Kenneth L. Nelson - "Patient Faith in an Impatient World" (December 5, 1999)
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| - | The Holy Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ | 0:11 |
| as it is recorded in the Gospel according to St. Mark. | 0:14 | |
| The beginning of the good news | 0:19 | |
| of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, | 0:21 | |
| as it is written in the prophet Isaiah: | 0:24 | |
| See I am sending my messenger ahead of you, | 0:27 | |
| who will prepare your way. | 0:30 | |
| He said to him, | 0:34 | |
| the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, | 0:36 | |
| prepare the way of the Lord, | 0:39 | |
| make his path straight. | 0:41 | |
| John the Baptizer appeared in the wilderness | 0:44 | |
| proclaiming a baptism of repentance | 0:46 | |
| for the forgiveness of sins. | 0:48 | |
| And people from the whole Judean countryside, | 0:51 | |
| and all the people of Jerusalem were going out to him. | 0:54 | |
| And were baptized by him | 0:57 | |
| in the River Jordan, confessing their sins. | 0:58 | |
| Now John was clothed with camel's hair | 1:02 | |
| with a leather belt around his waist, | 1:04 | |
| and he ate locusts and wild honey. | 1:07 | |
| He proclaimed, the one who is more powerful than I | 1:10 | |
| is coming after me. | 1:13 | |
| I am not worthy to stoop down | 1:15 | |
| and untie the thong of his sandals. | 1:17 | |
| I have baptized you with water, | 1:20 | |
| but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit. | 1:23 | |
| This is the Word of the Lord. | 1:28 | |
| (audience responding) | 1:30 | |
| Let us pray. | 1:33 | |
| Silence in us, oh God, any voice | 1:41 | |
| that would speak but your own. | 1:43 | |
| And give us ears that we may hear anew, | 1:46 | |
| and be found Your faithful people. | 1:49 | |
| Amen. | 1:53 | |
| Have you ever taken a long trip with a small child? | 1:56 | |
| (audience laughing) | 2:01 | |
| If so, then you may know more | 2:07 | |
| about Advent than you think. | 2:09 | |
| (audience laughing) | 2:11 | |
| One of my nephews, when he was really small, | 2:13 | |
| would ask every time we pulled out the driveway | 2:15 | |
| for a long trip, "Are we there yet, Uncle Kenny?" | 2:18 | |
| "No, we're not there yet." | 2:23 | |
| We were driving from Buford, SC to Richmond, VA. | 2:26 | |
| We were about two blocks from the house | 2:30 | |
| when the question came, | 2:32 | |
| "Are we there yet, Uncle Kenny?" | 2:35 | |
| "No, we're not there yet." | 2:37 | |
| He kept asking all the way to Virginia. | 2:40 | |
| I get that feeling during Advent, | 2:45 | |
| as we travel towards Bethlehem, | 2:48 | |
| I find myself asking: | 2:50 | |
| "Are we there yet, God?" | 2:52 | |
| Are we any closer to the fulfillment | 2:54 | |
| of the kingdom which Jesus described? | 2:57 | |
| Are we closer to that time | 3:00 | |
| when love and faithfulness will meet, | 3:01 | |
| righteousness and peace will kiss? | 3:05 | |
| Are near the place where Isaiah's vision | 3:09 | |
| shall be filled full, | 3:11 | |
| where every valley is exalted, | 3:13 | |
| and mountains are made low, | 3:15 | |
| the rough places plain, | 3:18 | |
| and the crooked straight, | 3:20 | |
| and the glory of the Lord is revealed? | 3:23 | |
| Are we within earshot | 3:27 | |
| of the promise of peace on Earth, | 3:28 | |
| and goodwill to all people? | 3:31 | |
| Are we there yet, God? | 3:34 | |
| You don't have to be a biblical scholar | 3:38 | |
| to feel that longing. | 3:40 | |
| A few years ago, | 3:43 | |
| My Weekly Reader asked 45,000 elementary school students | 3:44 | |
| what they'd like to tell the President. | 3:48 | |
| The most common responses were, | 3:51 | |
| "The whole world should be at peace," | 3:54 | |
| "We should learn to take care of nature," | 3:57 | |
| "Everybody should get along with each other," | 4:00 | |
| "Candy bars shouldn't cost so much." | 4:04 | |
| (audience laughing) | 4:06 | |
| Three of the four reflect the deepest longings | 4:08 | |
| of biblical faith. | 4:10 | |
| The fourth probably reflects the desire of my own heart, | 4:12 | |
| but that's a different story. | 4:15 | |
| But when we hold those visions | 4:18 | |
| up against the mirror of our daily newspapers, | 4:20 | |
| we know that the promise of Bethlehem | 4:23 | |
| is a long way off. | 4:25 | |
| The world's struggle towards a lasting peace | 4:29 | |
| seems ever elusive. | 4:31 | |
| How many wars, police actions, | 4:34 | |
| military conflicts, interventions, | 4:37 | |
| since the War to End All Wars? | 4:39 | |
| In a decade of unprecedented economic prosperity, | 4:44 | |
| the chasm between the haves and have-nots | 4:48 | |
| continues to expand. | 4:51 | |
| The number of working poor grows exponentially. | 4:54 | |
| A well-intentioned celebration of diversity runs amok, | 4:58 | |
| and leads us to a furtherance of balkanization | 5:03 | |
| rather than fostering a true community or communion. | 5:06 | |
| Yes, we are a long way from God's intentions | 5:12 | |
| for us. | 5:17 | |
| This kind of longing lingers in the shadow | 5:19 | |
| behind the Epistle lesson from Peter. | 5:22 | |
| It was written to a second generation skeptic | 5:25 | |
| believer's community who expected that | 5:27 | |
| Jesus would return to fulfill the promise | 5:30 | |
| of the Kingdom every day, next week at the latest. | 5:32 | |
| But years have passed. | 5:37 | |
| The first generation Christians died, | 5:39 | |
| and now their heirs are asking, | 5:42 | |
| "Where is the promise of the coming of the Lord?" | 5:45 | |
| "Our fathers have all died, | 5:48 | |
| "and the world is still the same as it has always been, | 5:50 | |
| "where is the new Heaven and the new Earth, | 5:53 | |
| "the place where justice will be at home?" | 5:56 | |
| The Apostles' answer? | 6:01 | |
| Patience. | 6:05 | |
| Patience. | 6:07 | |
| Patience, which is tough | 6:09 | |
| because I'm an impatient person | 6:10 | |
| in an impatient world. | 6:12 | |
| I am a product of a microwave, | 6:14 | |
| internet superhighway, telecommunications, | 6:16 | |
| digitally enhanced age, | 6:19 | |
| where we expect everything to be completely instant, | 6:22 | |
| right now. | 6:27 | |
| Who's got time for patience? | 6:30 | |
| A tale is told of a frantic man | 6:33 | |
| who came running down the ramp | 6:35 | |
| waving to the ferry, | 6:37 | |
| which was just a few feet away from the dock. | 6:38 | |
| He jumped from the pier and onto the ferry, | 6:41 | |
| and said, "Whew, I made it." | 6:43 | |
| The boatman on the ferry replied, | 6:47 | |
| "Yep, but if you'd waited one minute more, | 6:48 | |
| "we would've pulled right up to the dock". | 6:51 | |
| (audience laughing) | 6:53 | |
| Sometimes we're all like that. | 7:00 | |
| We get so busy trying to accomplish everything at once | 7:03 | |
| that we lose our sense of perspective and direction. | 7:06 | |
| Who's got time for patience? | 7:11 | |
| God does. | 7:15 | |
| We need to hear Peter desperately say, | 7:18 | |
| "The first thing that you must remember is this, | 7:20 | |
| that a thousand years in the Lord's sight is like a day, | 7:24 | |
| and a day is like a thousand years." | 7:28 | |
| A patient faith comes from a long view | 7:31 | |
| of God's work in human history. | 7:34 | |
| One of you said to me on yesterday, | 7:38 | |
| "Ken, you've got to take the long view for your life." | 7:41 | |
| We forget that the God in whom we place our faith, | 7:47 | |
| is the God who took a thousand years | 7:50 | |
| to grow a sequoia. | 7:53 | |
| Who took millions of years to carve the Grand Canyon. | 7:54 | |
| Who took a thousand years to prepare | 7:59 | |
| the way for the Son of God to be born. | 8:01 | |
| My friends, God is in no hurry. | 8:06 | |
| A thousand years is like a day. | 8:11 | |
| A Methodist bishop told the story | 8:15 | |
| of a hunting trip into northern Maine | 8:17 | |
| in the fall of 1896. | 8:20 | |
| His fellow hunters included a geologist | 8:22 | |
| and an astronomer. | 8:24 | |
| They were guided by a north Maine woodsman, | 8:27 | |
| who had never been outside of the forest. | 8:29 | |
| A rock-ribbed Republican who is absolutely petrified | 8:32 | |
| that William Jennings Bryan might actually | 8:36 | |
| be elected to the White House that fall. | 8:38 | |
| Around the campfire one night, | 8:42 | |
| the astronomer looked up into the sky, | 8:43 | |
| and talked about the size of the galaxy, | 8:45 | |
| and the distance to the nearest star. | 8:48 | |
| The geologist picked up a rock | 8:51 | |
| and talked about it's formation during the Ice Age. | 8:53 | |
| The guide had never heard anything like that before. | 8:57 | |
| He listened in amazement, | 9:02 | |
| and when the bishop asked what he thought of all this, | 9:04 | |
| the guide scratched his head and said, | 9:07 | |
| "Well,if all of that's true, | 9:10 | |
| "then I guess it wouldn't be too bad | 9:11 | |
| "if Bryan was elected". | 9:14 | |
| Now, I'm not suggesting that it doesn't matter | 9:17 | |
| who picks up the mail at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, | 9:19 | |
| but we need to see our strutting | 9:24 | |
| and fretting on the state against the background | 9:26 | |
| of God's eternity. | 9:30 | |
| The God to whom a day is like a thousand years. | 9:32 | |
| But this passage is not about our patience with God, | 9:36 | |
| but it is about God's patience with us. | 9:41 | |
| Peter declares, "The Lord is not slow to do | 9:47 | |
| "what he has promised. | 9:50 | |
| "Instead he is patient with you, | 9:52 | |
| "because he does not want anyone to perish, | 9:55 | |
| "but wants all to turn away from their sins." | 9:59 | |
| God will accomplish God's purpose. | 10:04 | |
| The kingdom will come. | 10:08 | |
| The question has to do with us. | 10:11 | |
| Will we be faithful to the kingdom's vision? | 10:14 | |
| Will we be part of the fulfillment | 10:17 | |
| of God's redemptive purpose in human history? | 10:19 | |
| Which brings us to John the Baptist. | 10:23 | |
| The wilderness prophet in his rough hair coat | 10:25 | |
| eating his locusts and wild honey, | 10:28 | |
| offering his stern call to repentance. | 10:30 | |
| Now folks, John is not exactly the guy | 10:34 | |
| you invite to Christmas dinner. | 10:36 | |
| He is here to prepare the way | 10:38 | |
| for the coming of Christ. | 10:40 | |
| He calls us to be road builders for the kingdom. | 10:42 | |
| Men and women who clear the path | 10:46 | |
| and pave the way for God. | 10:48 | |
| The prophets of Advent remind us | 10:52 | |
| that the point of life is not to see | 10:54 | |
| who gets to Bethlehem first, | 10:56 | |
| but to be on our journey. | 10:58 | |
| To prepare the way for God's kingdom to come, | 11:02 | |
| and God's will to be done on Earth as it is in Heaven. | 11:04 | |
| Martin Luther described it in these powerful words, | 11:10 | |
| "This life is not righteousness, | 11:15 | |
| "but growth in righteousness. | 11:18 | |
| "Not health, but healing. | 11:21 | |
| "Not being, but becoming. | 11:25 | |
| "Not rest, but exercise. | 11:28 | |
| "We are not yet what we shall be, | 11:32 | |
| "but we are growing towards it. | 11:36 | |
| "The process is not yet finished, | 11:40 | |
| "but still ongoing. | 11:43 | |
| "This is not the end, | 11:46 | |
| "this is the road. | 11:49 | |
| "All does not yet gleam in glory, | 11:53 | |
| "but all is being purified." | 11:56 | |
| My friends, because this is not the end, but the road, | 12:01 | |
| you are invited to come to God's table this day, | 12:05 | |
| where Christ himself will graciously | 12:09 | |
| provide food for the journey, | 12:12 | |
| in the breaking of bread | 12:15 | |
| and the sharing of the cup, | 12:16 | |
| we may see anew God's patience and dogged determination | 12:18 | |
| to reclaim the entire world for himself, | 12:22 | |
| even by means of a broken body | 12:27 | |
| and shed blood nailed to a cross. | 12:30 | |
| Are we there yet, God? | 12:36 | |
| The answer is, "No." | 12:40 | |
| We aren't there yet, | 12:44 | |
| not by a longshot, | 12:45 | |
| but brothers and sisters in Christ, | 12:48 | |
| hear the good news, | 12:51 | |
| the Lord is very patient, | 12:54 | |
| because he does not want anyone lost, | 12:58 | |
| but for all of us to come to repentance | 13:01 | |
| along the road to Bethlehem. | 13:05 | |
| Thanks be to God. | 13:11 | |
| Amen. | 13:14 |