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Back to Sermon ArchivesAugust 2,
2009
Rev. Judith Bither
Fruit of the Spirit: Patience
Galatians 5:22—The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness,
goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Love is the first spiritual fruit and all others are attached to it. Today we speak of how to cultivate
patience within a culture that wants everything to move faster and faster: We
live in an instant world. All of us feel the pressures, but also enjoy the
pleasures, of the instant and the immediate. Some of us can remember when the
world was not instant. When you ordered something, it came in a couple of weeks,
which was pretty good time. Dinner took hours to cook. Restaurants served
promptly, but not fast. Time was measured in hours.
Many of us can remember the arrival of "instant coffee" in the
1960s and fast food service in the 1970s. We started to expect that answers to
our questions would come more quickly, and services would be delivered more
promptly. The microwave arrived, and dinner was ready in minutes.
Restaurants turned out lunches in two minutes or less. Time was measured in
minutes.
In the 1990s, with the arrival of personal computers and the explosion
of the Internet, we began to measure time in seconds. Through computing
and Internet access, we get what we need in the virtual world in seconds. News
networks bring information immediately from everywhere on the globe, 24 hours a
day. Culturally, we promote "instant gratification." When we want
something, we expect our wants to be fulfilled right now.
While technology has changed our expectations about time, we find that
relationships do not work in seconds. Love and compassion are not achieved in an
instant. The same thing is true in our walk with God. From our side, building an
intimate relationship with God takes time, actually a lifetime. We have to
confront our unhappiness when God does not answer our requests or fulfill our
needs (at least as we understand them) immediately.
The prayer of the modern American is, "Dear God, grant me patience.
And I want it right now!" Perhaps it always has been a part of human nature
to be impatient with the passage of time. It was so in the early church. The
persistent promise that the early church heard was that Jesus was coming again.
We in the Western culture hold a peculiar relationship to time. For example,
most of us would grow impatient with some African cultures where Sunday worship
lasts for most of the day; not least of all because it takes the congregation
hours to walk to the church from the surrounding areas. So they bring food and
make a day of it.
Our sense of time is related to how quickly we can get from point A to
point B. For instance, you know approximately how long it takes you to get here
on a Sunday morning. You actually think you have some control over this! But
what happens if there’s unexpected traffic or the weather turns to freezing
rain? We are painfully reminded that we are not always in control. These
situations call for patience, but alas, patience is difficult to cultivate when
the clock constantly regiments our lives. One of my pet peeves is choosing the
slowest checkout lane in any store. I tell myself this is a lesson in patience
and sometimes I actually believe it.
Modern English translations define the fourth fruit of the Spirit as
patience. Older versions offer a more vivid translation: long-suffering.
Isn’t that a great term that we never use or hear any more? We often speak of
people having a short temper but we don’t have an equivalent for having a
long temper! If we did, such a word would be close to the meaning of the
Greek word Paul used in Galatians. Scripture employs several different words
that point to this disposition—words that are often translated as patience,
forbearance, endurance and steadfastness.
The latter two refer to our response to
suffering and persecution. Remember that these letters were written as
encouragement and to teach the first Christians. So of course these other terms
are related to patience, but they reflect a different light, don’t they? To
understand the subtle difference between patience and endurance we
can look to the noun form: patient. In this form in English it refers to
a person under the care of a health professional. This developed out of the
Middle Ages that anyone suffering patiently was a patient! So,
what being patient and being a patient have in common is this:
each requires that we come to terms with yielding control to another. Like all
the fruit of the Spirit, patience has its roots in God’s character.
For example, the Hebrew scripture repeatedly
stress that God is slow to anger. Certainly, a refrain echoes
throughout: The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in
steadfast love. Scripture rarely portrays God as having a hair-trigger
temper. The point is that God’s slowness to anger represents a willingness to
yield control. Yet scripture tells it otherwise.
In creating us God allowed freewill, free choice
as we each go on our own way. Those of us who are parents know how soon we
discovered that each child is not a little clone of us, but a unique creation. I
had this conversation with my daughter on the phone just this past week. Isn’t
it fun being the grandparent who can just smile as you hear about the antics our
grandchildren are putting our children through? Creation always necessitates a
willingness to yield at least a measure of control.
Another point about God’s willingness to yield
control: God doesn’t seem to be in a hurry. God doesn’t coerce us, doesn’t force
our hand, but instead waits patiently for us to respond to God’s grace. The Lord
of the universe does not rule with an iron fist, but from being nailed down on a
cross. Is it possible to imagine a more stunning example of long-suffering than
that?
The Letter of James undoubtedly echoing how
scripture speaks of God as being slow to anger encourages us to be
the same: You must understand this, my beloved: let everyone be quick to
listen, slow to anger, for your anger does not produce God’s righteousness.
A
skilled listener understands that listening involves handing over control to the
other. Teachers especially know this struggle when it would be easier to jump in
and give the answer rather than letting the student wrestle with the questions.
A teacher must be patient, to bring the student along slowly, yielding control
to them to learn each in his or her own time and way.
Last Sunday we focused on the fruit of peace.
The fruit of patience is closely related to peace. Patience is a
necessary prerequisite for establishing peace. One’s willingness to be wronged,
to deflect anger patiently without retaliating, helps break the cycle of
vengeance and opens to the possibility for healing and peace. Forgiveness,
however, is unimaginable apart from patience.
How are we to go about cultivating patience in
the midst of a culture that values productivity and speed? Once again, it’s not
easy. All of these fruits bring us challenges for spiritual formation, don’t
they? Yet God has provided us with an abundance of resources for cultivating
this fruit.
In the mid-twentieth century, the great evangelical teacher A. W. Tozer
said, "The faith of Christ offers no buttons to push for quick service. The
new order must wait the Lord's own time, and that is too much for the person in
a hurry. They just give up and becomes interested in something else." That
is the temptation we face: when God does not work on our schedule, we may become
interested in some-thing else. We may try to take the responsibility for trying
to make things happen right now. We have limited power to make anything holy or
right happen in our time, or in our way, or to our preferences. This is a hard
lesson to learn, and one that we must learn early in life.
A child was working with a parent to put up a swing set in the backyard
of the house. Since the instructions came in pictures, the child started to put
some of the pieces together, and the parent helped.
As the child worked with the tools, the pieces did not fit together easily, so
the child worked harder and harder and with greater and greater frustration to
make things fit. And the child wanted to do the work quickly so that the swing
set could be used right away. It was then that the parent uttered words that the
child never forgot: "Don't force it!"
This is an ongoing lesson in life. We can help things to move along, we
can receive answers to questions, we can obtain the information we need, and we
can enjoy all that life has to offer. The parent's words must ring in our ears,
though: Don't force it. We have to learn patience to wait for God to move in
life, and we have to develop spiritual depth to discern God's perfect timing.
No farmer expects the seedlings to produce ripe fruit in a just a couple
of days. This patience embodied in the farmer does not keep the farmer from
pulling up the weeds that threaten the health of the plants. Pray, therefore, to
be patient with yourself and with others. For Jesus’ sake. Amen
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