WORTH THE WAIT
Wisdom 18: 6-9; Hebrews 11: 1-2, 8-12; Luke 12: 32-48
How do you feel about waiting? Do you enjoy a nice, long wait? I don’t. I don’t like it when I have to stand in line at the supermarket, bank or the post office. I don’t like being at a stoplight sitting behind an accelerator-challenged driver when the light turns green. I don’t like it when I pull into a gas station and all the pumps are occupied, and I have to wait for somebody to pull away. How good are you at waiting?
Our gospel today is about waiting and watching. It’s about preparing and being vigilant. Jesus tells us that we must be like servants preparing, watching and waiting for their master’s return. Now I guarantee you that ninety-nine and nine-tenths of all the homilies preached today will be about our need to embrace vigilance and expectation for our Lord’s coming at the end of THE world or at the end of OUR world (the end of our lives). And they would be correct. That’s what Jesus is asking us to do. But this morning I’d like to be part of that one-tenth of one percent who offers a slightly different take on today’s gospel.
Our gospel today is about waiting and watching. It’s about preparing and being vigilant. Jesus tells us that we must be like servants preparing, watching and waiting for their master’s return. Now I guarantee you that ninety-nine and nine-tenths of all the homilies preached today will be about our need to embrace vigilance and expectation for our Lord’s coming at the end of THE world or at the end of OUR world (the end of our lives). And they would be correct. That’s what Jesus is asking us to do. But this morning I’d like to be part of that one-tenth of one percent who offers a slightly different take on today’s gospel.
To do so, I’d like to go back to the passage from Luke that we heard two weeks ago. You all remember that, right? . . . Maybe not . . . In that gospel, Jesus infers four different dispositions that we should have when we pray. First, we need to have faith. He tells us, “Ask and you will receive, seek and you will find, knock and the door will be open. For whoever asks, receives, whoever seeks finds, and to the one who knocks, the door will be open.” Sounds great doesn’t it? Could we possibly ever be offered a better deal? I suppose if we really believed that to the extent we should, we’d never be off our knees praying. We need to have the faith that God is attentive to our needs and can answer our prayers. And later when he says, “What father among you would hand his son a snake when he asks for a fish? Or hand him a scorpion when he asks for an egg? If you then, who are wicked, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him?" through our faith in him we become reassured that only good comes as the result of our prayers.
Secondly in that passage, he gives us a short parable of the man who bangs on the door of his neighbor in the middle of the night asking for bread for a visiting friend. Jesus concludes the parable by saying, “I tell you, if he does not get up to give the visitor the loaves because of their friendship, he will get up to give him whatever he needs because of his persistence.” And so we need to embrace the spirit of persistence in our prayers. Sometimes when I was a kid and really wanted something, I would be so relentless in asking for it that my mother would say, “Would you stop being such a nudge!” You’ll never get that complaint from God. Persistence in prayer actually honors God because it demonstrates our dependence on Him. He wants us to storm the gates of heaven with our needs. God loves for us to pester him
Finally in that passage two weeks ago, at the behest of the apostles, Jesus gives us the “Lord’s Prayer” as a model of prayer, and in doing that, he teaches us the importance of having a humble and contrite heart in prayer - humble, when we acknowledge that it’s God’s will, not ours that we pray to be accomplished, and contrite when we ask him to forgive us as we have forgiven others.
All of that brings us to today’s gospel. And when Jesus says, “Blessed are those servants whom the master finds vigilant on his arrival. Amen, I say to you, he will gird himself, have them recline at table, and proceed to wait on them,” yes, it addresses the need for us to prepare and wait for God’s coming at the end of the world or the end of our lives, but it also challenges us to wait and watch for God coming into our lives now. It speaks of the hope and trust that we need to have when we wait upon God to act in our lives in response to our prayers; a hope and trust that tells us that he not only CAN answer our prayers, but WILL answer our prayers. Hope is the sacred insanity that believes there is meaning in the madness of our lives. And waiting is the hardest work of hope. Through hope we trust that God is not just the God of the past. He isn’t just the God of the future. God is the God of the here and now.
Today, most people’s lives are characterized by speed, impatience, noise, and all manner of activities. Occasionally, just to spice things up, we even throw in a little panic. We’re always in a rush to get to the next place or the next thing. Although waiting is a part of life, waiting isn’t something we like to do. And this mindset often carries over into our spiritual lives, especially with regard to answers to prayer. Often we want God’s resources, but we don’t want his timing.
The Bible is full of stories of people having to wait on God: He kept Moses in a desert for 40 years. Joseph in a prison cell for 10 years. Abraham without a child for 100 years. David on the run for 15 years. God could have answered their prayers and met their needs much quicker, but he didn’t. He made them wait instead. And he often makes us do the same. He makes us wait for healing to come after we’ve been praying for years and there’s no sign of recovery. He makes us wait to fulfill his call in our lives after he puts the desire and passion in our hearts to serve him in a certain way. He makes us wait to give us the desires of our hearts, whether it’s a spouse, a baby, or a new job. He makes us wait for direction when we’re stuck at a dead end and we don’t know where to go or what to do. He could answer that same prayer that you’ve been praying for years every night in a millisecond . . . that same prayer that has been bringing you to tears, that same prayer that the longer that it goes unanswered, the more it makes you question whether He even hears it.
Why do we often wait so long on God? Maybe because God is waiting on us. Maybe he’s keeping you right where you’re at for the same reason he kept our biblical heroes waiting for so many years: to build your faith. To build your dependence on him when you’re barren and empty to see if he’s truly all you desire and all you need. To see how well you will trust and serve him when you’re still stuck in the background somewhere, doing seemingly nothing too significant for him. To build your trust in him when the storms in life keep raging, the battles keep going and breakthrough and victory don't seem near.
What are you waiting for today? What longing do you have that seems so far from ever being fulfilled? What prayer do you keep on praying that seems to never reach God’s ears? I want to remind you that God is not deaf to your prayers. He’s not blind to your constant tears, to your desires, and to your needs. If he is making you wait, there is a very good reason for it. If he is telling you “no” today, maybe it’s because he has a better “yes” waiting for you tomorrow. If he’s keeping you in the same place you’ve always been today, maybe it’s because he’s helping build your faith before you enter your Promised Land tomorrow. If he’s not healing you or bringing you victory today, maybe it’s because you will have greater health, success, happiness, and faith when he waits to help you be an overcomer tomorrow.
Wherever you’re at today, know that God is right beside you and that there is a purpose for you, even if that purpose is to wait. Don’t give up just because you don’t see anything happening today. Maybe there’s nothing physically happening that your eyes can see but there is definitely something happening in the spiritual realm as you learn to rely on Christ. Don’t allow your waiting period to make you hopeless about what tomorrow will bring. Instead, let it build your faith and give you even greater hope for what God has prepared for you. He made some of the greatest men of faith wait. Don’t be discouraged if he makes you wait as well. He will come through for you, just like he came through for them. We need to remember that a delay is not a denial from God, that God has his own sense of timing and it’s perfect timing. He's never in a hurry, but he's always on time. And he’s always worth the wait. Good things come for those who wait . . . GREAT things come to those who wait on God!
