James 5:7-12 Patience

 

When I think of patience, I think of the prayer, “Lord, please give me patience, and give it to me now!” In many ways, I relate to that prayer. Patience can be hard and some people struggle with a lack of it more than others. It seems rather ironic that this sermon is coming on the first Sunday back into lockdown! Patience is defined as the capacity to accept or tolerate delay, trouble, or suffering without getting angry or upset, or annoyed without losing your temper or becoming irritated. Patience is keeping a spirit of calmness and peace in times of turmoil, upset and stress.

Patience seems to be getting harder and harder to practice. There are a lot of reasons for why patience seems harder now: we keep moving in and out of isolation as COVID is now in our own community and each time we’re a close contact we need to isolate ourselves from contact with others. We’re already practicing physical distancing and this is creating stress and loneliness affecting mental health. We’re living in closer quarters than normal, constantly being asked to be flexible, and there’s change on change in so many of our routines. This challenges our ability to be patient with others, ourselves, and even God. On this Sunday when we honour mothers, I honour how much patience so many of you have had to grow in this past year! Being a mother, teacher, counsellor, referee and more has called for much patience and grace this past year!

Patience is part of the Fruit of the Spirit, and maybe one of the hardest parts to grow in. This is where the church comes in. Melissa Slocum writes, “Our ancient Christian faith teaches us much about the path to holiness. It is usually countercultural, slow, includes some suffering or persecution, and requires persistence, patience, devotion to God through prayer, and devotion to God’s people through service. Like prayer, patience is a discipline that we learn, practice, and get better at over time.” Just like fruit on a tree doesn’t appear overnight and needs to be cultivated, pruned, and nourished, so too, patience is something that is grown, cultivated, and nourished as well. The only issue is that many people don’t bother because it’s hard. They use excuses such as, “This is the way I was born,” or “God made me this way,” or even, “Impatience is a positive thing because it gets right to the heart of the issue and we get stuff done.”

I love how James uses the farmer as an example of patience. Part of the reason is that they don’t have a choice, they have to practice patience otherwise they will drive themselves crazy. But it still doesn’t always come naturally. Growing up, I remember one farmer saying that growing patience was part of growing his faith because it was part of growing his trust in God, trusting that God is in control. That doesn’t mean he didn’t work hard at farming, but he recognized what was in his control and what wasn’t.

When James talks about patience, he does so with the knowledge that Jesus is coming back. We read this and wonder, because James is writing this about 2,000 years ago, but the idea is still relevant today, we don’t know when Jesus is returning, so we need to go about our work as mature Christians, this is why James warns us against grumbling against each other. Grumbling shows a lack of maturity and a lack of trust and faith in God. This hurt when I first read it; it shows me how much growing up I still have to do at times.

Rev. Frederick Buechner writes, “So to wait for Christ to come in his fullness is not just a passive thing, a pious, prayerful, churchly thing. On the contrary, to wait for Christ to come in his fullness is above all else to act in Christ's stead as fully as we know how. To wait for Christ is as best we can to be Christ to those who need us to be Christ to them most and to bring them the most we have of Christ's healing and hope because unless we bring it, it may never be brought at all.” Rev. Buechner reminds us that when we live with the expectation of Jesus’ return, we are more invested in being more like Christ to others, and I would add, more engaged in inviting others to join us in following Jesus as Lord and Saviour.  

Melissa Slocum gets to the heart of the importance of growing the fruit of patience in our lives, “Teens live in the in-between world where they are no longer children but not yet adults. They are constantly encouraged to be patient and told to wait until they are older. But are we as adults giving them good examples of how to be patient, or of what to do while they wait? Teaching patience requires wisdom, discipline and, yes, patience. While we wait patiently for answers to prayer or direction for our lives, we cannot simply be idle. As Christians we are called to engage with the world by serving the least, the last, and the lost; and we are commanded to maintain our individual spiritual disciplines of prayer, presence, gifts, service, and witness.”

Do our teens, children, and community see a people who are patient and gracious to one another, living out this part of the fruit of the Spirit with each other? What kind of a witness are we? Do they see us practicing patience in life, especially at this time when there are so many people in the news acting out in defiance against the various levels of government, do they see us treating each other respectfully even in our disagreements over many of these same issues, or do they see grumbling people? Listening to each other in order to understand the other person is a strong step in growing patience. Does our community see us concentrating on serving the least, the last, and the lost as we take our eyes off of our own wants and concentrate on who Jesus is calling us to be in making disciples for him? Being aware of what’s going on around you, helping someone else gets your focus off yourself and helps grow patience. Take time each day to write down 3 things you are thankful for; gratitude helps grow patience. Practice gratitude instead of grumbling.

James goes on to use the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord as an example of patience; James connects the ability to persevere in hard times to having learned how to be patient because they knew that Jesus was coming back. But it made me think, how were the prophets able to be patient and persevere through the persecution and even martyrdom? Heather Hughes says, “Patience requires hope because we need to know how a story ends in order to keep going through the painful parts.” This is where the prophets’ and our patience come from, we know the end of the story! Then I realized that their patience was rooted in hope, the hope of knowing that Jesus was coming back and that when he does, he’s going to set things right. Trust in Jesus helps grow patience, knowing the Jesus won against Satan and sin when he died and was raised up from the grave for our sins, and that we will all be raised up from the grave into a new life; a life where our struggles are over and we’re able to live into who we really are as Jesus’ followers, as God’s children.

Living into God’s patience and our hope in Jesus helps us to also grow grace into our hearts and souls. God himself practices patience, Peter reminds us 2 Peter 3:9, “The Lord is not slow in keeping His promise as some understand slowness, but is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish but everyone to come to repentance.” God’s patience comes out of his love for us and wanting everyone to come to repentance, back into a good relationship with him again. Yet, as I think about my own struggle with impatience, I realise that the times I’m most impatient is when I feel disrespected. Each time we sin, we disrespect God, so when you think about God’s patience, thank him for his grace to you.

I love how the song goes, “Amazing grace, my chains are gone;” the chains of sin and impatience and grumbling begin to break because of Jesus; the chains of impatience and immaturity are broken and we grow in patience and grace with each other. This helps us to become more who we are called to be as followers of Jesus; Paul calls us in Ephesians 4 to, “As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love.”

Remember who we are, God’s children, followers of Jesus called to be like Jesus and make disciples who look like Jesus. We do this by loving each other, living with patience with others. Richard Mouw puts it this way, “God did not give up, either on human beings or on the larger creation that he loves. He set out to call to himself a redeemed people who would show the world how he originally intended human beings to conduct their lives. And finally, he sent Jesus to save individuals but also to reclaim the whole creation.” Patience is part of the Fruit of the Spirit that reveals the maturity of our faith and our love for God and others.