The Reward of Patience

2 Samuel 5:1-5; 9-10

July 8, 2012
The First Presbyterian Church, Kilgore, Texas.

A young woman’s car stalled at a traffic light. She tried to get it started, but nothing would happen. The light turned green, and there she sat, angry and embarrassed, holding up traffic. The car behind her could have easily gone around her, but instead the driver added to her anger by laying on his horn. Such behavior is standard for drivers in the greater Boston metro area.

After another desperate attempt to get the car started, she got out and walked back to the honker. The man rolled down his window in surprise.

“Tell you what,” she said, “You go start my car, and I’ll set back here and honk the horn for you.”

We live in an impatient world. A world where I want it my way, right away; I want what I want and I want it now. With each passing day, it appears the world is moving faster than ever before. Like little ants marching, we are always going and going; we’re on the move traveling in all directions at once. It’s a frantic, frenzied pace we run full of angst and anxiety with little time for waiting or practicing patience. How often have we prayed for patience asking, “O Lord, give me patience…and give it to me right now.”

No matter how fast we move or how fast our technology evolves, we still find ourselves needing to exercise patience. In the car, we find ourselves patiently waiting for the light to change. You buy something that needs to be assembled, and the instructions don't make sense. You're out on a golf course and you hit a straight drive; but when you get to where it ought to be lying, it's not there. You toss 16 socks into the clothes dryer and you get only 15 back. We patiently wait for the plumber, the electrician, or the cable guy to come to our home on their scheduled day anytime between 8:30am and 5pm. We patiently wait for the person ahead of us in the 15-item express line at the supermarket. This person puts 19 items on the belt, chats with the checkout clerk, fishes for her checkbook only after everything has been rung up and then wants to review the bill. We patiently wait for an all-important package to arrive by tracking its progress on-line. We patiently wait to ride the latest amusement park ride at Six Flags or Disney World. We run and hurry from one ride to the next to wait one hour in line for a two minute ride. It’s a life of hurry up and wait!

We need patience in order to manage annoyances and the low-level anger that accompanies them. Good things happen in their proper time. Good things happen according to God's timetable, not ours.

And with all the waiting we do, you would think that we would be experts. You would think we would have learned and mastered the fruit of the spirit we call patience.

In today’s text, King David is patiently waiting; not for the light to change or for the cable guy to fix the line or to ride The Mr. Freeze Reverse Blast at Six Flags. King David is waiting to officially be the king of Israel.

This text is the third and last announcement of David's anointing as king. It is the last of a three-stage rise to power. The first stage came with Samuel's anointing of David, prior to his victory over Goliath (1 Samuel 16:13). But Saul was still alive, so David was a king-in-waiting, a role he would play for some time, and with considerable patience. The second "announcement" (2 Samuel 2:4) comes following the anointing by the leaders of the "house of Judah." The third announcement comes here, in today's text, where we have the final announcement: David is anointed king by the "elders of Israel" and now he represents all the tribes of the United Kingdom. He had been king of Judah for seven years; he would continue as king of the United Kingdom for another 33 years. "And he became more and more powerful, because the LORD God Almighty was with him" (v. 10, NIV).

What strikes me about David's rise to be king is the frustrating process before the promise of kingship was fully realized. David was already anointed by the last and highly revered judge of Israel, Samuel, he spared the life of the king upon whose throne he was to sit and he showed great kindness toward the house of Saul.

I think perhaps David knew what The American humorist Arnold H. Glasow once said, “The key to everything is patience. You get the chicken by hatching the egg, not by smashing it.” Pastor Douglas Rumford says, “Full grown oak trees are not produced in three years; neither are servants of God.”

David refused to force the blessing, refused to help God with the details. Instead, he waited; he waited for the promise to become reality, and was willing to receive the blessing in stages. No doubt, this had practical advantages as well. Nevertheless, it is a lesson for us.

Patience will be rewarded. Good things happen according to God's timetable, not ours.

But I want it now! Why won’t it work the way I want it to work? Pastor and professor Eugene Peterson talks about patience this way, “The person who looks for quick results in the seed planting of well-doing will be disappointed. If I want potatoes for dinner tomorrow, it will do me little good to plant them in my garden tonight. There are long stretches of darkness and invisibility and silence that separate planting and reaping.”

In the 2007 film “Evan Almighty”, God, disguised as a waiter, tells Evan’s wife, “When someone prays for patience, does God give them patience or does God given them the opportunity to be patient?”

A young father became noticeably more patient with people after a little girl came into their home who was seriously mentally retarded and physically handicapped. The doctors told the father and mother that she would be with them for only a few years. She lived to be 6 years old. In those brief years as he suffered with her, she worked her way into his heart and life to an unusual degree. As he reached out in tenderness to her, his heart became more and more tender toward everyone, particularly toward those who suffered. He may not have been conscious of the change that took place in his life, but his family and friends were definitely aware of it. Needless to say, patience comes only to those who react wisely or rightly to suffering.[1]

David’s rise to power as king was not his doing or the work of political insiders. His rise is God’s doing. David becomes greater and greater because he knows that God has been with him every step of the way. David exercises great patience knowing that God is with him and in control. David knows his role as the king of Israel is as a shepherd, a “good shepherd”. His rise is from as a shepherd boy to a shepherd king. As the shepherd king, his primary requirement is to remember that the shepherd exists for the sake of the sheep and their well-being.

What we have here is a whole new look of what power and governing is all about. Such a model requires the shepherd leader to exercise great patience knowing that God is the one in control.

This model is demonstrated most vividly in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. He is the good shepherd whose death is interpreted as a complete sacrifice of the shepherd for the sheep. “The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep” (John 10:11).

Patience will be rewarded. Good things happen according to God's timetable, not ours. Amen.

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[1] T.B. Maston, “Patience,” Fellowship of Christian Athletes Web Site, Fca.org. Retrieved April 5, 2004.

The Amazin' Jesus!

July 1, 2012

The First Presbyterian Church, Kilgore, Texas.

Mark 5:21-43

I am convinced that everyone needs a superhero. As young children we begin to identify who our superheroes are. In time, these superheroes evolve; they change looks and change names. At first we look at our parents or whoever took care of us as our heroes. As we get older, for boys at least, they’re attention shifts to sports figures, comic book characters, TV personalities and more.

One of my favorite superheroes as a child was Spiderman. He's been in a comic strip, a television series, a video game and a pinball game. Three big-budget movies were made about him in 2002, 2004 and 2007. A musical about him opened in New York in 2011 -- the most expensive musical in Broadway history. Last year, he placed third on IGN Entertainment's Top 100 Comic Book Heroes. And now “The Amazing Spiderman” opens in theaters nationwide on Tuesday.

We all know his story: High school student Peter Parker is bitten by a radioactive spider and gains super strength, as well as the ability to stick to walls and ceilings. He invents a device that enables him to shoot webs and swing high above the city streets. Wearing a Spider-Man costume, he goes out to fight criminals, including super-villains such as the Green Goblin and Doctor Octopus. And the new Spiderman movie promises to reveal unknown secrets about Spiderman; it promises to reveal the untold story.

We all need a superhero. But what makes someone a superhero? What does it take to be one? The people of Israel were waiting for a superhero, the promised Messiah. They were waiting for a sign of some kind from God. So when the news started whirling around the Galilee about a teacher named Jesus performing great miracles, people came from far and wide to see Jesus for themselves.

Mark tells us that when Jesus crosses in a boat to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, a great crowd of the curious onlookers gather around him: the Amazing Jesus (5:21). Imagine the buzz in the crowd: One person says that she saw Jesus remove an unclean spirit from a man, leaving everyone amazed and saying, "What is this? A new teaching -- with authority!" (1:21-28).

Another says he watched Jesus heal a paralyzed man and reports that all who witnessed it were amazed and glorified God, saying, "We have never seen anything like this!" (2:1-12).

A third tells of how a man possessed by a demon was healed by Jesus, and then the man "went away and began to proclaim in the Decapolis how much Jesus had done for him; and everyone was amazed" (5:1-20).

Again and again, Mark reports that people are amazed: He’s the Amazing Jesus.

Here's the untold story of what Jesus is doing for the people of Galilee: All of his mighty acts are intended to save them. Whether they're facing evil, illness, destruction or death, Jesus wants to come to the rescue. In fact, the Greek word for "save" (sozo) pops up again and again in the gospel of Mark, although it's usually translated to English words such as "heal," "cure" or "get well." What amazes the crowds is that Jesus is working to rescue them, to save them, to save us.

First to appear is Jairus, one of the leaders of the synagogue. Jairus is desperate. He falls at Jesus' feet and begs him repeatedly, "My little daughter is at the point of death. Come and lay your hands on her, so that she may be made well, and live" (5:22-23).

Jesus goes with Jairus, and a large crowd follows him and presses in on him. And just as you will see in the Spider-Man movie, one challenge is never enough -- the superhero goes to save one person and is unexpectedly pulled aside to save another. A woman who has been suffering hemorrhages for 12 years comes up behind Jesus in the crowd and touches his cloak, believing, "If I but touch his clothes, I will be made well" (vv. 24-28).

The woman reaches out, touches Jesus, and immediately her bleeding stops. She is healed of her disease and rescued from a miserable life of pain, social isolation and exploitation (v. 29). She is saved by the Amazing Jesus!

But wait. Like Peter Parker, when his "Spidey-senses" begin to tingle, Jesus has a feeling that his power has flowed out of him. Jesus spins around in the crowd and says, "Who touched my clothes?" (v. 30). His disciples look at him as though he's crazy, since a mob of people are pressing in on him from every side. But Jesus searches the crowd for the person he knows is out there, until the woman finally confesses what she's done. He doesn't rebuke her, but instead says, "Daughter, your faith has made you well" (v. 34).

The life of a superhero is 24/7, 365. Peter Parker was constantly interrupted by his tingling “Spidey Senses”. He couldn’t tell anybody what was happening. It was usually in the middle of something big: an intimate conversation with his girlfriend later wife MJ, or while he was at work or at home with his widowed Aunt May. The interruptions kept coming and no matter what he would spring into action.

Throughout the Gospel of Mark, Jesus is also constantly interrupted and he handles the interruptions with grace and mercy. We can imagine the impatience Jairus felt when Jesus stopped to see who had touched him. There’s a girl dying, but yet Jesus stops to ask a question that the disciples think is absurd. Jesus, sensitive to the father’s anguish, might have pressed on. Jesus might have been content with the knowledge that the woman was healed, but he took time out for the personal touch. She is of no less importance to Jesus than the child of this prominent religious leader. She is a reminder to us that the outcast and the marginalized have a place in the kingdom of God.

We discover that the Amazing Jesus has come to save us from anything that can damage, divide or destroy us. And he does this not only through his unique superpowers, but through our own faith; our own willingness to trust him.

Notice that Jesus says to the woman, "Your faith has saved you." It is her willingness to trust Jesus that permits the healing power of God to flow into her. Jesus says that her faith is the source of her healing, rather than his clothes or even his touch. She's saved by her willingness to believe that Jesus is the superhero sent by God to do a rescue mission on Earth.

Some people come from the house of Jairus to tell him that his daughter is dead. But overhearing what they say, Jesus says to Jairus, "Do not fear, only believe" (v. 36). Jesus wants to challenge Jairus to trust him with the very same conviction that the bleeding woman had just shown.

As thrilling as it may be to watch Spider-Man at the movies, the Web-Slinger has nothing on the Amazin’ Jesus. His wall-crawling is pure fantasy, and his web-shooters are the stuff of comic-book fiction.

The Amazin’ Jesus is our true superhero. He is the one with the power to save us, and this fact should not remain an untold story. He rescues us from sin through the gift of forgiveness. He saves us from illness by working for healing in our bodies, minds and spirits. He breaks our social isolation by giving us a place in his community of faith. He rescues us from death through his promise of eternal life with God.

We do not have to fear, because the Amazin’ Jesus saves. We do not have to fear, just trust and believe. Go and tell the story.