Romans 8:22-27
“Hurry Up and Wait”
July 14, 2019
Waiting is the great human equalizer.
And it humbles us. Nowhere has that been truer than at the top of the world, Mt. Everest. For many of us the intensive training and the two months of actual climbing as well as the estimated $45,000 price tag to make the climb and obviously, the brutal weather conditions would be enough to keep us from even imagining tackling such a feat. This May there were precious few good days weather-wise for the climb and thousands permits were issued and, of course, the need to document reaching the peak with selfies. This all created a massive line up to the peak with great concern that some might freeze to death while waiting for their hard-earned spot at the world’s highest point. Toss in the fact that these climbers had to move past the dead bodies of some who didn’t make it and this is a waiting experience that seems other-worldly.
Closer to reality for the rest of us is the waiting that is an intrinsic part of travel. There are lines to get into state parks, lines to get on rides at amusement parks, lines of cars at toll booths (I’m talking to you, New Jersey), lines to check into a motel and, of course, one line after another in airports. First to check in, then to go through TSA, then to get something to eat in one of the overpriced snack bars or restaurants and then the line to board the plane and then once the plane has landed a line in the aisle to get off the plane and there’s the wait for luggage at the carousel and maybe even a line to get on the shuttle that will take you to your vehicle. The estimate for the amount of time we Americans wait in lines each year is a whopping 37 billion hours.
Hopefully, whatever your destination the next time you travel will be worth the investment in patience that will surely be tried. You will have to at least double or triple the dose of patience necessary if traveling with a child – and this is when traveling for pleasure. Hurry up and wait, not going up Mt. Everest for any of us, but just to enjoy time away be it a visit to family or a chance to see some part of creation that draws us toward it with a desire to experience it for ourselves.
Waiting on God takes many forms in scripture and is definitely lifted up as a virtue. At some points waiting for God is an expression of what to do in the face of negative circumstances, the thinking being that waiting for God will be vindication from one’s enemies or at least the mess a person found themselves in. The Psalms offer us such encouragement as “wait for the Lord, be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the Lord.” (Ps 27:14 NRSV)
To wait for God is an act of faith, trusting God more and human action motivated by anger or frustration less. Consider the wisdom found in Proverbs where it says, “Do not say, ‘I will repay evil’; wait for the Lord and he will help you.” (Prov 20:22 NRSV) When just getting through another day and all its drama is weighing you down and feels unbearable, the prophet Isaiah offers that “those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.” (Is 40:31 NRSV)
The hope that is being offered in today’s passage from Paul to the Romans is also frequently the companion to waiting. When we are waiting for God to act, maybe in some way beyond our imagining, we are to be filled with hope. An example that is cited earlier in Romans is the hope that Abraham would become a father of many nations. He and Sara waited many years for God to fulfill his promise but his waiting was not in vain. He hoped for something unseen because, after all hope seen is not hope at all.
Here in the Romans passage, the waiting for redemption is imagined to be coming very soon with the return of Jesus. As recounted in 2nd Peter, “We wait for new heavens and a new earth.” Paul and lots of other folks thought he was coming back in their lifetimes and so the waiting is intended to be filled with anticipation that whatever pain and suffering is happening at that moment will soon come to an end. But this waiting is an active waiting. No, Jesus did not yet come in the same form that they saw him only a few years earlier but perhaps the waiting then and still now is intended to be the time that we as disciples of Jesus get to work on preparing the world that Jesus himself shared as God’s wish for us.
While all this waiting is happening, we also have an advocate, says Paul to the Roman church. The Holy Spirit is present and accompanies us during the sometimes hard work of waiting. And so we must wait but also do. Why is it so hard for us to stay patient and hopeful while waiting? A researcher at MIT determined that occupied time just feels like it goes faster than time when we’re not doing anything so waiting in lines makes time feel like it’s dragging and makes us impatient and can also produce stress and anxiety and that anxiety makes our waiting seem even longer. (“The Hidden Joy of Waiting in Line,” www.dailygood.org, 6/6/14)
Paul knew that he had to use illustrations that his intended audience would get. The description of a pregnant creation, waiting to give birth to something new is an image we can all relate to as every one of us has been the cause of labor pains and for some of us the ones feeling these labor pains. Hear then Eugene Peterson’s words for this passage from Romans on this waiting that we are all engaged in. “These sterile and barren bodies of ours are yearning for full deliverance. That is why waiting does not diminish us, any more than waiting diminishes a pregnant mother. We are enlarged in the waiting….But the longer we wait, the larger we become, and the more joyful our expectancy. Meanwhile, the moment we get tired in the waiting. , God’s Spirit is right alongside helping us along.”
For those of us impatient for a kinder and gentler world, one in which the stranger is welcomed, all are clothed and fed and housed and strength is measured by kindness and not bullying, harassment or intimidation, we need not wait idly. There is plenty we can do to help bring the Kingdom of God into the world. We are waiting for the fulfillment of God’s plan for the world and it will be birthed because of our part in it. This is not the time to be on the sidelines, waiting as spectators. Rather let us lean into the labor pains, breathe through them as Lamaze teachers would tell us before giving birth. Lean into and don’t shy away from our hurting world and be a part of the solution with a generosity of spirit and love that embraces all. To wait with hope is to lean into the Spirit and use our finite time as instruments of peace. What are we waiting for? Amen and amen.