Ascension of Christ, Salvador Dali, 1958
Waiting for God
Seventh Sunday of Easter (Year B)
13 May 2018
Homily Preached at Trinity Episcopal Church
Ashland, Oregon
8:00 a.m. Spoken Eucharist; 10:00 a.m. Sung Eucharist
Acts 1:15-17, 21-26; Psalm 1; 1 John 5:9-13; John 17:6-19
The Very Rev. Fr. Anthony Hutchinson, SCP, Ph.D.
God, take away our hearts of stone and give us hearts of
flesh. Amen.
I think all of us have memories of
long car trips either as children or with children. Questions
abound. “Are we there yet?” “How much longer?” “When are we
stopping for a potty break?” “Are we there yet?” “When do we cross over
into the next state?” “Where will we be eating dinner? What will we
eat?” “Are we there yet?” “Oh, Look--an amusement park! Can
we stop, can we?” “ARE WE THERE YET?” Sometimes, the tiresome
questions can annoy, and nerves can fray. “Mom, tell NN to stop it!” “Kids, don’t make we have to come back
there!”
Waiting is something our
modern American culture does not value or particularly equip us
for. We value action, measurable results—the quicker the
better, and taking charge. For many of us, the single image that most
summarizes a failure of government is a long line in most states’
Department of Motor Vehicles office. One of the most frequently seen
occasions for arguments between a married couple is where one of them through
inattentiveness makes the other one wait.
But not all cultures share this
loathing of waiting. No one likes to wait, and “waste one’s time.”
But in many cultures, especially Asian and African ones, the ability to
gracefully manage oneself during wait times, patience, is highly valued, and time when you have to wait is seen
as an opportunity to develop this virtue.
In today’s reading from the Book of Acts, the disciples are in an in-between
time where they need to wait for something. Jesus, after his death and
bodily reappearance, has been visiting and appearing to them on a regular
basis. After forty days, he departs definitively by ascending into the
skies, with the clouds and the brilliant light hiding him from the eyes of the
disciples. He leaves with a command and a promise: he orders them not to
leave Jerusalem, but to wait there until they are “clothed with power from on
high” (Luke 24:49) in a promised outpouring of the Holy Spirit, and as he
ascends angels declare that he will come again and descend in a like manner
(Acts 1:1-11).
So the disciples in today’s story
are in waiting mode, or at least should
be in waiting mode.
But they are unhappy. They
know that Jesus called twelve of them to be special witnesses to the arrival of
the Reign of God, that number being symbolic of a newly constituted and
restored people of Israel, with its ancient twelve tribes. The tribes
haven’t been around for several hundred years; most of them were wiped out and
lost at the time of the Assyrian conquest of Israel in 720-740
B.C.E. During the Last Supper, Jesus had promised the Twelve that
they would sit on twelve thrones and judge the tribes of Israel (Luke
22:29). But now one of those twelve chosen special symbols of the
newly restored Kingdom of God, Judas Iscariot, has defected and helped Jesus’
enemies capture him and put him to death.
So Peter proposes that they fill the
place left by Judas. Now, the truth be told, if you asked me, it seems
that the best person to take this place among the special twelve witnesses to
Jesus would have been Mary Magdalene, since according to many of the stories,
it was she who first saw the Risen Lord. But the society at that time
being what it was, and Peter being who he was, Peter restricts the opening to
men. In Luke’s story, Peter gives several criteria for the replacement—he
must be a man, he must have been a
companion of Jesus from the start, and he must have been a witness of the
reappearance of the Risen Lord after his death.
So far so good. The eleven
realize that two men, Matthias and Joseph Barsabbas, meet the criteria.
But they cannot decide who it should be. So they use the ancient method
of determining which animal would be the sacrificial offering from a group—they
draw lots. And so Matthias it is.
Despite the fact the pre-Christian
Dead Seas Scrolls community had a governing body of Twelve elders, there is
absolutely nothing in the Acts text that suggests that Peter’s intention was
that the Twelve would become a permanent fixture in a permanent Church
governance. He and the disciples at this time fully expected that Jesus
would come again quite soon, and the need to find a replacement for Judas was
with the express goal of having the Twelve as a group ready for that moment, so
they could sit on those twelve thrones as judges, presumably when Jesus
returned in glory.
Other than the fact that he clearly
wants to restrict the use of the word “apostle” to just the Twelve, it is not
clear what Luke’s attitude to all this is. He simply recounts the story
in Acts without commentary. But interestingly, this is the last we ever
hear of Matthias. Later on, it is another person, Paul, who ends up
being, along with Peter, the great witness to Jesus.
I think that the lesson to be
learned is this. Jesus in ascending had told them to return to Jerusalem
and wait there to receive power from on high. Ten days later, on the
great Feast of Shavuot, or Pentecost,
the promised outpouring of the Spirit would occur. But in the meantime,
the disciples have neither the direct guidance of the Risen Lord, who has now
gone up out of their sight, nor the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, which has
not yet been poured out upon them.
But they are impatient and must
act. And this is a good thing, and they are trying to do God’s
will. But instead of just waiting, as Jesus commanded, they reconstitute
the Twelve. But they are reduced to throwing dice to actually make the
pick. And their action seems not to have had much effect of the course of
the Church thereafter.
It is
normal and natural to be impatient, and to want to take action, especially when
it seems that things are coming to a critical moment. That was clearly
the position of Peter and the Eleven here. And it is not necessarily a
bad thing to actually take the steps that we think are placed before us even
when we appear to be in a place where we need to wait.
But we must not let fear or discouragement make us impatient and act out of
turn, or intemperately. God’s time is not our own, as much as we would
like that to be so.
In the Hebrew Scriptures, there is a key
idea—the need we have to be patient and
let God do his work in his own good
time. Sometimes this means simply trying to get out of the way of
God. The Psalmist says, “Wait for the Lord: be brave and strong-hearted,
but wait for the Lord” (Psalm
27:14).
Second Isaiah, speaking to the exiles of Judah after they had lost their
nation, their temple, and many had lost their trust in Yahweh, said this:
“But those who wait upon the Lord will take new strength; they shall soar as on
eagles’ wings; when they run, they will not be weary; and when they walk, they
will not faint” (Isaiah 40:31).
Sometimes we find ourselves in over
our heads. And like the eleven in this story, direction from God might not come
right away. Our path may not be clearly set before us. Our natural
inclination is to try to dig ourselves out. Sometimes, that may be simply
taking the one or two simple actions that appear to be within our reach and
tend toward what God intends. Like eating chicken soup for a cold, it may
not necessarily help, “but it couldn’t
hoit.”
When we find ourselves alone and
without direction or comfort, we must not be like those guys in Waiting for Godot, simply repeating
nonsense lines and distracting ourselves from the fact that the anticipated one
does not appear to ever be coming. God has promised to help, and to guide
and direct us. And he will. But, like people in a DMV line, we mustn’t
give up because we don’t like the discomfort of waiting.
Sometimes we find that there’s no
right way to proceed. We can keep trying to dig ourselves out... or we can wait
patiently for God to help us.
Next week, we will be celebrating
the coming of the Holy Spirit to the Church on the Feast of Pentecost.
That’s because God does act and send his direction and comfort. He did it
then, and he does it now.
This week in our prayers, let’s take
more time to listen. In our daily life, let’s take more time to be patient.
Because patience is a virtue, and a gift from God, one of the signs of Love’s
presence in our lives.
In the name of Christ, Amen.
