Sermon for
March 7, 2004
2nd Sunday in Lent
You Just Can’t Wait!
Gen. 15:1-12, 17-18; Psalm 27; Luke
13:31-35
How many of you like to
wait? How many of you just love to wait in line? For how many
of you is it really good news when you hear, “Now you know you’re gong
to have to wait”?
I have to confess that,
most of the time, I hate to wait. I especially dislike waiting in
line. Don’t you? It’s interesting though, that so much of
what we do in life requires us to wait…but we just can’t stand it.
If the shortest line at the bank or grocery story or post office is too
long you immediately expect another cashier to open another line to save
the time. I was in line at Wall Mart just the other day and heard
someone standing in line behind me call the store manager on her cellphone
informing him that the cashier lines were too long. Sure
enough, another line was opened almost immediately. I told her,
“From now on I’m going to make sure I’m in line with you!” I
just can’t wait!
Our culture has taught you well, you
know, the consumer culture in which you live has taught you that when you
need something you need it now. The culture is so good, in fact, it
has taught you that you need lots of things—things you don’t really
need at all. You don’t really need them but you have been taught
so well that you need these things you don’t really need that you need
these things you don’t really need right now!!! This is an
incipient disease we have in this culture. You just can’t wait!
Now to be impatient for
the latest consumer goods or for material possessions is one thing.
But our lack of patience does not stop there, does it? Are you not
just as impatient for the more permanent things, the lasting things, even
eternal things of life? You just can’t with even for them.
You want a life for
yourself, for your family, that is whole, fulfilled, just, and hopeful.
You want a meaningful life, a bright future, and eternal security.
That’s why you come to church, right? You want a world that is
safe, free of poverty and want, and community of trust. And you want
it right now.
Have you ever been working with
someone who was trying to do something that you think you know how to do
very well? You watch the person struggle with it, get it wrong, and
try again. What do you do? Is it not a part of your very
nature for you to finally, out of frustration and impatience, step in and
say, “Here, let me do it.” You just have to take control,
don’t you? You just can’t stand it anymore! Now you may
not have any more success with it than the other person did but it just
feels better to have your own hands on it. You just can’t wait!
In the Old Testament
today God speaks to Abram (whom we know later on as Abraham—the name God
gave Abram as God affirmed the covenant with him that God would bless his
people and through him bless the whole world). You remember when
Abram was 75 years old God called him to leave his father’s encampment
and go to a place where God would lead him. God had told Abram, “I
will be your God, you be my people; I will lead you to a land flowing with
milk and honey; your descendants will numbers as the grains of sand beside
the sea; and through you all the nations of the world will be blessed.”
So Abram had gone as God had called him. In this text Abram senses
the Word of the Lord coming to him again in a vision:
Do not be
afraid, Abram, I am your shield; your reward shall be very
great.
But Abram is afraid. He knows God’s promise very well.
He understands in God’s promise that he and his family will have a life
that is whole, fulfilled, just, and hopeful. God had promised him a
world that is safe, free of poverty and want, and community of trust.
He knows God’s promise. He believes God. But there is a
problem. Abram has no heir. He and his wife Sarai are
childless. How can your descendants number as the grains of sand
beside the sea if you have no children? Abram was now well into his
80’s. So Abram says to God,
O Lord God, what will you give me, for I continue childless..you
have given me no
offspring…”
But God assures him he will have an heir. And Abram believes God and
his belief God counted to him as righteousness.
But Abram and Sarai
couldn’t wait. In the very next chapter of the book of Genesis
Sarai, in an attempt to secure the promise of God, encouraged Abram
to accept the only option their culture made available to them. In
taking Sarai’s slave girl Hagar as his wife and having a child by her,
Abram could, by the custom of his time, produce an heir—in this case,
Abram’s son, Ishmael.
You see, they just
couldn’t wait. As you know the story they regretted that decision
almost from the beginning and brought so much suffering upon themselves as
well as upon Hagar and Ishmael until God stepped in and heeded Hagar’s
cry. Abram’s wife, Sarai--we know her better as Sarah: a name
given her later by God in a vision that announced that she herself
would hear a son, an heir, whose name was Isaac.
You see, you know the
promise of God very well. Like Abram and Sarai you believe in it.
You long for it. God has promised a life for you, for your family,
that is whole, fulfilled, just, and hopeful—a meaningful life, a bright
future, and eternal security; a world that is safe, free of poverty and
want, and a community of trust. That is the promise of God!
You know the promise of God and you believe it. Your belief God
counts to you as righteousness.
But, like Abram and
Sarai, you wait so long, it’s as if God is working on the
promise but may not be getting it quite right somehow. You may even
fear that God is getting it wrong. What do you do? Is it not a
part of your very nature for you to finally, out of frustration and
impatience, just step in and say, “Here, let me do it!” You just
have to take control, don’t you? Now you surely won’t have any
more success with it than God, but it just feels better to have your own
hands on it. You just can’t wait!
The bad thing is,
don’t you always make it so much worse, just like Abram and Sarai did?
You cause so much more pain for yourself, for your family, for the world
when you try to take matters into your own hands, take control when
you want it right now. You just can’t wait for God.
You can almost totally derail the promise altogether.
It is true that for the
best things, for the vital things, for eternal things, you must wait.
A good relationship
just does not come about by your own control of it;
you have to let it
happen and grow. For relationship you have to wait.
Children will not come to maturity by parents or guardians or teachers or
coaches making all the decisions for
them. For maturity you have to
wait.
Healing from illness or loss or personal pain does not come in an instant
no
matter how hard you try.
For healing you must wait.
A family, a church, a community, a nation, a world that finds itself
divided can never force
unity. For unity you must wait.
Jesus came to a world
such as yours—a world bent on controlling its own life. He came
saying things like
Do not worry
about your life: what you will eat or drink or wear.
Seek first for God…and
all these things will be added to you as well.
He reached out to the outcast, the sinners, the poverty-stricken, the
forgotten. He lived his life as if the promise of God was already
true where life is whole, fulfilled, just, and hopeful simply by
the pronouncement of God. But the religious leaders, the political
authorities, and, finally, even his own followers, trusted their own
control of their lives so much more than they trusted the promise of God
that they took things into their own hands and thereby squeezed the very
life out of the Son of God.
We hear our Lord this
morning in the Gospel lesson facing those who would so control their own
lives. He cries out to the city as one who knows the anguish of a
God who cries out to God’s people:
Jerusalem,
Jerusalem…How often have I desired to gather your
children together
as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and
you were not
willing.
Are you willing?
Can you with the Psalmist
Wait for the Lord..
Be strong and let your hearts take courage; wait
for the Lord!
Do you, South Roanoke Church, hear your Lord
call to you, “South Roanoke, South Roanoke!” Are you willing?
Do each of you this morning hear your Lord call you by name, not once but
twice, and say to you,
You put so much more pain upon yourself than you have to—but I will
bear it. That’s
what these sacred wounds are all about. Whenever you
trust anything else more
than you trust me; whenever you trust your own
power and influence in
your life or in your family or in your church or in
your world more than you
trust me, you cause so much more pain in your
life than you have to.
But I will bear it—that’s what these sacred wounds
are all about.
Are you willing?
Can you wait for the Lord? Can you place all your trust and all whom
you love in God?
There is not a better
time than today for the Church invites you to our Lord’s table in this
season of Lent to wait, wait before God in trust and confidence that God
can indeed bring the promise to fulfilment. Wait for the Lord.
Your biggest problem is
you just can’t wait! Brothers and sisters, at your Lord’s table
today, wait for the Lord!
