2 Peter 3:8-15a

The pace of our world is getting faster all the time.  Consider this in 1900 receiving a letter through the mail in three weeks was considered fast.  In 1940 seeing film footage of world events a week after the event was considered fast.  In 1950 receiving a letter in 7 days was fast.  In 1980 the world got faster when motion pictures could be recorded directly onto video tape and played back immediately without taking time to develop film.  In 1990 we were able to send thing via overnight express mail.  In 1994 email allowed us to send and respond to messages in the same day.  Today you can instant message as well as send and receive video from your cell phone any time day or night.  Our world is advancing and getting faster all the time.  These advancements have some great benefits, the amount of information that is available to us with just a click is astounding, but with these benefits also comes some significant setbacks.  For instance our level of patience as a culture has decreased.  We are so used to having everything from our morning coffee, to our e-mail, to our pizza deliveries so fast that when things don’t happen as fast as we would like or don’t go our way we tend to loose patience rather quickly. 

A man observed a woman in the grocery store with a 3 year-old girl in her basket. As they passed the cookie section, the child asked for cookies and her mother told her “no.”  The little girl immediately began to whine and fuss and the mother said quietly, “Now Ellen, we just have half of the aisles left to go through; don’t be upset. It won’t be long.”  He passed the mother again in the candy aisle. Of course, the little girl began to shout for candy. When she was told she couldn’t have any, she began to cry. The mother said, “There, there, Ellen, don’t cry. Only two more aisles to go, and then we’ll be checking out.” The man again happened to be behind the pair at the checkout, where the little girl immediately began to clamor for gum and burst into a terrible tantrum upon discovering there would be no gum purchased today. The mother patiently said, “Ellen, we’ll be through this check out stand in five minutes, and then you can go home and have a nice nap.”  The man followed them out to the parking lot and stopped the woman to compliment her. “I couldn’t help noticing how patient you were with little Ellen.” The mother broke in, “Ellen? I’m Ellen. The girl’s name is Tammy. Now buzz off mister.”

I think this story illustrates well the subject of today’s passage in relation to the season of advent.  Because we are so used to having everything given to us at the bat of an eye we don’t very much like to wait for things.  Therefore the season of Advent seems to put us at odds with our culture because the season of advent is all about waiting.  We are waiting for Christ’s return.  We join the long line of Christians who have been waiting for thousands of years for Christ to return.  We don’t like waiting more than a couple of minutes at the drive through how can we be expected to wait for years, perhaps even a lifetime?  It is so hard for us to even imagine waiting a life time that we tend not to.  So often we miss out on an important piece of Advent because we are so busy readying to celebrate Christmas that we forget to ready ourselves for Christ’s return.  It is not easy for us to focus on Christ’s return because it has already been 2000 years and in our hearts we don’t really expect it to be soon.  But like the story and the confusion over who was patient with whom, I think we may have some confusion over who is patient with whom during the season of Advent.

There is no question we are to be waiting for Christ’s return, actively waiting, hoping for, and longing for him to come again.  But perhaps we are not the only ones who require patients during this Season.  The author of 2 Peter suggests that not only are we to be patient with God, because remember that with God one day is like a thousand years…so on God’s time we have only been waiting a couple of days for Jesus to return, but perhaps God also is being patient with us.  In the passage we read the writer is addressing the insiders within the community, his “beloved.” Here he gives consolation and encouragement in their experience of the delay of Christ’s return. Apparently they had grown weary or tired of waiting.  The lesson here is theological; God is sovereign, and the apparent slowness of God’s promise of return has not to do with God, but a misperception on behalf of God’s people. In order to underscore this point, the writer draws on Psalm 90:4 “A thousand ages in thy sight are like an evening gone. Short as the watch that ends the night before the rising sun.” The writer then moves to claim that the apparent delay in Christ’s return is not evidence of God’s slowness, but rather God’s patience toward God’s people. What the scoffers promote as delay, in other words, is reinterpreted, in order to proclaim the grace and love of God that all should have time to reach repentance. The community is offered consolation in their waiting, but they are still called to be attentive and to expect the imminent judgment of God. When God comes, the godless will be destroyed as they were in the past; but God is not a sadistic God whose desire is destruction. Instead, God desires that all might receive repentance.

What we learn is that God in God’s sovereignty knows best what to do and when to do it.  So if God should return tomorrow that is what is best and if it should be thousands more years that is what is best because it is a part of God’s plan.  God is sometimes quick to act and sometimes patient and long-suffering.  God sometimes reveals God’s self clearly, and other times remains shrouded in mystery.  God is willing to soothe our hurts, but also to let us learn from our mistakes; is capable of judging harshly and decisively, but also lavishes us in undeserved mercy and grace.  Always God is doing what is best and as the passage says not just what is best for God but what is best for us.  It is easy for us to loose patients with God; especially in a world where we are used to having what we want when we want it.  But we are to wait patiently, and expectantly for God who has been patient with us.  Last week we celebrated the gift of the grace we have received through Christ and today we give thanks for the gift of patients.  Not so much that God gives us patients, though that is a tremendous blessing when that happens.  It is more however that the gift of God’s patients with us.  We are like the child riding through the grocery store wanting, grabbing at, and crying out for whatever is the latest to catch our eye.  Often we long for those things that are less than fulfilling and get angry with God when we are not allowed to have them.  I often have imagined that God gets plenty tired of hearing us whine and complain and us chasing after that which will only hurt us in the long run.  I often imagine how difficult it must be for God to not punish us, a flood must look mighty tempting to God at times.  But God’s steadfast lover endures forever and therefore God is patient with us. 

Therefore since God has been patient with us we should not only learn to be patient with God and allow for things to happen according to God’s time, but we also need to be patient with one another. Throughout the book [Patience: How We Wait Upon the World, by David Baily Harned] one is repeatedly invited to pause, reflect, and see the relevance of patience to everyday life. “How could we hold the simplest conversation if we were not willing to wait for the other to speak?” Patience is, therefore, absolutely essential in a family, which is “a potential structure of destruction if patience is not present in the house.” Hence, Harned suggests, it is significant that in the Bible the relation between Creator and creatures is depicted as one of Parent and children. “At the heart and center of this relationship is God’s patience, God’s loving-kindness and long-sufferingness and forbearance.” But, in fact, the mystery and centrality of patience go even further into the being of God. “The doctrine of the Trinity affirms that the status of patience is essential to the perfection of divine activity.” At the heart of the divine life is a companionship in which each must wait upon the other.  We wait upon God even as God continues to wait upon us and encourages us to wait upon one another; patiently. 

This Advent may part of our actively waiting on God include patiently waiting on God and one another.  In this new year in the church calendar may we commit ourselves anew to the challenge of living in relationship with God and with one another patiently.  Thomas D. Peterson tells of a young pastor who was working on a sermon on love. He was so intent on his theme and thoughts that he had little patience for his children as they ran in and out of the study. Exasperated, he shouted at them, G..d..mit, I’m working on a sermon on love! God is extremely patient with us and at times even with the best of intentions we fail miserably.  In the words of Mark Twain, I hate it when I see beautiful theories trampled down by ugly facts.  Therefore as we commit ourselves anew to living patiently with God and one another let us give thanks that God has given us the gifts of grace and of being patient with us.  Amen.