of our lives? But we don’t always get that message. Maybe our “spam blocker” is filtering them out! For whatever reasons, we go through times when it seems as if God is silent.

And whether we react to the times of God’s silence in doubt or in faith depends on something within ourselves. Some react in bitterness. But others have learned that the silence of heaven is not a harsh silence. They’ve caught a glimmer of the meaning of silence. They’ve seen stars shining in the night sky they would never have noticed in the bright daylight.

It we come to see that our true purpose here on earth isn’t happiness but holiness, we realize that some measure of struggle is inevitable. How could we develop courage without facing danger? How could we learn sympathy for others’ pain if we’ve never suffered ourselves? How could we become tenderhearted without at times having our own hearts torn? How could we learn to depend on God if our own strength is always sufficient? Times of waiting and patience, though we may hate them and plead for them to end, can be for our ultimate good.

The Parable of the Teacup
My mentor in the pastoral ministry, Dr. Frank Kik, went to be with the Lord a year and a half ago. Recently his wife gave me a remarkable gift: all of her husband’s sermon files, more than 700 of them, representing a lifetime of his preaching ministry. They now fill several drawers of a file cabinet in my office. As a tribute to him, I hope in the next year or so to compile brief excerpts of some of his sermons into a small devotional booklet we can make available to people in the congregations Frank served. This morning I want to close by sharing with you a story, The Parable of the Teacup, which Frank told in one of his sermons entitled “Not Yet.”

An American couple went to England to celebrate their wedding anniversary. Both the man and his wife were collectors of fine pottery and china. While touring in Sussex they passed a little china shop. As they browsed, they both noticed a small teacup on the top shelf. “May I see that cup?” the man asked the proprietor. “I’ve never seen one quite like it. It’s beautiful.” As he held the cup in his hand, amazingly the teacup spoke.

“I haven’t always been a teacup. There was a time when I was just a lump of red clay. My master took me and rolled me and pressed me down, over and over. I cried out, ‘Leave me alone!’ but he only smiled and said, ‘Not yet.’ Then I was placed on a spinning wheel, and I was spun around and around. I screamed, ‘Stop … I’m getting dizzy.’ The master only shook his head and said, ‘Not yet.’ Then he put me in an oven. I’ve never felt such heat, and I wondered why he was burning me. I yelled and pounded on the door of the oven, and could see him through the small window just shake his head as his lips formed the words, ‘Not yet.’ Finally he opened the door, took me out, and put me on a shelf to cool. ‘This is much better,’ I thought. ‘At last my ordeal is over.’ But it wasn’t.

“Suddenly the master took me and began to brush me with paint all over, and the fumes were horrible, and I started to gag. ‘Please stop!’ I cried. But he shook his head and said, ‘Not yet. Then he put me back into the oven, and this time it was twice as hot. I pleaded for relief, but saw him again shake his head. ‘Not yet.’ Then I knew there was no hope for me. I was doomed. I’d never make it. I was ready to give up, when suddenly the oven door opened again, and he placed me on a shelf. An hour later he held a mirror to me and said, ‘Now look at yourself.’ And I did. And I said, ‘That’s not me. It couldn’t be. I’m beautiful.’

“The master then explained, ‘I know it was hard to be rolled and patted so forcefully, but it was the only way to soften you. I know it was dizzying to be spun around, but if I stopped you would not have been properly shaped. I know that the oven was hot, but if I hadn’t put you in the fire you would have cracked. I know the fumes were bad as I brushed you, but if you hadn’t been painted there would be no color in your life. And if I hadn’t put you back in the oven, the color would not have lasted. Now you’re finished. You are beautiful. You’re what I had in mind when I first thought of you.’”

Wait for the Lord
When the Scriptures whisper to us repeatedly, “Wait for the Lord,” it is for our good. The Master has a purpose and plan for all of us. Though God may seem silent, I believe He is actually speaking to some people here this morning. Listen carefully.

Perhaps there’s a man or woman to whom God is speaking right now, saying to stop procrastinating and stalling and putting off what He’s been nudging you to do. You’ve been waiting in the wrong way, for the wrong reasons. And now is the time to act.

And perhaps there’s a man or woman to whom God is speaking right now, saying to be patient in your circumstances. You’ve done all you can do. Now leave it in the Lord’s hands, and let Him work. He has a plan for you. He is still molding you, and baking you, and it takes time. Don’t panic, and don’t give up … for you haven’t yet seen the beautiful finished product that the Master is making out of you.

PRAYER
Lord, it is hard to wait upon You. Our natural instinct is to be impatient. At times we even feel fear or panic when we’re required to wait. But we want to learn how to trust in You and be patient. We believe that You do have a purpose for our lives, and that You even use painful and confusing and trying experiences to mold and shape us into the people You want us to be. Help us today to wait patiently for Your will to be done in us. Amen.