Patience on the Highway
Advent 3A
Isaiah 35.1-10; Psalm 146.4-9; James 5.7-10; Matthew 11.2-11
What’s your picture of heaven on earth? Could it be a Caribbean beach? Warm sand, crystal blue water, jewelled coral, swimming with a friendly dolphin, cocktails under a straw umbrella, and a barbecue of fresh fish and tropical fruits – isn’t that it? My friend Alan doesn’t like overseas travel; he had the chance of a free Bahamas holiday. He asked me, ‘Shall I take mushy peas and tinned cheese in case I can’t tolerate the food?’ ‘No Alan, it’s heaven on earth!’ His postcard to me simply said, ‘It is!’
The biblical writers didn’t know anything about luxury holidays, so they imagined heaven on earth rather differently. Today’s psalm and the passage from Isaiah talk about just how wonderful life in the kingdom of God is. They are absolutely exuberant: all the enormous wrongs of human existence are set right; justice reigns; there is no more hunger; prisoners are set free; the blind see; deserts turn green - in fact the desert shall not only turn green, it will ‘flower and sing for
joy.’
On and on they go; hymns of praise not just for God, but for the life lived with God – human life lived with God: ‘Happy are they who have the God of Jacob for their help; happy are they whose hope is in the Lord.’ In the middle of all this lushness and healing and forgiveness, in the middle of all this justice, freedom and redemption from oppression, there is a highway called the Holy Way. This is a protected road through the kingdom – a kind of spiritual motorway accessible to God's people as they go from here to there in the kingdom. There are several reassuring aspects of this motorway, one of them being the fact that there are no highway dangers – no lions and ravenous beasts – or whatever lions and ravenous beasts are for us
today. But perhaps the most reassuring comment about the highway is that no traveller, NOT EVEN FOOLS, shall go astray – get lost, hit the curb and wreck a tyre, breakdown on the hard shoulder, or run out of fuel ...
Take note of that – there are fools on this Holy Way road. For those of us who fall into the fool category, or suspect we do, this is great news. For those who know themselves not in that category and don’t suffer fools gladly? Well, hard luck! This is a little piece of your redemption; you’ve got to learn to drive along the road of the kingdom with us fools in the next lane. Quite a break for the fools, and quite a demand for the non-fools! Nevertheless the Psalmist and Isaiah both reassure us that joy and gladness will be ours, and that sorrow and sighing are going to be things of the past.
And that brings us to the brief passage from the letter of James which was our epistle reading. James talks of patience and holy waiting. The idea of patience is something that really troubles me. Lying on a hospital bed awaiting a general anaesthetic, patient is the last thing I feel. As the great day draws ever nearer, I’m sure there are many young children who feel far from patient about its arrival! For James being patient is something about a proper readiness and preparedness for salvation. He says that the Lord coming among us is comparable to the process of all growth – dormancy is followed by watering which is followed by growth which needs further watering which eventually leads to maturing – be patient like the good farmer. Wait the process out – strengthen your heart, your intention, your commitment but don’t waste that strengthening on strife or anything that doesn’t serve the Lord’s purposes.
Not for nothing is the letter of James called ‘a pastoral epistle.’ Be patient with one another; be patient with God. There is a rhythm to the growth of God’s kingdom that the disciple must live with – patiently. Enjoy God’s planting amongst us, let the first shoots of his love, the gentle rain of grace, the growth of our acknowledgment of God’s presence, and the harvest of joy it brings, be nourishment to the world. Contentment and patience figure prominently in this. The joy and gladness of our journeying on the Holy Way is precisely in this: knowing that we’re travelling on God’s road, and letting that fact direct our thoughts and actions every day. Be content in the here and now for the Kingdom of God is very near. ‘Strengthen your hearts for the coming of the Lord is near.’ There’s a proper patience that comes with our certainty about where God is leading us.
And that turns our attention towards our Gospel reading – Matthew’s story of what seems to be John the Baptist’s impatience, or perhaps doubt arising from the suffering he is undergoing. John has been imprisoned and from his lonely cell he sends his people to ask Jesus if he is the Messiah. Jesus doesn't answer him directly with either a ‘Yes’ or a ‘No’. A difficult response, I think. Does it mean that Jesus takes the question as being wrongly put? Is part of recognizing the Messiah risking your own judgement in the matter? Perhaps the lack of a direct answer suggests that recognizing God is in itself a determining part of establishing that a person is on the great highway – the Holy Way of God.
Anyway, Jesus doesn't answer the enquiry directly; instead he says, ‘Tell John what you hear and see: the blind
receive their sight, the deaf hear, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the dead are raised and the poor have the good news brought to them.’ What are all these things signs of? Well, in the Psalms, in Isaiah, and in countless other
places in the Scriptures, these kinds of things are glimpses of the very Kingdom of God. Doesn’t this seemingly askew answer actually say, ‘Look about you, the signs of the Kingdom are here.’ People are already starting to live in it – they
are being joyful, they are being free, they are being forgiven. Our feet are already on the Holy Way – fools or not.
In one place Saint Paul writes, ‘The only thing that matters is the new creation,’ or as the NRSV has it, ‘the new creation is everything’ [Galatians 6.15]. I think we really should take his word literally here – the only thing that matters is the new life we have been called to, a life so richly new that it really is a new creation. For Paul, for the Psalmist, for Isaiah, for James, for John the Baptist, and indeed for you and me, ‘the new creation is everything.’ We are travelling the Holy Way – sing for joy in your journeying; look around and acknowledge those who are travelling with you; this is the day of the Lord, be glad in it.
Look for the signs of the Kingdom – they are there. Be patient if you don’t see them at first, but keep on the road.
Ask the insistent question – like John the Baptist – if the troubles of life threat to overwhelm you. But know that when your patience gives out, God’s patience never will:
‘And the ransomed of the Lord shall return,
and come to Zion with singing;
everlasting joy shall be upon their heads;
they shall obtain joy and gladness,
and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.’
The biblical writers didn’t know anything about luxury holidays, so they imagined heaven on earth rather differently. Today’s psalm and the passage from Isaiah talk about just how wonderful life in the kingdom of God is. They are absolutely exuberant: all the enormous wrongs of human existence are set right; justice reigns; there is no more hunger; prisoners are set free; the blind see; deserts turn green - in fact the desert shall not only turn green, it will ‘flower and sing for
joy.’
On and on they go; hymns of praise not just for God, but for the life lived with God – human life lived with God: ‘Happy are they who have the God of Jacob for their help; happy are they whose hope is in the Lord.’ In the middle of all this lushness and healing and forgiveness, in the middle of all this justice, freedom and redemption from oppression, there is a highway called the Holy Way. This is a protected road through the kingdom – a kind of spiritual motorway accessible to God's people as they go from here to there in the kingdom. There are several reassuring aspects of this motorway, one of them being the fact that there are no highway dangers – no lions and ravenous beasts – or whatever lions and ravenous beasts are for us
today. But perhaps the most reassuring comment about the highway is that no traveller, NOT EVEN FOOLS, shall go astray – get lost, hit the curb and wreck a tyre, breakdown on the hard shoulder, or run out of fuel ...
Take note of that – there are fools on this Holy Way road. For those of us who fall into the fool category, or suspect we do, this is great news. For those who know themselves not in that category and don’t suffer fools gladly? Well, hard luck! This is a little piece of your redemption; you’ve got to learn to drive along the road of the kingdom with us fools in the next lane. Quite a break for the fools, and quite a demand for the non-fools! Nevertheless the Psalmist and Isaiah both reassure us that joy and gladness will be ours, and that sorrow and sighing are going to be things of the past.
And that brings us to the brief passage from the letter of James which was our epistle reading. James talks of patience and holy waiting. The idea of patience is something that really troubles me. Lying on a hospital bed awaiting a general anaesthetic, patient is the last thing I feel. As the great day draws ever nearer, I’m sure there are many young children who feel far from patient about its arrival! For James being patient is something about a proper readiness and preparedness for salvation. He says that the Lord coming among us is comparable to the process of all growth – dormancy is followed by watering which is followed by growth which needs further watering which eventually leads to maturing – be patient like the good farmer. Wait the process out – strengthen your heart, your intention, your commitment but don’t waste that strengthening on strife or anything that doesn’t serve the Lord’s purposes.
Not for nothing is the letter of James called ‘a pastoral epistle.’ Be patient with one another; be patient with God. There is a rhythm to the growth of God’s kingdom that the disciple must live with – patiently. Enjoy God’s planting amongst us, let the first shoots of his love, the gentle rain of grace, the growth of our acknowledgment of God’s presence, and the harvest of joy it brings, be nourishment to the world. Contentment and patience figure prominently in this. The joy and gladness of our journeying on the Holy Way is precisely in this: knowing that we’re travelling on God’s road, and letting that fact direct our thoughts and actions every day. Be content in the here and now for the Kingdom of God is very near. ‘Strengthen your hearts for the coming of the Lord is near.’ There’s a proper patience that comes with our certainty about where God is leading us.
And that turns our attention towards our Gospel reading – Matthew’s story of what seems to be John the Baptist’s impatience, or perhaps doubt arising from the suffering he is undergoing. John has been imprisoned and from his lonely cell he sends his people to ask Jesus if he is the Messiah. Jesus doesn't answer him directly with either a ‘Yes’ or a ‘No’. A difficult response, I think. Does it mean that Jesus takes the question as being wrongly put? Is part of recognizing the Messiah risking your own judgement in the matter? Perhaps the lack of a direct answer suggests that recognizing God is in itself a determining part of establishing that a person is on the great highway – the Holy Way of God.
Anyway, Jesus doesn't answer the enquiry directly; instead he says, ‘Tell John what you hear and see: the blind
receive their sight, the deaf hear, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the dead are raised and the poor have the good news brought to them.’ What are all these things signs of? Well, in the Psalms, in Isaiah, and in countless other
places in the Scriptures, these kinds of things are glimpses of the very Kingdom of God. Doesn’t this seemingly askew answer actually say, ‘Look about you, the signs of the Kingdom are here.’ People are already starting to live in it – they
are being joyful, they are being free, they are being forgiven. Our feet are already on the Holy Way – fools or not.
In one place Saint Paul writes, ‘The only thing that matters is the new creation,’ or as the NRSV has it, ‘the new creation is everything’ [Galatians 6.15]. I think we really should take his word literally here – the only thing that matters is the new life we have been called to, a life so richly new that it really is a new creation. For Paul, for the Psalmist, for Isaiah, for James, for John the Baptist, and indeed for you and me, ‘the new creation is everything.’ We are travelling the Holy Way – sing for joy in your journeying; look around and acknowledge those who are travelling with you; this is the day of the Lord, be glad in it.
Look for the signs of the Kingdom – they are there. Be patient if you don’t see them at first, but keep on the road.
Ask the insistent question – like John the Baptist – if the troubles of life threat to overwhelm you. But know that when your patience gives out, God’s patience never will:
‘And the ransomed of the Lord shall return,
and come to Zion with singing;
everlasting joy shall be upon their heads;
they shall obtain joy and gladness,
and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.’