Waiting on Patience: How to actively wait on God ~ James 5:7-11 (a series on James)

⁷ Be patient, then, brothers and sisters, until the Lord’s coming. See how the farmer waits for the land to yield its valuable crop, patiently waiting for the autumn and spring rains. ⁸ You too, be patient and stand firm, because the Lord’s coming is near. ⁹ Don’t grumble against one another, brothers and sisters, or you will be judged. The Judge is standing at the door!10 Brothers and sisters, as an example of patience in the face of suffering, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord. ¹¹ As you know, we count as blessed those who have persevered. You have heard of Job’s perseverance and have seen what the Lord finally brought about. The Lord is full of compassion and mercy.

Words are funny, particularly when we get them wrong. In English, when one says “thank you” we know to respond, “You’re welcome.” Simple, right? In French, when one says “Merci” you are to respond, “De rien”’ or literally, “It’s nothing.” My friend was visiting France and was told “Merci” and rather than respond “De rien” he mistakenly said, “Derrier” or “rear end.” Yikes. That’s wrong on many levels. Our text this week is truly all about one word and getting that word right: patience. What does it mean? What doesn’t it mean? Why must we get this word right if we are going to endure suffering and be brothers and sisters toward one another?
Right off the bat, I would like to offer a definition. Patience, according to James, doesn’t simply mean “waiting.” Anyone with children knows that one can wait impatiently. Rather, patience is a particular kind of waiting - understanding what I can and cannot do, should or shouldn’t do. It’s what we do while we wait. It is that Christian virtue of perseverance that rests upon confidence in God’s mercy and God’s commitment to accomplish all that God intends while at the same time understanding that God calls us to participate. It is both active and inactive, realistic and hopeful and demands discernment. James says . . .

1.    Be patient in context – on a farm.

The context of our waiting determines the content of our

patience. Being patient for an 8-hour road trip is very different from being patient for Christmas. James’ context for patience is the work of a farmer. That frames the very concept of what it

means to wait. My grandparents were sharecroppers in Granger, TX. They were the hardest working people that I ever knew – from sun up to sun down, and then some, working hard to make ends meet and survive. James’ image of patience and the farmer helps correct a common misconception that patience equals passivity or even laziness. That somehow, if God is the one who is responsible for rain and fruit (which God is) that there is nothing really for us to do.

So this context of a farm is important. It matters a great deal in what context and who counsels “patience,” and to what end. In his essay, James first pronounces God's judgment on favoritism, greed and exploitation, calling for repentance, before he encourages those who are suffering, to be patient for “the day of the Lord” (5:8). This is important because without such warnings addressed to the “haves,” exhorting the “have-nots” to be patient can be a form of continuing oppression. Recall Martin Luther King's chastising response

to clergy of Birmingham, who counseled more patience on the part of Black people fighting segregation. In his letter from Birmingham jail King wrote, “For years now I have heard the word ‘wait.’ It rings in the ear of every Negro with a piercing familiarity. This ‘wait’ has almost always meant ‘never.’
James reminds us that the world is our farm and that, apart from the harvest, we’ve got things to do. Last week we touched on what some of those things are – the prophetic task of the church – listening to the Scriptures and the poor, investigating injustice and speaking for the oppressed. There is certainly more that we could be doing but start there and it

will lead you to all the fences that need mending, all the fertilizing that needs doing, all the eggs that need gathering, and all the plants that need planting. Merely waiting doesn’t do much – patience will always lead you to work.

2.    Be patient and exercise.

The NIV translates the Greek of vs. 8, στηρίξατε τὰς καρδίας, as “stand firm” but the phrase is literally “strengthen your hearts.” We cannot control all that our bodies will experience in this life – there is tragedy and disease outside of our control. All of us will die but we do know that proper exercise has benefits and can increase our health happiness in this life. In the same way, James reminds us that we need to exercise our compassion and mercy in order to be patient. “Stand firm” is helpful, in part, because it acknowledges an action that, in and of itself, is not fully active (e.g. like “fight” or “run,” etc.). It counsels, in other words, resistance training. Resistance

training is any exercise where you move your body against resistance, like lifting weights or doing push-ups. It works by causing microscopic damage or tears to the muscle cells, which in turn are quickly repaired by the body to help the muscles regenerate and grow stronger. To exercise patience or “strengthen your heart,” in other words, means to accept a certain kind of trauma.
I would like to offer two resistance exercises: The first is prayer. In prayer we resist the belief that we can accomplish all that needs to happen for things to be made right. We resist the belief that we can see all that we need to see, know all that must be known, and that it’s so easy to change ourselves. I want to encourage you to add the weight of silence to your prayers. Surrender yourself to God in silence so that God can change you.
I have one more exercise: pay attention to those in pain without always trying to fix it. You can strengthen your heart by enlarging your circle of attention. Who is pain? Who is in need? This can be a terrible burden but so necessary this side of God’s coming. If we are to be truly patient then we must be willing to sacrifice success for the harder work of being present with those who must await healing and deliverance.

Henri Nouwen is right: “When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives means the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares.” And, I would add, a friend who can truly be patient.

3.    Be patient. Don’t grumble against others

In contrast with such solidarity in suffering, James warns his hearers against turning their pain, their “groans,” against each other. It’s easy, when we are experiencing hard times, to become bitter and mutually judgmental. Patience with each other is necessary if we will ever truly be family, sincerely “brothers and sisters” (notice how many times James uses that phrase in this short passage). Sometimes, nothing is more hurtful than the impatience of a family member toward another.
Patience involves a capacity to suspend such criticism, to live with unresolved problems and relationships. We do not need to impose a quick fix on messy situations; rather, because God’s day is coming, our job is to cultivate mutual understanding. We don't have to make heaven on earth or manipulate relationships in order to get what we think we want. Rather, we have the room and time to grow into the kind of fellowship James describes in 5:13-20.
In the parable of the wheat and the tares, Jesus discusses the

danger of kingdom people trying to weed themselves (Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43). We all make errors. According to Jesus, being patient is a refusal to rip out people and their problems in a willy-nilly sort of way acknowledging that we can do more harm than good. Patience reminds us that there are some things that truly only God can do.

4.    Be patient and do Immerse.

It truly is an astounding coincidence that James counsels the church to read and know Job (and the prophets). We are about to do just that so I hope that you will join one of the Immerse small groups so that you too can listen to James and

be mentored by Job. What’s intriguing, of course, is that we are told to model “Job’s perseverance” which hardly looks like the normal piety from the pews – keep a stiff upper lip, never cry, always say that “God is in control” and never ask questions. But that’s not what Job or the prophets did. Job does persevere, for sure, but does so amidst complaint. If Job is our partner in faith – that means that James is saying you can persevere and say things like this: “I cry to you, O God, but you don’t answer. I stand before you, but you don’t even look. You have become cruel toward me. You use your power to persecute me. You throw me into the whirlwind and destroy me in the storm. And I know you are sending me to my death.”

Job wasn’t the only one. Other prophets expressed such sentiments but here’s the point. So many of us have it backwards – we believe that perseverance demands that we say nothing and pretend that everything is alright. Rabbi

Abraham Heschel said, “The refusal to accept the harshness of God’s ways in the name of his love was an authentic from of prayer. Indeed, the ancient Prophets of Israel were not in the habit of consenting to God’s harsh judgment and did not simply nod, saying ‘Thy will be done.’ They often challenged him, as if to say, ‘Thy will be changed.’ One should never capitulate, even to the Lord.”

5.    Be patient, your future is God.

In vs. 11 James writes that the story of Job reveals the telos of God. Telos in the Greek means principal goal, aim or end. God, James reminds us, is the one who controls that telos because God is our end. And because God is full of compassion and mercy, our future will be compassion and mercy. We will not always encounter compassion and mercy in this life – we will at times suffer the cruelty of others, the brokenness of creation, and the tragedy of our own bad choices. But God will not be thwarted. God, the source of our life, the architect of our redemption, the creator of all that is

good and holy, is our end.  The spiritual life is often like rafting on a river – sometimes smooth, other times choppy. Sometimes you paddle and other times you float. But if you stay in the river, one inevitable thing will occur – you will reach the ocean. It is an unavoidable telos. Sometimes we find ourselves in a shallow part of the river and wonder how big God and compassion truly are.
“Do You want to know how big God’s compassion and mercy are? The answer is: It’s very big. It’s bigger than you’re comfortable with.” The end is an ocean of compassion. Stay in the river. Be patient.