Be patient, then, brothers, until the Lord’s coming. See how the farmer waits for the land to yield its valuable crop and how patient he is for the autumn and spring rains. You too, be patient and stand firm, because the Lord’s coming is near. Don’t grumble against each other, brothers, or you will be judged. The Judge is standing at the door! Brothers, as an example of patience in the face of suffering, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord. As you know, we consider blessed those who have persevered. You have heard of Job’s perseverance and have seen what the Lord finally brought about. The Lord is full of compassion and mercy. (James 5:7-11)
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“You have heard of Job’s perseverance …,” said James, as he heads for the home stretch; the final part of his letter to Christians struggling with - well - how to be Christians. It was, after all, tough going for those to whom James was writing. They were in some cases being persecuted; they were widely despised; they had been kicked out of the synagogues and cut off from the people among whom they had grown up. They needed examples of people who had persevered and overcome.
Most of us at some point along the way have probably known someone who has what we call “the patience of Job.” James uses the word “perseverance,” but the two things are intimately connected, if only because of Job’s circumstances. To talk about the “patience of Job” is to use one of those phrases that’s entered our lingo from the Bible, and the reality is that many in our society probably have no idea what it refers to. Job’s story, of course (for those who know it) is a tragic one. His possessions were taken away; his health was afflicted; his family was killed. Everything that mattered to Job disappeared. The Bible portrays this as a test of his faith. We’ve probably all experienced these “tests” from time to time; the circumstances that come to us suddenly and unexpectedly and through no fault of our own and that leave us shaken and bewildered, not quite sure how to proceed, not quite sure if we’re going to make it through. Any one of the things Job suffered would be enough to make most people question God. Job questioned God; Job became angry with God; Job felt that life was unfair because he had done nothing to deserve such calamities. But the phrase “the patience of Job” comes from the fact that, while shaken, Job’s basic faith in both God and God’s goodness remained. Job may have been angry with God, but he believed that God would somehow see him through and set him back on his feet. Job would have understood what James meant with the words, “The Lord is full of compassion and mercy.” Job recovered. He regained possessions, health and family. The story of Job is perhaps a bit naive in attributing this to God directly, but certainly Job’s faith in God gave him strength to continue in the face of his hardships. He could have given up, but he believed God had a plan and purpose for him. His perseverance resulted in restoration. We have all from time to time been faced with the need to persevere. We have all faced times of loss - whether of possessions, health or life - and the fact that we’re here today means that God has seen us through those times. We have all from time to time demonstrated the “patience of Job.”
But James has another example for us to consider. He wants us to think not only of Job as he struggled through personal turmoil, but also the example of the prophets. “... as an example of patience in the face of suffering, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord.” James sees the prophets as an example for us, and since we’re supposed to live up to the standards of those who are our examples, then we are called to live up to those standards, and to live with what might be called “prophetic patience.” One might ask, why did the prophets need patience? There were two basic reasons.
The first is that the prophets often faced hardships not unlike those that had been faced by Job. The prophets had to give up a lot to respond to their call to be prophets. The people doubted them, mocked them, ridiculed them, opposed them, attacked them and even killed them. To persevere through such trials requires patience. In the same way, try speaking prophetically today. To speak prophetically means to speak for God to the world. It’s a tough calling. It gets us involved in all sorts of things that a lot of people don’t think the church has any business being a part of - especially that ugly “politics.” And yet, the church has the responsibility to speak to the issues and social conditions of the day; to put them under the microscope of faith, so to speak; to interpret and analyze the world according to our understanding of God. Our theology; our understanding of God; our faith - these are the lenses by which we see and understand the world around us, and when we see the world around us lacking, we’re called to stand up and be counted, sometimes bringing us into disagreement with the powers that be - which, inherently, is political. Our own United Church tries hard to speak prophetically. I’m not convinced that we always get it right; but I’m happy that at least we try. But even trying to interpret the world through the lens of faith is controversial and brings us into conflict not just with the secular world but even with other people of faith who don’t agree with us. Prophetic patience means that having discerned God’s will, we persevere in proclaiming it even when everyone around us seems to disagree.
The prophets had a second problem. Usually, the things they prophesied didn’t happen. People might listen for a while, and like their words, but when change didn’t happen (or when it didn’t happen as quickly as people wanted) they were abandoned. The biblical prophets weren’t generally widely accepted as prophets by their contemporaries. Their views were so out of the ordinary that it took a lot of years (and in some cases centuries) for their words to be accepted as having been inspired by God. To speak as a prophet is not to predict the future, or, at the very least, it’s not to predict the near future. To speak as a prophet is to hold up a vision of the world and of society as God wants it to be, with no guarantee that the prophet is ever going to see the world or society that he or she prophesies. Some of the most beautiful prophetic words we’ll ever hear were written almost 3000 years ago by Isaiah, but 3000 years later do we see the lion laying down with the lamb? 3000 years later do we see nations beating swords into pruning hooks? Or, to put it in contemporary terms, do we see Christians and Jews and Moslems treating each other with love and respect? Do we see nations giving up their weapons and using the money instead to provide food for the hungry? No, we don’t. But does the fact that we don’t see it mean that as a church we should stop proclaiming it as God’s desire? Of course not. Holding up a vision of a better future (and doing what we can to try to make it happen, if only within our own community) is a noble and godly calling. But how frustrating is it when we don’t see it come true? How much patience does it require to keep prophesying even though we never see the prophecy come to fruition?
As hard as it may be, we are called to be “patient” in the midst of morally outrageous conditions, in which the poor keep getting poorer, the weak keep getting weaker, the oppressed are subjected to even greater oppression. Things don’t seem to be getting any better. James basically says two things: don’t fight to get what the world has and to become like the world because that says that we believe that what the world has is right and proper, but also don’t give up hope that things can change, because if we give up and abandon what we believe to be God’s will in deference to the powers lined up against us then we give all power to a world that we know isn’t right and proper. We are to neither attack the world nor give in to the world. We are to be prophetically patient - to hold up and advocate for a vision of an alternative society based on God’s desires for His people.
Being patient does not mean being passive. James says “Be patient, then, ... until the Lord’s coming. See how the farmer waits for the land to yield its valuable crop and how patient he is for the autumn and spring rains.” In other words, while we have to wait on God to bring all things to completion (“until the Lord comes”) and our patience is rewarded by each step toward that goal. Each act of love, each example of kindness, each time foes become friends is a sign of that goal coming closer - and since we can help those things happen (and can perhaps even do some of those things ourselves) we are not called to be passive but to be patient: to toil and to work even though we may not fully succeed, because we believe in the vision of a better world that God holds before us.
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