Waiting Time Isn't Wasted Time

Living in-between

1. Advent is a season that focuses on the in-between.

We are definitely living in in-between times.

In-between the announcement and approval of a vaccine.

In-between the life we knew before COVID-19 and the life to come.

We also live between the promise of Christ’s return and the fulfillment of the promise. We have been given the gift, and we’ve even unwrapped it and get to experience it, but we are still waiting for one more part that will make it even better.

Our challenge: Generally speaking, we have been well-conditioned to be impatient. There is a constant quest for speed and immediate gratification, often at the expense of others.

Retailers offer same day delivery on everything from carrots to cars.

I am amazed at the lines wrapped around fast food outlets.

Our technology usage demonstrates our growing impatience. We get frustrated with slow internet speeds (confession). Some of us still remember life before computers. Heck, rotary dial phones and landlines. We remember the big boxy workstations with monochrome monitors, dot matrix printers. Along came dial-up modems with the sound and thrill, the amazement with technology despite the waiting time.

As technology has improved, were have become insatiable super-consumers of bandwidth; internet speed addicts who suffer immediate withdrawal symptoms if anything interrupts our supply line.

These days, we are challenged to wait for anything. Frankly, waiting can make us cranky.

So what do we do in this waiting time? Paul has a few ideas.

Paul can pack a lot into a paragraph. Too much to unpack in a sermon. So I want to begin with the end in mind by looking at the last verse first.

The New Revised Standard Version Marks of the True Christian

18 If it is possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.

So far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.

The Greek translates peaceably as ‘make peace’. So, as far as it depends on you, make peace with all.

Paul is calling for an ethic of peace.

During a time of tension among the Christian Jews, Christian Gentiles, and people outside the faith community, Paul’s imperatives call for active and ongoing practices that bring peace to the world.

Application: This passage reminds us that God desires our active, faithful living right now, even in the in-between as we wait, even in contentious times with fellow Christians and others in the world.

IF we look at the historical arc of God’s story, we can deduce that waiting can have meaning. The time spent waiting for a message or event can be as meaningful as the message or event itself depending on what we do with the time. Waiting time is not wasted time.

Human beings are anthropocentric— considering themselves as the most significant entities in the universe. So, we may orient ourselves to God having a role in the story of our lives. Truth is that we are part of the historical arc of God’s story and need to reorient our thinking.

“Waiting ultimately reorients our stories: We are not the primary actor on a stage of our own making or choosing. Rather, God is the hero of the story. Will we be content to wait on God’s work? In these in-between times, what character will be formed in us as individuals and as a culture? ” (Ashley Hales, “Waiting Time Isn’t Wasted Time,” Christianity Today, April 10, 2019, https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2019/april-web-only/delayed-response-jason-farman-art-waiting.html).

Reorienting our stories - realigning our lives; releasing hate and cultivating hope; looking beyond present predicaments to possibilities.

We are part of a much bigger plan and too often we fail to recognize the significance of our roles in God’s plan

Every person has a purpose; every BODY has value.

We need to reorient our personal stories toward the historical arc of God’s ever unfolding epic.

Just as there are multitudes of stars still being birthed in the expanding universe, there are personal stories being birthed and added to God’s unfolding epic.

Imagine the expansive nature of the God’s stage. Look at the earth and all the heavens.

Is 40~ God is the One who measures the waters on the hollow of his hand; marked off the heavens with a span; enclosed the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains in scales and the hills in a balance.

God sits above the earth, and we are like grasshoppers (little creatures)

Isaiah beckons us to look up at the stars for orientation.

Who created these? The One who brings out the moon and sun, the one who numbers the stars and all the celestial bodies, calling them all by name; because ofGod’s great in strength and power, not one is missing!

Psalm 8 ~ When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars that you have established; what are human beings that you are mindful of them? Yet you have made them a little lower than angels and crowned them with honor.

The in-between times we must take time to look at the place God has granted us in the God’s unfolding history; we must reflect on the space God has granted us to grow into the fullness we were created to become;

This is a time to process and integrate the wisdom of our past and present experiences as we prepare for the promise. He is coming.

Waiting time is not wasted time!

3. We recognize the value of waiting when we consider the traditional marriage engagement period. While it is a time of great excitement, and many just want the wedding to be over so they can live in happily wedded bliss, a lot happens during the in-between. The engagement time allows us to prepare for life with our spouse. It isn’t easy. There are expectations and stresses that arise when planning for a wedding, merging two families, and dreaming of a future together. This engagement period often includes some premarital counseling to work through things that our lovestruck brains might overlook. We find ourselves working to be the person we need to be in order to make a marriage thrive.

As we wait and prepare for the coming of Christ with excitement and longing, we find purpose and meaning by living faithfully betrothed to Christ. We live in the promise, and that promise is transforming us into the people who live out the message of this passage. Just as we prepare to receive our future spouse, so we prepare to receive our Jesus again.

4. In the Advent season, many are shopping for or preparing wonderful handmade gifts to share. What would it look like to see this season as a gift instead of just a time waiting for something else?

What would it look like to do the things you can now, because there will come a day when you won’t have the same opportunities?

How will you interact with people now, in this temporal kingdom, in a way that can make the eternal kingdom manifest even more beautifully?

There are endless combinations and permutations of possibilities and outcomes of our interactions. The most important of these in Paul’s exhortation is peace. He encourages us to live an ethic of peace.

…so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.

Paul is not instructing us to be door mats that unscrupulous people walk all over. That is harmful and leads to abuse.

We live out an ethos of peacemaking that distinguishes us as individuals and as a community.

This means letting love be genuine/authentic/ not hypocritical -

comforting and confronting/challenging love that hates what is evil and holds fast to what is good.

genuine love is energetic and profoundly optimistic.

Love that calls out harmful privilege; will not tolerate indifference or acquiescence; that will not simply go along to get along but seeks a different kind of life for all.

A peacemaking ethos strives for reconciliation and renewal rather than retaliation or retribution.

v14. ~Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them.

That’s a verse for a deep breath.

Yes, when that terse email comes, that gaze of disdain; when you get misnamed or blamed; when you feel under attack, a peacemaking ethos does not react meeting evil with evil; a peacemaking ethos is the intentional practice of empathy and response.

It means looking beyond the surface, seeking conversation, extending not only an olive branch but seeking to build a bridge.

Peacemaking seeks to love one another with mutual affection; to outdo one another in showing honor.

We cannot control anyone else’s action or reaction, we can control our own response and do so with honor.

Remember God made humankind a little lower than angels and crowned us with honor. (Psalm 8) We must always seek the height of that crown of honor. Because all have fallen short of the glory of God, so we act with humility.

Phil 2:3 ~ ‘count others as better than yourselves (be humble)

Eph 5:21~ ‘be subject to one another out of reverence to Christ.’

As we honor one another, we honor God. When we disrespect one another, we disrespect God.

With each action or response, ask how can I honor God? How am I honoring the space God has granted for growth in this moment?

There is always waiting room for our responses. Short or long, there is always waiting room even in the midst of decision. This is the in-between space where we experience the tension of growth and transformation.

In our growth, we fill space until discomfort triggers a different stretch and struggle for transformation. In our transformation, we tear through the confines to potential to embody the promises of God! We no longer fill space but become a re-oriented, integral part of all space. We take on a new life, a different nature and ever growing understanding. We release the shell of self to live more in unbound connection with God and the universe.

With new eyes and ears, and renewed hearts, we see into souls; deeply listen beyond words and actions to the unspoken messages of the heart and spirit; we come to ‘know’ by unexpected means as God’s Spirit informs our spirit and we begin to move as one with God.

So What?

In this time of waiting, God has made space for us to learn, practice, reflect, adjust. To try and try again to live into the greatness for which we were created.

God the Father sent God the Son to reconcile humankind to our Creator. He ascended and promised to return at an unknown hour. Some may feel they have done all the right things but God still isn’t showing up they way they want him to.

When we read passages like Romans 12, we are reminded that growing in Christ means becoming more like him, not asking him to become more like we want him to be.

We have expectations in all of our relationships. God can handle that we have expectations in our spiritual relationship too. We may be waiting on something from God and wondering when it will happen. Here’s the thing, when we feel like God isn’t the person we thought we knew in the relationship, it is likely time to reorient ourselves with the truth of God’s character through the Bible and the counsel of the Holy Spirit.

Our waiting room is a time to make space for a greater, deeper, stronger engagement with God. It is a space to trust, to ask, seek, knock so God can open the door to a bigger room beyond imagination.

Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory when the chocolate factory tour first started, the guests were in a waiting room. Willy Wonka took them through an area that appeared to get smaller and smaller. But when he opened the door, there was expansive wonder on the other side!

When we choose to remain engaged with God and one another as we wait, it allows us not only to critically evaluate whom we have committed to but also to evaluate who we are in the relationships.

who are we with God?

who are we in our relationships with one another?

Is there an intersection in these relationships?

Matthew 16:24 ~ Jesus says those who want to be his followers must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow him.

They must release their ways to be transformed in his ways.

Paul, a follower of Christ, gives imperatives on how to take up your cross. The goal is to have a cross-shaped individual life and to be a part of a cross-shaped church community