Waiting for God
To listen to the sermon, click on the link below:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/46934662/Jan%201%202012%20Ser.mp3
Waiting For God
January 1, 2012
Isaiah 61:10 – 62:3
Luke 2: 22-38
In 1990, now over 20 years ago, dr. Bob Moorehead a pastor in Redmond, WA wrote a piece entitled The Paradox of our Time. (It was later popularized by the comedian George Carlin, but he didn’t write it.) It reads like this:
“The paradox of our time in history is that we have taller buildings, but shorter tempers; wider freeways, but narrower viewpoints; we spend more, but have less; we buy more, but enjoy it less.
We have bigger houses and smaller families; more conveniences, but less time; we have more degrees, but less sense; more knowledge, but less judgment; more experts, but more problems; more medicine, but less wellness.
We drink too much, smoke too much, spend too recklessly, laugh too little, drive too fast, get angry too quickly, stay up too late, get up too tired, read too seldom, watch TV too much, and pray too seldom.
We have multiplied our possessions, but reduced our values. We talk too much, love too seldom, and hate too often. We've learned how to make a living, but not a life; we've added years to life, not life to years.
We've been all the way to the moon and back, but have trouble crossing the street to meet the new neighbor. We've conquered outer space, but not inner space; we've done larger things, but not better things.
We've cleaned up the air, but polluted the soul; we've split the atom, but not our prejudice.
We write more, but learn less; we plan more, but accomplish less. We've learned to rush, but not to wait; we have higher incomes, but lower morals; we have more food, but less appeasement; we build more computers to hold more information to produce more copies than ever, but have less communication; we've become long on quantity, but short on quality.
These are the times of fast foods and slow digestion; tall men, and short character; steep profits, and shallow relationships. These are the times of world peace, but domestic warfare; more leisure, but less fun; more kinds of food, but less nutrition.
These are days of two incomes, but more divorce; of fancier houses, but broken homes. These are days of quick trips, disposable diapers, throw away morality, one-night stands, overweight bodies, and pills that do everything from cheer to quiet to kill.
It is a time when there is much in the show window and nothing in the stockroom; a time when technology has brought this letter to you, and a time when you can choose either to make a difference, or to just hit delete...”
It is a rather pessimistic view of society, yet rings true in many ways. While we are often told that things are newer and more convenient, we tend to recognize that we have also lost something in the process. It’s perhaps illustrated best for me in the commercials for new phones, which boast that they are faster sos you can get news 34 seconds earlier than everyone else; as though those 34 seconds will make a great difference in your life! When the reality is that you will probably spend those 34 seconds messing with your phone!
We live in a society where people expect speed and efficiency to be the ultimate goal of life. We have been conditioned to expect everything to happen now, or sooner. Yet, as Pastor Moorehead declares, in the process we have lost something.
And so, as we begin a New Year, perhaps we should take some cues from two people who took a different approach to life. Our text from Luke 2 focuses on two people named Simeon and Anna. We don’t know much about either of them, but we are told enough to give us some sense of who they were, and how they lived their lives.
Simeon, we are told, was “righteous and devout” and was “looking forward to the consolation of Israel.” He was expecting a fulfillment of the ancient prophecies, of Isaiah and Ezekiel, that Israel would be vindicated and a promised Messiah, Deliverer, would come. And, we are told, the Spirit had told him that he would see this happen before he died. And he was attentive to the Spirit’s guidance as he came to the temple and found there the infant Jesus, along with his parents Mary and Joseph.
His prayer of thanksgiving, known as the Nunc Dimitrius, has been used in evening prayer liturgies since at least the 4th century, and speaks of the longing that Simeon had and his thanksgiving at seeing its fulfillment. There was no demand that the expectation be fulfilled immediately – Simoen was simply glad it had happened in his lifetime!
“Lord, now let your servant depart in peace, for my eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared in the presence of all people, a light for revelation to he Gentiles and glory for your people Israel.” Luke 2: 29-32
Likewise Anna was not impatient. She had been a widow for many years. If she was married at the normal age in those days or 15 or 16, she had been married only 7 years before her husband died, and then perhaps 60 years as a widow. She spent those years in the temple, praying and waiting also for the coming Messiah. And finally her wait was over.
And it wasn’t as though Mary and Joseph were doing anything extraordinary. They were simply complying with the laws, doing what the law required of them after the birth of a child.
Leviticus 12: 2-8 says:
2 “Say to the Israelites: ‘A woman who becomes pregnant and gives birth to a son will be ceremonially unclean for seven days, just as she is unclean during her monthly period. 3 On the eighth day the boy is to be circumcised. 4 Then the woman must wait thirty-three days to be purified from her bleeding. She must not touch anything sacred or go to the sanctuary until the days of her purification are over. 5 If she gives birth to a daughter, for two weeks the woman will be unclean, as during her period. Then she must wait sixty-six days to be purified from her bleeding.
6 “‘When the days of her purification for a son or daughter are over, she is to bring to the priest at the entrance to the tent of meeting a year-old lamb for a burnt offering and a young pigeon or a dove for a sin offering.[a] 7 He shall offer them before the LORD to make atonement for her, and then she will be ceremonially clean from her flow of blood.
“‘These are the regulations for the woman who gives birth to a boy or a girl. 8 But if she cannot afford a lamb, she is to bring two doves or two young pigeons, one for a burnt offering and the other for a sin offering. In this way the priest will make atonement for her, and she will be clean.’”
So Mary and Joseph were simply following instructions, the usual custom of the day and clearly from what Luke notes, they were not wealthy, as they brought the lesser of the sacrifices, not the lamb. So they must have been startled by this outpouring of praise from these two elderly prophets in the temple.
But Simeon and Anna were expecting something, even in the commonplace of the everyday sacrifices in the temple. And here it was! Right before their eyes they recognized God at work in their midst. They had been patient, waited a long time, and were now rewarded for that patience. As Eduard Schweizer notes in his commentary on Luke:
"The two prophet figures, like the parents of Jesus, represent a good but 'unfulfilled' life. Such a life does not give up its yearning in resignation or heal it with some 'religious' patent medicine but holds fast to the experience of God's grace, thereby truly hungering for God's presence to be realized and looking for it in the future."
Another writer suggested that it was in the rituals of everyday worship that Simeon and Anna were able to see God at work. While we sometimes dismiss our everyday worship or the commonplace rituals of the church as something we simply go through, it is often in those rituals that we discover God in new ways. As an Episcopal priest friend of mine used to tell me, “Going through those rituals is like brushing your teeth. You do it because it’s good for you, whether you feel like it or not.”
So as we enter a new year, I wonder what your expectations are. Are you looking for the next best, fastest thing? Are you hoping for something new and exciting to happen? Are you looking for God to do something different in your life or in the life of the church? Are you impatient for God to change something, or are you willing to wait to see God at work in new and unexpected ways – ways that may take a lifetime to fulfill.
One of the things I often told new pastors was that they shouldn’t expect immediate results from their work. Sometimes as pastors we see the fruit of our labour only after we have left a congregation, and sometimes we may never see the end results. God doesn’t work on our timetable.
This time of year is often spent making New Year’s resolutions. But those usually focus on something in the short term, the here and now that I want to try and accomplish. But this morning I’m going to ask you to think a bit differently. Rather than think about what you hope to accomplish, I’d like to you to spend a few minutes thinking about what you hope God might accomplish in the coming year.
What are your expectations that you wait with longing, like Simeon and Anna, for God to accomplish? In your bulletin you should have received a piece of paper, just a quarter sheet. You’ve probably been wondering what that was for. I’d like to invite you to take a few minutes to think about an expectation you have, a longing for God to accomplish either in your life or in the life of the church, or perhaps in your community or workplace. And then I’d like you to write that expectation on the paper. Perhaps begin with, “I expect…” You needn’t sign it, although you may if you wish, and then I invite you to drop it in the offering plate as it is passed in a few minutes.
What are you waiting for? What do you expect? What needs to happen for you to say,” now I can die in peace?”
(Silent meditation)
Let us pray:
O God, you come to us in many and unexpected ways. But we wait for you with eager expectation. Come among us, fulfill your purposes among us and through us. Make us eager to see you at work, and open our eyes and ears to see and hear you around us. Fill us with expectation, like Simeon and Anna. Come Lord Jesus, come. Amen.