Wait For It…

Patience has become a casualty of our transition from an agrarian culture to one of digitalization.  We complain that our computer is too slow when we have to wait more than five seconds for a new screen.  Weather forecasting has become instantaneous; college students rarely wait the allotted ten minutes for a late-arriving professor.  T-shirt slogans advise us to “Keep Calm”….and I growl when I have to stand in line at the check-out.   This weekend’s readings encourage the listener to adopt a greater view of how things unfold.

Habakkuk, however you pronounce it, was a prophet who could have lived about 600 years before Jesus–or he could well be speaking out of the present malaise.  “Why do you make me see wrongdoing and look at trouble?  Destruction and violence are before me; strife and contention arise.  So the law becomes slack and justice never prevails…” (1:3,4a)   We seem to be in a time when the wicked appear to be winning.  We crave God’s response, “For there is still a vision for the appointed time….if it seems to tarry, wait for it.” (2:3)   What?  You mean that there were corruption, ignorance and bigotry in the Old Days, too??

The Second Letter to the Thessalonian Christians, purportedly from Paul, encourages the readers to endure to the end in order to glorify Christ.  “…your faith is growing abundantly, and the love of every one of you for one another is increasing.” (1:3)  The passage contrasts the lasting peace which Christ provides with the less substantial “peace” which worldly muscle enforces.  Such endurance is rarely a quick fix:  long seasons of prayerful empathy with the hurting allow a Holy Vision to develop and become a sure bastion against despair.

Luke’s Gospel story is about Zacchaeus, a man driven up a tree by the crowd (19:1-10).  Z was an outcast because he was a tax-collector, considered a traitor.  Besides, he was Rich.  AND short.  But something impelled him to stand on tiptoe to see this famous teacher and healer–and when the crowd still wouldn’t let him see, he climbed into the lower branches of a fig tree to catch history unfolding before him.  The Good News is that Jesus recognized him, and indulged in his hospitality!  “He too is a son of Abraham.  For the Son of Man came to seek out and to save the lost.”(19:9-10)  In later years, we can envision Zacchaeus telling his grandchildren, “I was just WAITING for that day!”

My friend Rawn Spearman has endured my bad puns and convoluted anecdotes for some years, now.  When my rambling must seem pointless, he often turns to whomever’s with us to say, “Wait for it…!”    This weekend’s lessons could appear to be rambling, yet underneath is a Holy Reminder to “Wait for it…!”  They give us permission–and direction–to grow our hope even in the midst of alarm and despair.

God Bless Us, Every One.    Horace Brown King

My musings on the lectionary passages appointed for the upcoming weekend can be found every Tuesday at this space on Facebook; or at horacebrownking.com.