Those who know me best would not credit patience as one of my chief virtues. The late Dub Wolfrum, sometime Suffragan Bishop of Colorado and a good friend and mentor, had been a wildlife biologist who specialized in the trout fishery before he heard the call to ordained ministry. One day, after I had given vent to my impatience, Dub said to me, ‘Richard, you rise to bait so fast that, if you were a trout, you wouldn’t last one season before you ended up in someone’s frying pan for dinner!’
Perhaps it’s because I know that patience is not one of my strengths that the story of Simeon and Anna in the Temple is one of my favourites. First, there is Simeon, a righteous and devout man, who was ‘eagerly [anticipating] the restoration of Israel’. [1] Day after day he worshipped in the Temple hoping that the promise God had made to him would be fulfilled. We don’t know how long he waited, but the day did come when Mary and Joseph, carrying the infant Jesus, came to fulfill the requirements of the Law of Moses.
Simeon’s joyous song of thanksgiving is one that generations of Christians have incorporated into many of our liturgical rites. Anglicans have used it in evening prayer and night prayer. Presbyterians have used it at the end of the communion service as an act of commissioning. Many communities use this canticle at funerals as we commend our loved ones into the hands of a compassionate and forgiving God.
Now, master, let your servant go in peace according to your word, because my eyes have seen your salvation. You prepared this salvation in the presence of all peoples. [It is[ a light for revelation to the Gentiles and a glory for your people Israel. [2]
Then there is Anna whom I cherish so much that it was the name we gave to our daughter. In her I see so many of the faithful women who have shaped my life as a Christian. Anna is the embodiment of all who have devoted themselves to the life of the community, night and day. She is the symbol of all the women who have been prophets by speaking God’s word to each generation. They have dared to show us by word and deed that the promises of God will be fulfilled, sometimes only bit by bit. Imagine the patience Anna had. If we are to believe Luke, then Anna, who is eighty-six years old, had been born in an Israel ruled by the successors to the great Maccabees, grew up in a Palestine that had been conquered and annexed to the Roman Empire and had been divided up into tiny principalities to keep petty princes happy. Yet she still worshipped and fasted and prayed.
You and I live in a society where we have a need for speed. Before we become familiar with our new digital devices, we receive notices that the software needs to be updated. After only a few years even the updates no longer work and we have to consider purchasing a new device. Waiting in the line at a store can seem to be an experience of purgatory at best and a taste of hell at worst. Driving from Point A to Point B in the Lower Mainland surely tests us all. We all know people who are waiting for various surgical procedures and who are now severely tested by the longer delays caused by the pandemic. But learning how to wait is a good thing.
In 1989 then Primate Michael Peers appointed me to the Faith, Worship and Ministry Committee of the General Synod. It was the first of a series of appointments and the beginning of more than twenty years of frequent travel. I learned that I actually like airports and I would often volunteer to go early to the airport, whether on my way to or from a meeting.
Being a Canadian means listening to airport announcements in both official languages. One such announcement is appropriate for today: ‘Merçi d’avoir attendre.’ --- ‘Thank you for waiting.’ The French reminds me that waiting means ‘being attentive’.
Being attentive means being observant. I am so often surprised by how people are unaware of what is going on around them. We walk around with earphones in our ears and our eyes focused on our mobile phones that Jesus could come and we’d never notice him. Yet, all around us, there are signs of that God is among us. Strangers offer one another random acts of kindness. Thousands of people, some working in healthcare, some in other essential services, some running small businesses, make sure that we are fed and cared for, that we are safe and receive the services we need. An unexpected telephone call or video call or e-mail message breaks into our isolation to link us to one another.
Being attentive means being curious. We’ve all met people for whom the world is flat. They seem uninterested in pondering what is going on beneath the surface of our lives. We sometimes hold conversations where nothing is really said beyond stock phrases and oft-repeated clichés. In my travels I’ve often had some of the most interesting conversations with taxi drivers who are surprised to be asked about their lives and their work, with airport staff who are surprised that a traveller actually wants to know how their day is going, with hotel staff who think that they are invisible.
Being attentive means being patient. If our universe has been billions of years in the making, then our own lives might take some time to unfold. I remember vividly a visit to a parishioner in hospice care who had lived longer than anyone had expected. When I asked her how she felt about that, she said to me, ‘I realized that there were still some things that God wanted me to learn, so I have to be patient in my dying.’ God knows that I truly am impatient for this pandemic to come to an end, but perhaps there are still some things for us to learn about how to be disciples of Jesus.
Over these months we’ve become accustomed to Dr Henry’s mantra, ‘Be kind. Be calm. Be safe.’ Recently she added, ‘Be brave.’ I’ve added, ‘Be patient.’ Simeon and Anna waited for decades to see the first sign of the restoration of their hope in God’s promises to Israel. We’ve waited two millennia for coming of God’s promised commonwealth. We’re likely to need to wait a bit longer. This pandemic, as lengthy as it seems to have been, is but a moment in our history of waiting for God. But learning to how wait is a good thing.
So be observant because God will surprise you more often than you can ask or imagine. Be curious because God is at work at all times and in all places. Be patient because, even though God’s time is not our time, God is mysterious but not unaware of our needs. May God keep us firm in the hope Christ has set before us, so that we and all God’s children shall be free, and the whole earth live to praise the name of the Holy One, who with the Christ Child and the Spirit waits upon us even as we learn the discipline of patience.
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