Outstanding in One's Field Luke 18:9-14, 2 Timothy 4:6-8

“Nancy A. Sears Gibson, 95, went home to be with her Lord
on Thursday, October 11, 2007.”
So begins the obituary of Ms. Nancy Gibson.
I didn’t know Ms. Gibson, but her obituary was in yesterday’s Daily Progress.
I chose her name at random from those listed
and found the brief article about her very interesting.
Ms. Gibson lived her entire life in Buckingham County.
She was born in April, 1912, just three months before my father was born.
She was the second of fourteen children.
Her family was among the founders of the Baptist Union Church in Buckingham
and she herself was a Deaconess in the church.
What I found especially interesting was Ms. Gibson’s love of quilting
and the fact that her quilts have been displayed at several area museums
including the Smithsonian.
Whoever wrote the obituary added this,
“Many of us could not make it through the winter without one of her quilts.”

I chose another obituary at random out of the same paper,
this time it was a notice of the death of Mr. Phillip Buchanan.
Mr. Buchanan was but 76 and he died after a long illness.
He is referred to as a “beloved father and husband.”
Mr. Buchanan was an English and Philosophy professor
at Frederick College in Portsmouth and Tidewater Community College for 35 years.
He graduated from UNC-Chapel Hill,
and did post graduate work at UVA and Oxford University in England.
What I found most interesting was that he was an accomplished trumpet player.
He founded his own dance band when he was in college
and he played with the UNC Alumni Band until illness forced him to quit.

I chose these two obituaries from the on-line edition of the Daily Progress
so that I didn’t even have their photographs to go by, just their names.
The only criterion I used in making my selection was gender –
I chose one man and one woman.
I wanted my selection to be random because I wanted to test an assumption.
I wanted to see if my perception is true that, for the most part,
when someone is remembered in an obituary,
that person is remembered not so much for what he or she has accomplished
but for the relationships he or she leaves behind.

From this tiny sample of two it seems as if my assumption holds true.
Mr. Buchanan and Ms. Gibson certainly accomplished things in their lives –
She was a Deaconess, he was a Professor,
She was an expert quilter, he, an accomplished trumpeter.
But even their accomplishments are remembered
not so much for their technical expertise
but for the way her quilts keep others warm,
the way his trumpet filled out the band.

I’m thinking about obituaries because this Sunday on the church calendar
is All Saint’s Sunday,
the day we remember and give thanks for those who have gone before us;
the day we contemplate their legacy and their meaning in our lives.
That’s why one of the lectionary passages this morning is from 2 Timothy 4
which purports to be the Apostle Paul’s acknowledgement
that his time on earth is drawing to an end
and his transition to life in clearer, closer proximity to God is close at hand.
Whether Paul actually wrote this passage or not is up for debate
but the calm, accepting, almost eager way the passage anticipates
the kind of transition that death brings to a believer
is certainly consistent with passages from other letters we know Paul wrote.

In 1 Corinthians 13 Paul speaks of death as bringing longed-for clarity.
Life on earth is like seeing God in a mirror dimly, Paul writes,
but life after death will be like seeing God face to face.
In his letter to the Philippians Paul nearly gushes with enthusiasm when he says,
“to live is Christ, to die is gain.”
There is no crisis associated with death in Paul’s mind,
only a gentle acceptance and an adventurous attitude
of hardly being able to contain himself until he can see what’s on the other side.

If you’ve had the privilege of being with a person of faith near the time of their death,
especially if that person has had a good, long life,
you’ve probably seen this feeling of calm, this attitude of acceptance.
It’s harder to shake hands with death if it comes suddenly or violently or much too soon.
Still, even those who have too suddenly or too violently or too soon tasted death
and then have been brought back to tell the tale
often describe it as more sweet than sour, more welcoming than harsh.

The sour taste and the harsh slap of death is usually felt not by the one who dies
but by those who are left behind, those who mourn the passing
and feel deeply the vacant void where a vibrant life used to be.
We who are left behind, equipped with only that dim mirror, that fogged window,
those cloudy spectacles through which to understand the mystery of death and life
are able only to see how the most obvious connection to our loved one,
that physical presence, has been broken by death.
What we cannot see with our eyes but must accept on faith
is how a complex web of tinier, but more enduring connections, are still left intact.

These enduring connections are subtle but profound.
The steadfast warmth of a quilt made by Nancy Gibson’s loving hands
or the recording of the UNC Alumni Band featuring Phillip Buchanan’s powerful trumpet.
It’s the memory of a church picnic,
the things learned in a favorite class,
the considered sage advice of someone who’s seen it all.
It’s the example of faithful service to a church,
or five dollars slipped in a grandchild’s birthday card
even when that grandchild turns forty-two.

The enduring witness of the saints who have gone before us
is not so much their accomplishments, grand as they may be,
but the connections they have created and maintained throughout their life.
That’s why Jesus’ parable that we read in Luke is also very appropriate
for an All Saint’s Day observance.
It is appropriate as a NEGATIVE example.
Luke labels Jesus’ story as a parable about “some who trusted in themselves
that they were righteous and regarded others with contempt.”
In other words, it’s a parable that tell us how NOT to live,
an example that runs contrary to the spirit of All Saint’s Day.

In the story we have two main characters – the Pharisee and the Tax Collector.
You’re aware of the broad brush Luke uses
when he mentions Pharisees and Tax Collectors.
They are among his favorite stereotypes.
In Luke’s mind, Pharisees are those learned theologians who have no common sense.
They’re pastors with no compassion,
religious leaders with a very distorted understanding of God.
Like the one in this story, they strictly observe or even surpass the letter of the law
while at the same time missing the spirit of it.
Notice the Pharisee is very much caught up with his own accomplishments –
his excessive fasting, his generous giving – both of which have their place.
But notice also where he is standing as he prays
and ticks off the list of all the things he’s done.
He is standing BY HIMSELF.
He is disconnected.

In Luke’s mind, the Tax Collector is the quintessential representative
of the worst among sinners.
By his very VOCATION he has separated himself from those around him.
He works for the Romans but they despise him because they despise all Jews.
But his own people, the Jews despise him,
because he is a tool of Roman oppression.
His lack of connection is also reflected in the parable Jesus told.
Notice where he’s standing – “far off.”

The difference between the Pharisee and the Tax Collector
is that one, the Pharisee, is unaware of his isolation.
His prayer shows a certain arrogance and pride
that he is ABOVE ordinary, run of the mill, sinful Jews.
He considers himself outstanding in his field,
without seeing the irony in that designation –
that he is truly OUT; out STANDING in his field ALL ALONE.
At least the Tax Collector is aware of his condition
and his prayer reflects a deep yearning to do something about it.
He beats his breast – begging God to break open his heart.
He acknowledges his sin which, oddly enough, is the first step
to becoming connected with his fellow human beings – sinners every one.

It’s interesting that at the same time we observe All Saints Day
we also find ourselves at the pinnacle of our season of stewardship emphasis.
But when we think in terms of All Saint’s Day as an observance of CONNECTIONS
it makes for a perfect fit.
The Pharisee, we’re told, gave a tenth of all of his income,
an amount far and beyond what was required of him by Jewish Law.
That’s quite an accomplishment.
But it wasn’t stewardship.
Stewardship isn’t an accomplishment, it’s a connection.
It’s an acknowledgement that God has made you and me not for isolation
but for relationship, for CONNECTION.
God wants from us not just our money but ourselves,
not just our begrudging obedience but our joyful surrender.
The Saints among us show us that neither the posture of the Pharisee arrogantly
standing by himself nor the posture of the Tax Collector standing far off in shame
is the posture God desires.
We are part of the body of Christ; we are CONNECTED
and our living and our giving should reflect that connection –
in honor and in memory of ALL the saints!

Wrasslin' God Genesis 32:22-31, Luke 18:1-8

Professional Wrestling is a major entertainment industry featuring larger-than-life
characters like “Stone Cold Steve” Austin, The Rock, The Undertaker
and over-the-top story lines with clearly defined bad guys fans love to hate
and good guys who, though temporarily down are never out
and who always manage to come through in the end
with a gut-wrenching airplane spin and thunderous body slam.

Championship wrestling, as it used to be called,
came on at 5 p.m. Saturday afternoons when I was growing up
but it was considered by my mother to be in a class with The Three Stooges -
inappropriate viewing for impressionable boys.
That didn’t stop my older brother John
from trying out his “airplane spin” technique on me on a regular basis.

These days, professional wrestlers are national, if not global, stars
The current crop of bad guys certainly act nasty and brutish
but they don’t seem quite as fierce as the guys I used to see
(when my mother wasn’t around), guys like the Great Bolo who wore a mask
or Haystack Calhoun who weighed in at 600 lbs and wrestled in overalls.
The good guys are still partial to cowboy hats
and tend to be free of facial hair but they don’t seem quite as heroic.
Still, on the rare occasion they forget the cameras,
you can still sometimes see
a good, old fashioned ear bitin’, eye gougin’, arm twistin’ wrasslin’ match.

In our story this morning from the book of Genesis
we have one of these ear-bitin’, eye gougin’, arm-twistin’ wrasslin’ matches
but unlike TV, it’s not at all clear who’s the good guy and who’s the bad guy.

In one corner we have Jacob, the younger twin to Isaac and Rebekah
who’s life has been, in many ways, one long wrasslin’ match
from the moment he left Rebekah’s womb holding tight to his brother Esau’s heel.
At his mother’s urging Jacob buffaloed his old blind father
into blessing HIM instead of Esau.
He stole his brother’s blessing and then took off
putting as much distance as possible between himself and his family.

After running away from home, Jacob ends up near his Uncle Laban
and takes a shine to his cousin Rachel.
But Laban tricks Jacob into not only first marrying Rachel’s older, sturdier sister Leah,
but also into putting in fourteen years hard labor for the right to marry Rachel.
In the time he’s with Laban, Jacob amasses large herds and servants of his own,
and finally he and his troops sneak away from Laban’s house
while Laban is out of town. But no sooner has he gotten free of Laban
than he hears Esau - his hapless, no-doubt-still-angry brother Esau -
is just around the bend with an army of 400 men.

In fear, Jacob takes steps, both to appease Esau AND minimize his losses.
He sends everyone away, recognizing that his moment of truth is at hand,
that his tricks, his double dealing, his ethical lapses have returned to haunt him.
That’s how he comes to be standing on the bank of the Jabbok, at night, alone.
Jacob seems like the sure candidate to be the bad guy in this match
except for the fact that all along the way, inexplicably, God has blessed him.
God has blessed him and protected him and seems to have big plans for him.
In the other corner of the ring is a mysterious, anonymous man.
Artists often depict this man as having angel wings
though the text says only that “a man wrestled with Jacob until daybreak.”

A psychological rendering of this story
would say that the anonymous grappler represents people from Jacob’s past:
Isaac – the father scorned, Esau – the brother betrayed,
Laban – the wily adversary,
and, in the end, Jacob himself – THE self -
the one unavoidable opponent with whom each of us must wrestle
throughout our lives.
The way the mysterious man seems to panic as the sun is coming up
makes him look like a vampire or something.
Maybe HE’S the bad guy in this fight,
the one who blindsides Jacob with a cheap shot to the hip
even as Jacob is in the process of letting him go.

But let’s face it. This isn’t professional wrestling.
We can’t rename the story “Smackdown at Jabbok Creek!” and expect it to sell.
It would go nowhere on Pay-Per-View TV
because it’s too ambiguous, the plot is too complex.
Is Jacob good or bad? Is the mysterious man an angel sent by God
or is he some rogue spirit working free lance?
It’s hard to tell.

I’m afraid Jacob’s wrasslin’ match wouldn’t play well on TV because TV is fake.
We like fake. We pay money for fake.
Even so-called reality shows are mostly fake.
Too much reality makes us nervous.

Jacob’s wrestling match is real.
It may not be real in the empirical, factual, “this ACTUALLY happened” kind of real
but as a metaphor for life, for how things happen, it’s as real as it gets.

There are plenty of places you can hear the message
that being a Christian means never having to wrestle again.
Let me qualify that.
There are plenty of places you can hear the message
that being a GOOD Christian
being a hard working, straight living, Bible-believing, nattily dressed Christian
means you never have to wrestle again.
If you follow the Seven Steps to Sanctification
or figure out how to be purely Purpose-Driven
then YOU get to play the “GOOD GUY” role,
be the one people look up to, the one who never makes mistakes.
You get to be the one who labels the OTHER guy bad;
the one who sits in judgment, confident that God is on your side.

The problem is that’s a Television kind of message
which means it’s a fake message.
It’s appealing on the surface.
It plays into my fantasy that if I can just pull myself up over the next ledge
I’ll find that the path levels out.
It squares with my self-delusion that one day I’ll wake up
and discover that I’m NOT my own worst enemy.
But it’s ultimately not true.
It’s a deception perpetrated by those who have books to sell
and auditoriums to fill.

The Christian life is no less a wrestling match than life in general – maybe more so -
because Jesus has a way of leading us BACK INTO the ring, time and time again.
FOR ONE THING, when we follow Jesus,
you and I can’t rest on some made up distinction between good guys and bad guys.
The Bible won’t let us. The saga of God’s covenant people is full of anti-heroes,
great leaders with terrible flaws – like Jacob, David, Peter, Paul.
Jesus himself said, “No one is good but God alone,”
There are no short cuts, no Cliff notes. No broad stereotypes that are ALWAYS true.
Daily Jesus calls us to follow him into murky water with only faith to guide us
and we do our best, knowing full well our best will be inadequate.
Still, we wrestle, we engage in the struggle
because we also know full well that God’s power is sufficient.

FOR ANOTHER THING, when we follow Jesus we not only DO NOT have the luxury
of dividing the world into good guys and bad guys,
but we also must take on the burden of looking at the world differently.
If we are faithful, WE must pay attention to things OTHERS would rather ignore.
Not because WE are good, but because GOD is good…AND just,
we who are Christian can’t help but enter the fray when we find INJUSTICE.

Jesus told the parable of the persistent widow
who wouldn’t quit badgering the corrupt old judge
until finally the judge gave in just to get her off his back.
What makes this such a powerful story is that in Jesus’ culture
widows had only slightly more power than lepers.
His audience would have been flabbergasted to hear a story about a widow
going nose to nose, toe to toe with a judge.

And yet, Jesus calls us to wrestle with injustice - not only to get what WE NEED,
but because ANY injustice for ANYONE is a tear in the fabric of God’s creation,
it is a nest of termites in a wooden support beam
that threatens to bring the whole house down,
not on just the unfortunate few but on everyone.

One of the brilliant insights that fueled the Civil Rights movement
and kept bringing Martin Luther King back into the ring
each time it appeared he had suffered his final body slam,
was the conviction that as much as black America needed to be set free
from the putrefying effects of racism
white America needed it just as much or even more.
King wasn’t fighting just so black folks could get a seat at a lunch counter vacated by whites
He was, as a Christian man, willing to wrestle both the bigoted white sheriff
AND the violent impulses of some of his own people
so that lunch counters and breakfast nooks and great dining halls everywhere
would all more closely resemble God’s banquet table
where all God’s children have a place.

Jacob wrestled God on the bank of the Jabbok River.
As a result he received both a limp and a new name.
The limp reminded him that no one struggles with God and remains unchanged.
The new name, “Israel,” reminded him that to be in covenant with God
means that we will ALWAYS be engaged in struggle,
and, consequently, we will always be changing, growing in faith.

We have the privilege of worshipping this morning surrounded by incredible beauty.
It’s easy in this beautiful place to be isolated, INSULATED from struggle.
You and I have to resist the temptation to disengage;
to sit back, wipe our brow, and think “Boy, I’m glad I don’t have to deal with that.”

Sure, Jacob mostly went back to being Jacob
after he crossed the river the next morning and found Esau
ready to let bygones be bygones.
But he always had that limp to remind him of that night of struggle.
The widow in Jesus story – she got tired of being the gadfly, the nuisance,
but she wasn’t about to let injustice stand.

What about us?
Can we commit ourselves to stay engaged?
not because we’re the “Good Guys,”
but because God DOES honor the struggle,
because God WILL grant justice to those who cry to him day and night.
Against that promise, not even Haystack Calhoun can prevail.

Time We Learn Jeremiah 29:1, 4-7, Luke 17:11-17

There’s something about hardship that brings people together;
something about shared misery that has the capacity
to wipe the slate clean of all those pesky little superficialities
we are so prone to cling to.
Like being stranded in a small plane on the tarmac for three hours.

Whenever I fly I do what I can to get an aisle seat
and then I hope that my seat mate will be a thin, elderly man
who will fall fast asleep against the window as soon as he buckles his seatbelt.
I’m very good on a plane at putting out vibes that say “Leave me alone.”
I’m not usually so unfriendly, but there’s just so much at stake.
Open the door even a MILLIMETER to some people
and you’ll end up listening to a dissertation on variables in cardboard density
pursuant to custom box construction

I was on my way to see my friend in New Hampshire, flying from Dulles to Manchester.
The tiny prop plane was unusually crowded for that flight
and I ended up sitting beside a woman whom I took to be of Indian descent
dressed in a sari, a red dot on her forehead, and smelling faintly of curry.
She was looking straight ahead when I sat down, avoiding eye contact.
“That’s just fine with me,” I thought to myself,
buckling my seatbelt and getting out the book I’d brought to read.

It was raining, and the plane backed away from the terminal
so it could be logged in officially as an “on time departure,”
but then we sat. And sat. And sat.
Finally, after about 45 minutes, the captain came on the loudspeaker
and told us that an instrument light had come on
and a mechanic was on his way to check it out.
We sat. And sat some more. The woman next to me who was also reading,
sighed and looked up.
I sneaked a glance at her out of the corner of my eye.
She looked worried.

After an hour and a half, we were all getting restless.
Chatter in the plane increased.
Every now and then someone would say out loud, “This is ridiculous!”
After two hours my seat mate sighed again.
I was bored with reading. I decided to risk it.
“Are you on a tight schedule?” I asked, looking straight ahead.
“Yes.” She replied. That’s it. “Yes.”
“Wow, little Miss Chatty Cathy,” I thought to myself, and went back to reading.

But at 2 ½ hrs. I was bored again. And hot.
“Do you live in New Hampshire?” I asked.
“No.”
I waited. She was quiet. That bugged me.
But then, after a minute, still looking straight ahead,
she said in heavily accented but clear English, “My son lives in Hanover.”
That piqued my interest because I was going to Hanover.
Knowing that my doctor friend in Hanover has Indian colleagues.
I asked, “Is your son a doctor?”
A little spark came into her eyes, and with some surprise she said, “Yes, he is.
“He’s a cardiologist at the Hitchcock Medical Center.”
“I’m going to see a friend who is a cardiologist at the Hitchcock Medical Center.” I said.
For the first time in the nearly three hours we’d been sitting
practically on top of one another, our eyes met.
Suddenly this foreign looking, foreign speaking, foreign smelling woman
became a person of interest to me and I to her.

It wasn’t long before the plane finally took off,
but we hardly noticed because we were engaged in conversation.
She lives in Annapolis, knows of the school my son attends,
has connections in North Carolina,
comes to conferences at UVA.
The flight to Manchester took no time, it seemed,
and we chatted until it was time to de-plane.
“Enjoy your visit,” she said. “You, too,” I replied.
Then we walked into the Manchester terminal and went our separate ways.

There’s something about hardship that brings people together;
something about shared misery that has the capacity
to wipe the slate clean of all those pesky little superficialities
we are so prone to cling to.
We are very good at making foreigners of each other,
but, given the chance, we are also able to connect on a deeper level.
That is the message at the heart of Luke’s story of Jesus healing the Samaritan leper.

The story appears to be similar to all the other healing stories in the gospels.
But on more careful examination there’s a significant twist.
Jesus is KNOWN for his willingness to give attention
to those in his society that most people shunned, or at least ignored.
But anytime there’s a Samaritan in the story, we know the stakes are raised.
The addition of a religiously tainted Samaritan to the mix
always increases the “cringe” factor for a Jewish audience.
It adds a component of xenophobia, a disorienting challenge to the status quo.

This story of healing is different from others,
because the cleansing of at least nine of the lepers seems to have little or nothing
to do with their faith.
All they ask is that Jesus’ have mercy on them –
toss them a coin from a distance,
maybe a scrap of bread for their supper.
Faith comes for one of them only AFTER cleansing,
and with it not just freedom from symptoms but wellness, wholeness, shalom.

There’s something about hardship that brings people together;
something about shared misery that has the capacity
to wipe the slate clean of all those pesky little superficialities
we are so prone to cling to.
In the Jewish world, Samaritans were less than dogs;
a group who traced their lineage back to the northern tribes of Israel
who were left behind after Assyria conquered Israel and took some into exile.
They were always a minority and they didn’t help their case
by asserting that Mt. Gerazim and not Jerusalem was God’s favorite place to be.
The GOOD Jews of Jerusalem found plenty to hate about the Samaritans
and, well, every group needs another group to blame for everything that goes wrong.
Certainly the Samaritans hated the Jews for being so…so…JEWISH.

But when a debilitating, mysterious, contagious disease enters your life
you learn really quickly that friends are few,
and it kicks you off whatever rung of the ladder you happen to be on
sending you straight to the bottom – Jew OR Samaritan.
Or, at least that’s what happened in Jesus’ day
before antibiotics were discovered offering a fairly certain cure.
So the ten, mostly Jews probably, but at least one Samaritan,
found that the stupid little walls of religion or heritage they so easily erected,
the petty differences they used to set themselves apart from one another
got in the way of their survival.
So the walls came down.

And then, one day, Jesus came.
“Jesus, Master, have mercy on us.”
Jesus took one look and he told them to go show themselves to the priest.
That’s what you had to do to be restored to the community after you’d had leprosy;
go show yourself to the priest and prove you were no longer unclean.
Ten went, their hearts in their throats,
and as they went their limbs were strengthened,
their flesh was restored.

Ten went, but then something dawned on the one Samaritan.
With leprosy he had been part of the group,
knit together in their common struggle,
not caring one whit about religious or cultural affiliations.
But once they met with the priest the barriers would be thrown up once again,
the petty differences among them would be noted, highlighted, trumpeted,
printed on a huge banner and strung between two tall trees -
who their parents were, what neighborhood they lived in,
did they speak Greek or Aramaic?
Were they Jews or Samaritans?

So, the Samaritan didn’t go to the priest.
He came back instead to Jesus – giving thanks and praise for the cleansing,
but more than that.
He came back identifying himself as one who was not content
to return to the way things were;
not interested in making foreigners out of fellow human beings any more.
“Weren’t there ten lepers,” Jesus asks.
“I coulda sworn there were ten.
“Oh well, get up,” he tells the Samaritan, “Your faith has made you well.”
But not just WELL. The Greek word translated here could also be translated “saved.”
“Get up,” Jesus says, “Your faith has SAVED you.”

Misery is the great leveler. Hardship has a way of bonding us together.
But the Samaritan found out that we don’t have to wait
for suffering to motivate us to find in each other our common humanity.
We don’t have to make foreigners of one another
until a common struggle brings us together.
Scratch the surface of any human being
and you’ll find there more that makes us similar than different –
a hunger for respect, a need to feel connected,
a friend and a son who work together at Hitchcock Medical Center!
When there were only a couple hundred million people on earth
maybe this wasn’t so critical for human beings to understand,
but now that the population of the earth is 6 BILLION strong and growing
it’s time we learn.

Faith Building in the Body Luke 17:1-10, 1 Corinthians 11:17-29

I’ve been thinking recently about “patience.”
Thinking about patience makes me think of overnight campouts with the Boy Scouts.
My Scout patrol wasn’t very creative when it came to menu planning.
Every time we camped, for dinner we would have what we called “Hobo Stew.”
Hobo Stew consists of wrapping ground beef in aluminum foil
along with cubed raw potatoes and carrots.
You then bury the foil pouch in the coals of a camp fire,
wait an hour for the beef to cook and the vegetables to soften,
and voila! A dinner fit for a king.

Of course, who among us could wait an hour?
After ten minutes we were fishing out our individual pouches
and gingerly opening them to see how it was going.
Invariably the meat would still be undercooked.
We’d wrap it back up, but not without first kicking some ashes into the mix.
After ten more minutes we’d all be STARVING
and we’d fish the pouch out again, open it up,
find the meat cooked enough and declare it done.
Of course, the carrots and potatoes were still as crunchy as when they were first put in.
“That’s OK,” we’d each exclaim, “I LIKE raw potatoes!”

I’ve been thinking about patience – about time
about the wisdom that’s required to sort out the difference
between the time to act and the time to wait,
the time to take charge and the time to sit back,
the time to go ahead and eat and the time to let things simmer.

It seems like IMPATIENCE is what we tend to reward these days.
If you’re IMPATIENT you’re likely going to want to force the issue,
whatever THE ISSUE happens to be -
put things in motion,
quit messing around,
take your stand.
It’s the impatient person, we’re told who is not content to accept the way things are;
who’s always looking for an edge,
He or she is the driving force behind advances in technology,
always looking for a faster, cheaper way to do things,
always striving to eliminate steps,
minimize effort, maximize efficiency.
To the impatient person, patience looks like just another way of avoiding the issue,
another way of ducking responsibility.
Patience doesn’t make for good sound bites on the evening news.
Is PATIENCE a thing of the past?
Is IMPATIENCE what we need more of these days?

I’ve been thinking recently about patience,
whether it’s a vice or a virtue,
the last refuge of the lazy and apathetic
or the necessary incubator of lasting change.

The older I get, it seems more and more evident to me
that patience is at the heart of faith.

The impatient person says to herself,
“I’ve got to get this done, it all depends on me.
The patient person says, “Hmmm, this is getting interesting,
let’s just wait and see what God has in store.”

The Bible has its stories of impatient people.
Jacob, King David,
Even Jesus seems impatient at times,
always on the move from one town to the next.
But for each story in the Bible that calls for immediate action,
there seem to be five in which patience is counseled or required.

It is with a note of IMPATIENCE that Jesus’ followers, his “apostles” come to him
and ask him to increase their faith.
They sound a bit overwhelmed in Luke’s account,
a tad daunted by the challenge ahead of them,
and even though they’d had previous success being sent out to do God’s work
the demands Jesus lays on them just seem to get harder and harder.

Look at what Jesus was telling them!
“If anyone of you causes a little one (meaning a new recruit, someone young in the faith) -
If anyone of you causes a little one who looks up to you to STUMBLE,
it would be better if you were fitted with a granite necklace
and thrown into the deepest hole in the bay!
FURTHERMORE! If one of your best friends messes up,
it’s up to YOU to go to him,
confront him in his error and urge him to get straight with God.
FURTHERMORE! If someone you DON’T like,
someone who talks about you behind your back,
or puts you down in public
or poisons your dog
or backs over your petunias
comes to you and repents –
No! Wait! If he does any one or all of those things seven times in one day
and comes to you and says he’s SORRY
it’s up to you to forgive him!

You can see why each apostle’s confidence was shaken,
why none of them felt up to the job of being a captain in Jesus’ outfit.
Jesus expected a lot from them.
He challenged them to heights they’d never reached before.
But you’ve got to admire their pluck, their willingness to give it a shot.
They were willing to TRY to do what Jesus was asking,
but in turn they felt they needed another heaping helping of faith.
“Increase our faith!” they demand.

The apostles were thinking of faith in terms of a commodity,
like a sweet bouquet of roses Jesus could lay in their arms.
But, in fact, faith is not something you can order from a catalogue
or buy off the rack.
It is not an END product, but instead a BY-product,
a by-product of the very activities Jesus was prescribing
a by-product that is achieved, not in a moment, but PATIENTLY over a lifetime.

What Jesus was telling them is that faith is not measured by how BIG it is.
Even faith the size of a mustard seed can pack a powerful punch.
Faith is not measured in inches or pounds.
It is, instead measured in minutes and hours, in days and years.
I once thought I wanted to play the piano. I still do, in fact.
but I don’t want to have to practice to do it.
I don’t want to go through the hours plinking out sour notes
to one day be able to play like Van Cliburn.

Faith is like the skill of playing the piano.
It only grows over time
over time that is devoted to practicing, time committed to ACTING faithfully.
It’s not easy but Jesus tells you and me exactly how to do it.
- He tells us that growing in faith means thinking about how our actions affect others;
choosing to modify our behavior, discipline ourselves even
so that how you and I behave doesn’t negatively affect someone
who doesn’t yet understand some of the more subtle nuances of the faith.

- He tells us that growing in faith means choosing the uncomfortable path sometimes.
Seeing ourselves not as a lone rangers, but as those in community with others,
those who are accountable to others and vice versa.
If we see a brother or a sister engaged in destructive behavior
we grow in faith by caring enough to speak a work of rebuke and encouragement.

- Jesus tells you and me that we will only grow in faith when we choose forgiveness
as our primary stance;
when we choose to forgive instead of seek revenge,
even when we have to forgive seven times a day.

The truth is, faith cannot develop in isolation. Nor can it develop quickly.
Faith only remains an abstract concept, never a concrete reality
UNTIL we practice it in the context of a community of faith.

I can say I trust God or I love humanity all I want
but until I put myself in a position where I have to practice that trust, that love
I’m only blowing smoke.

Today is World Communion Sunday,
a day we remember our connection to Christians the world over
who follow Jesus and who celebrate the Lord’s supper.
We pay special attention today to the fact that we sit at the same table as
brothers and sisters in Iraq, the Congo, Bethlehem, Korea, Venezuela.

We sit at this table not because we HAVE great faith,
but because it is the only way we can grow in faith.
We sit here even though we may feel animosity toward some of these countries
and they toward us
but we are willing to be patient as God’s Spirit works among them and us.
It’s like Paul tells his friends in Corinth -
when you eat and drink, if you do not perceive the BODY of Christ,
if you do not acknowledge your unity in Christ,
It is of no benefit to you.

In a few moments we will stand in a circle to symbolize our planet Earth.
We will pass the elements around the circle and remember our connection
to God’s people everywhere.
As we eat and drink we will allow God’s patience with us
to be translated into our patience with others and our patience with ourselves.
We are not done yet.
but by God’s grace we are growing,
growing toward that time when people will come from East and West,
from North and South and sit down together at God’s banquet table.