“Be patient, therefore, beloved, until the coming of the Lord.” May I speak to you in the name of the G-d who [+] creates, redeems and sustains us? AMEN.
It is rare
that preachers choose the Epistle as the lesson on which to focus their sermons.
It’s even more rare that we hear from the Letter from James. And yet, today’s lesson
emphasizing patience is tailor made for the Advent season of waiting and watching,
reflecting and repenting. And I think there is something important in this
lesson that we need to hear today.
Biblical scholars are not
sure who wrote the Letter from James or when. The James in whose name the
letter was written suggests it came from James, the brother of Jesus. He was
the leader of the Jerusalem community of Jesus followers in the years following
the execution of his brother, Jesus, by the Romans. If that is the case, this
letter would have been written prior to 70 CE because thereafter the Romans
would destroy the Second Temple in Jerusalem and expel all of the residents it had
not killed.
Like a Time
Capsule
The letter from James
is like a time capsule from the early Jesus movement. It decidedly reflects the
thinking of a Hebraic community like that from which Jesus came. At a basic
level, it is much more reflective of the religion of Jesus than the religion
about Jesus which Paul would create that would later come to be called
Christianity.
Not surprisingly, given
its Hebrew audience, James’ letter is more focused on conduct rather than
belief. Its teachings are moral, not dogmatic. It is this epistle from which
the focus on orthopraxy, right conduct – as opposed to orthodoxy, right belief
- comes. It is true that orthopraxy has always been an important part of the
Christian tradition historically. Think Social Gospel. Think liberation
theology. But it has always been the minority view vis-à-vis orthodoxy with its
focus on right beliefs.
Perhaps the best known
line from the letter from James is the assertion that “Faith without works
is dead.” It was this ongoing concern for the way one lived their faith as
opposed to the contents of one’s belief system that would cause later Christian
theologians to consider removing James
from the Christian scriptures.
Valuable Counsel to Any
Community
Fortunately, the church resisted that tendency. The counsel that the writer of James offers us in this passage today is incredibly valuable especially during this Advent season: Be patient….strengthen your hearts….do not grumble or judge one another….emulate the prophets who were willing to endure suffering in patience. These are words that would prove valuable to any community. But they are particularly on point to those Christian communities which observe the season of Advent.
This Sunday is the third Sunday of Advent. It is the time when we Christians are called to wait, to watch, to reflect, to repent. Every human culture has some observance of this practice of waiting in the growing darkness for the return of light to our darkened world. This year that will occur 10 days from now on the winter solstice.
The
Christian tradition is to light an additional candle each week as that time
grows near, each candle reflecting our increasing hopefulness for new light,
new life, and a new year. It is hardly surprising that when the Christian
church had to choose a date on which to mark the birth of Jesus, it chose one
which roughly corresponded with the winter solstice. The hymn we will sing when
the Christmas season finally arrives on the night of December 24 recognizes
that connection:
Hail the Sun of Righteousness!
Light and life to all He brings
Risen with healing in His wings
But it is
important that we do not leap ahead to Christmas much as we may want to. This
period of Advent is critical to our tradition. We absolutely need these four
weeks of reflection. It is essential to the health of our souls both individually
and collectively. So it makes sense that a reading advising us to exercise
patience would be chosen for this Sunday midway through that season.
James had
good reasons to repeatedly admonish his community to be patient. They were living
in a very tense time in a Jerusalem whose Temple would be destroyed by the
Romans shortly and whose Judean population, including this Jesus community
formed around James, would soon be dispersed from the city. The ability to
exercise patience in the face of oppression was the difference between survival
and extinction.
That said,
patience is hardly the most observable trait among human beings. I can relate
to that personally. I am not a terribly patient man perhaps with the exception
of the feral kittens I labor to domesticate (though they may say differently if
asked). For them and for some of my students who came to me with challenges to
their learning over my years of teaching, I have on occasion demonstrated the
patience of Job. But for everyone else - starting with myself - not so much.
So my
record in exercising patience is mixed on a good day. My guess is that may well
be true for many of you as well in the various aspects of your lives where
patience is required from everyday parenting to simply being present in your
work places, not to mention enduring family gatherings at holidays. And that
doesn’t even begin to consider the realms of our evermore contentious social
media and the world of politics.
At some
level it’s not terribly surprising that few of us are particularly adept at
exercising patience. We are, after all, products of a consumerist culture that
has taught us that we are somehow entitled to instant gratification of
everything from curing our headaches to always having it our way at fast food
joints. The notion that we should ever be uncomfortable even for a second is
unthinkable for us well trained consumers.
Even the constraint on launching into Christmas celebrations until December 24 seems like a punishment to some of us. And that hardly begins to touch Advent’s call to thoughtfully reflect on those aspects of our lives which are dying, things that no longer serve us of which we must let go, and finding the patience required to wait for the new world which is surely coming but which we can’t yet see.
The idea of
patiently waiting is almost counterintuitive to us. And that’s precisely what
makes Advent a countercultural observance.
And yet, here we are, observing the third Sunday of Advent with two more
weeks of waiting, watching, reflecting and repenting to go.
So What Is It
We Need to Reflect Upon?
So what is
it that we need to reflect upon? What demands our patient, thoughtful
consideration? We might begin with our own lives. What are the behaviors in
which we have engaged for years which no longer serve us? What relationships
have increasingly become less and less life-giving and more and more a drain on
our systems? What patterns of consumption – from binge watching streaming
programming to compulsive shopping to overeating and drinking – have become
problematic for us? And as we reflect on those patterns, we may ask ourselves what
internal demons might we be seeking to escape in those behaviors? If we are to
start a new year of life in a world that is changing, what might we need to let
go of to get there?
Secondly, what might our church need to reflect upon? What does it tell us when those who are leaving the pews of every religious tradition, describing themselves as none-of-the above, outpace those who are entering them? What might we need to reconsider in the way we talk about our faith, the ways we practice our faith, about the values that animate that faith?
In the
larger view, we have much to consider. We live in difficult times. While most
of us are not in immediate fear of losing our homes, invading armies or
starving to death in the near future – thanks be to G-d! - many around the world are.
Yet, we are
a people who have done our best to ignore the increasingly unavoidable evidence
of human caused climate change even as the waves of refugees it is creating
around the world are just beginning to arrive on our shores and the waves of debris
from once luxurious beachside residences lie in piles around the foundations of
those structures. Our economy has become highly unpredictable and many who once
felt secure no longer are. An entire
generation of our children are swallowed up in debt simply to pay for their
educations that we refused to cover. And
the instability of our democratic system of self-governance has prompted many
of us to wonder if our country will hold together for much longer or go the way
of the dinosaurs.
Franciscan
teacher Richard Rohr said in his meditation this week, “I think we must be
honest that we are at the downside of the curve. All indices suggest that we
are at the end of the dominance of the United States, western civilization,
even Christianity. The question for us becomes: What will we do about it?”
Ancient
Wisdom for Modern Times
Clearly we have much to wrestle with this Advent season. It is essential to note that none of these problems arose overnight. And they will take time for us to address them. They will require us to take them seriously and our willingness to commit ourselves to doing whatever is necessary to address them. In short, they will require our patient, thoughtful presence.
And that is
precisely what our lesson from James today is calling us to engage. Listen
again to its wisdom: Be patient…do not grumble against one another….don’t
judge one another….pray for the suffering….anoint the sick…. own up to your
sins and confess them to one another…pray for one another. These are the
mechanics of a healthy spiritual community and they are all behaviors that are
within our individual and collective control. And I believe that if we are
going to endure this time of trying and testing in which we live, it will be
precisely because the communities in which we are grounded have given us the strength
to do so.
I close with a prayer adapted from St. Augustine’s Prayerbook. Let us pray:
O Jesus, Our Brother: Help us to find the patience to
follow the path to which you call us. Let our confidence not rest in our own
understanding but in your guiding hand; let our desires not be for our own
comfort, but for the wholeness of all Creation; for your Way is our hope and
our joy now and forevermore. Amen.
[You can listen to the sermon at this
link starting at 18:45
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92MgRjc46d8 ]
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Harry Scott Coverston
Orlando, Florida
If the unexamined life
is not worth living, surely an unexamined belief system, be it religious or
political, is not worth holding. Most things worth considering do not come in
sound bites.
Those who believe
religion and politics aren't connected don't understand either. – Mahatma Gandhi
For what does G-d
require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with
your G-d? - Micah
6:8, Hebrew Scriptures
Do not be daunted by the
enormity of the world's grief. Do justly, now. Love mercy, now. Walk humbly
now. You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to
abandon it. - Rabbi
Rami Shapiro, Wisdom of the Jewish Sages (1993)
© Harry
Coverston, 2022
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