Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that has been given you in Christ Jesus, for in every way you have been enriched in him, in speech and knowledge of every kind - just as the testimony of Christ has been strengthened among you - so that you are not lacking in any spiritual gift as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ. He will also strengthen you to the end, so that you may be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is faithful; by him you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.
(1 Corinthians 1:3-9)
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A few days ago I was chatting with Scott McEachnie, from McEachnie Funeral Home. Actually, we were sitting in a car, waiting to make a left turn on to Church Street from the church parking lot to lead a funeral procession up to Pine Ridge Cemetery. We were talking about how times had changed – that there used to be a time when, at the first sight of a funeral procession, all traffic would stop to let it through. Now, it’s not unusual for the lead funeral coach to have to fight its way into the mad rush of drivers having to get wherever they’re going in a hurry because if it took them five minutes longer to get there – well, something awful would surely happen! As we sat there, waiting for a break in the traffic or for some kind soul to let us in, I thought that this was actually a pretty good image to hold on to as the First Sunday in Advent loomed just ahead. People don’t like to wait anymore. We don’t like to wait for anything. Our society has developed instant this and instant that – instant everything! So we have all sorts of instant foods – instant rice and instant noodles and instant pudding and instant oatmeal. Heaven forbid we should ever have to actually cook anything! And for those who do dare to cook, I noticed that one of the hottest selling items on Black Friday was the instant pot – which promises to cook your food up to 10 times faster. If you’re wondering, Chatelaine Magazine reviewed the Instant Pot and said that while the results are good, it’s not as fast as advertised! But it’s called the “Instant Pot” - so it will be a big hit, because it promises less waiting, and waiting is increasingly a lost art. People want to get what they want and when they want it without ever having to wait for it. In an article in the Boston Globe, a 23-year old man was quoted as saying that “my generation is used to getting everything we want without having to wait for it.” He went on to say, “Maybe it’s made us a little impatient.” Well – maybe.
This desire to have everything now is probably one of the reasons that Advent is a tough sell for a lot of people. We don’t want to have to wait for Christmas – and increasingly we don’t. I have satellite radio in my car. Sirius XM started its all Christmas music station on November 1. Seriously? I mean, you can only listen to “Winter Wonderland” so many times before you want to rip the radio out and toss it out the window, and once you’ve heard “Feliz Navidad” for the 50th time in a week? Well, let’s just say that Jose Feliciano starts to lose his appeal. Some stores had Christmas displays out in August. Christmas lights and Christmas trees were up at some houses long before Remembrance Day. And there’s the never-ending debate in some churches – can we sing Christmas carols in Advent or do we have to wait for December 24? Waiting for Christmas seems so old fashioned – even in the church. We just want to get right to it.
But it’s not just the current generation or recent generations that face this challenge with impatience. You can trace this desire for instant gratification all the way back to the days of Jesus. That was generally not a day of instant gratification. From what I’ve heard they didn’t even have high-speed internet in Jesus’ day. Imagine – Jesus must have surfed the web on dial-up! And yet – people still had trouble waiting. Even the disciples of Jesus would find themselves getting just a little bit impatient at times. There was a scene in Mark 13 between Jesus and his disciples. Jesus was describing to them the signs that they should be watching for. And rather than listening and then watching, the disciples started making demands: “When’s it going to happen Jesus? Tell us? We want to know.” And Jesus must have shaken his head just a little bit and maybe done a bit of a face palm. They just didn’t get it. “Nobody knows,” he finally said. “Nobody knows. The angels don’t know. I don’t even know. Only the Father knows.” There are some things you just have to wait for.
“… in every way you have been enriched in him, in speech and knowledge of every kind - just as the testimony of Christ has been strengthened among you - so that you are not lacking in any spiritual gift as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Those words are from our reading this morning from 1 Corinthians. Did you pick up on three words in the midst of it: “as you wait.” The last part of that sentence wasn’t really necessary. He could have just reminded the Corinthians that they weren’t lacking in any spiritual gift. They had everything they needed to get about their business. Oh, but those Corinthians. They were an impatient and ornery bunch. They wanted things their own way. They fought among themselves. They tried to outdo each other in flashy displays of holiness. They were willing to sacrifice some of the basic morals they had been taught for the sake of instant gratification. They abused the gifts God had given them for the sake of showing off rather than using them to serve God and gospel and others. So Paul reminded them: they had been given everything they needed so that they would not be “lacking in any spiritual gift as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ.” They couldn’t have it all. Not right away. Not any more than those disciples of Jesus could get all the answers they wanted from Jesus. Not any more than the disciples of Jesus today can get all the answers we want from Jesus. For all that we’ve been given by God, we still have to wait. But while we wait, we can still be about the business of God; the ministry of Jesus. This is another problem with waiting that Paul knew very well. Some are too impatient to be asked to wait and they give up and move on to something else if they can’t have everything they want as soon as they want it. Others revel in waiting, and use it as an opportunity to do nothing. Paul confronted that problem with the church at Thessalonica – who, convinced that the return of Jesus was imminent, immediately and enthusiastically and without hesitation set about doing nothing. “Why bother,” was their attitude. “Jesus will take care of it when he comes.” And Paul scolded them. “There’s no place for laziness in a Christian life” is basically what he said.
You see, waiting for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ isn’t a call to idleness or laziness. While it is a call for us to watch for the signs of God’s presence and actions in our world, it is not a call to simply leave everything for God to sort out some day. This morning, once again, we will be strengthened by the gifts of God that we will find at the table of God. They’re simple things – a wafer; a cup of juice. But to us they are indeed gifts. More than that, to us they are life. To us they are reminders of Jesus, who gives us life and who sets us free; who calls us not to simply wait for his return to put all things right – but who rather calls us to begin the working of putting things right today. We cannot right all the wrongs of the world – but we do not have to sit back and simply wait. Where we see injustice, we can fight it. We we see hatred we can work to overcome it. Where we see oppression we can confront it. Where we see deceit we can correct it. Where we see need, we can try to meet it. Where we see grief, we can reach out in the midst of it. We do these things because these things are the ministry of Jesus, who calls us. And we can do all this while we wait. Waiting doesn’t have to be a passive activity. God has gifted us just as God gifted the Corinthians with every gift we need to serve as we wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ. And just be patient – because we won’t be waiting forever. As the American writer and Nobel Prize laureate William Faulkner wrote, “… sure enough even waiting will end … if you can just wait long enough.”
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