1/20/2008                                                                               Psalm 40:1-11

“Wait On Time”

Rev. Jonathan Rumburg

Introduction

            Our scripture opens with, “I waited patiently for the Lord; he turned to me and heard my cry.”  This is an interesting verse because it is somewhat obtuse, yet exceedingly important to our faith.       The verse is important because it speaks of how God hears the voices of those crying out to God.  It’s the “waited patiently” in the same sentence seems a little odd to me. 

            Perhaps the reason I find it obtuse is because…  I guess because I am not that patient.  I like to claim that I am but I know it is not always true.

            So, I’ll admit it.  When it comes to certain things, I am not very patient.  But in my defense, there are times that I can be very patient.  Perhaps, almost too patient, as many of you have gently told me.  But I digress.

            What I need to come clean about are the things that I am not very patient about.  And they are probably many things you too are not very patient about.  For instance…

            Every time I approach the traffic light right out here, at the corner of High and Boyer streets, a light that I have to come to each and every day, it is always red.  And it stays red for exactly one minute.  (I’ve timed it!)  It’s the longest minute of my day.

            I am not very patient when people write checks at the grocery store, or when they dig out from their pockets or purses exact change.  Admittedly, I have softened to these instances because one day I had to wait on a lady who wrote a check and dug out exact change, and I just had to laugh.

            I am not very patient about waiting in lines.  I was so excited when the post office put in the automatic postal machine.  There’s never a line at it!

            But the thing I am most impatient about is waiting on God.  I want God not only to hear my voice when I cry out, but I also want God to respond, quickly. Yet, when the response I want doesn’t seem to come, I can’t help but wonder, when or if, God will pull me out of my desolate pit, out of my miry bog, and set my feet on a rock, and make my steps secure.

            I love that the psalmist tells me that God hears our voices when we cry out.  But I don’t like how the psalmist tells me that the key to getting out of the pit, out of the bog requires us to wait patiently.

            When stuck in a desolate pit, in a miry bog, being patient and waiting on God to respond is perhaps the hardest thing to do.

Move 1

            Often the patients we demonstrate has less to do with us and our ability to wait and more to do with the situation.
            For instance, when we were children and had no choice except to wait for Christmas.  We could moan and groan all we wanted, but it would not bring Christmas any faster.
            Today advertisers and marketers play on our weakness to be patient.  They tell us how to look, what to drive, and where to go.  They show us how our lives can be made easier, better, and more healthy.  They play on our impatience and make every thing in life about having it now, centering their efforts on us because we work hard and deserve their product some how. 

            And then they make it effortless to buy.  No need to save up.  No need to budget or plan ahead.  That takes time.  No money down or perhaps just four easy payments, gets you this needed item today.

            We live in a society that says patients in no longer necessary.  You deserve what you want and you should have it right now. 

            We live in a give it to me now, fast food nation, a get it quick kind of world. 

            Not many of us want to waste our time waiting.  In fact many of us would rather do without than wait in a line.  In fact, how many of us have walked into the post office or a restaurant, seen a long line and turned around and walked out?

            If we are not willing to wait three minutes for a double cheeseburger value meal, then how are we ever going to be patient enough to wait on God to pull us up from the pits of difficult days, from the miry bogs of our lives, and place our feet on solid rock?

*******

            That is why this psalm is so important for us.  It shows us what comes from waiting patiently on God.  And when we do, God will put a new song in our mouth.  Wondrous deeds will be directed toward us.

            This psalm shows us what waiting patiently on God will bring forth in our lives.

            In fact, if we took the time to really explore this psalm, and other stories of those who waited patiently on God, we will start to understand that waiting patiently on God might just be a spiritual discipline.

            God called the faithful people of the past and God calls the faithful of today, to be patient people.  God calls us to be patient, to wait, to trust, for when we do, when we wait patiently for God, God will act.  God will respond and draw us up from our desolate pit, our miry bog, and place our feet upon a rock, and make our steps secure.

            God calls us to wait patiently on God.  But what God does not call us to do is “wait on time.”  For waiting on time is the complete opposite of waiting on God.

Move 2

            The third Monday of January is set aside to acknowledge and honor the birth of one of the greatest leaders, teachers, philosophers, scholars, and ministers the world has ever known.  Though the third Monday rarely falls on the fifteenth, which is this man’s actually birthday, we still use this day to remember and reflect upon the life and work of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. 

            It is a day off from school or work for some.  It is a day to go to church.  It is a day to look back upon a dream.  And it is a day to see how one man lead a movement to help an entire race be lifted out of a desolate pit and a miry bog.

            When I read our text for today, I thought Dr. King could have written this himself.

            Certainly he was a man who found himself in a desolate pit of racial inequality.  Certainly he was a man who was caught in a miry bog of hate and murder along with his African American brothers and sisters.

            But he was a man who trusted and had faith in God, and because he did, he had a new song put into his mouth, a song of praise to God.  He saw wondrous deeds directed toward him.

            Dr. King was certainly a man who said to God, “Here I am, I delight to do your will O my God; your law of compassion, love, equality is written in my heart.”

*******

            There was so much more to Dr. King the leader, teacher, philosopher, scholar, and minister than people remember and honor.  Dr. King was a man who had an agenda that was created by no man or woman.  It was an agenda that was not laid out by an employer or school president.

            It was not an agenda that included getting himself assassinated so that folks could have a day off from school or work.  It was not an agenda that included having society and future generations hear only part of one speech he gave. 

            None of these things were his agenda.  In fact, Dr. King never had an agenda.  He had a calling.  A calling that was set by God.  A calling that implored him to act, but also to wait patiently on God.  But no where in this calling did it ask for Dr. King to “wait on time.”

*******

            I’ve used that phrase twice now.  Good writers would have used a phrase like this in such a way that it peaked your curiosity and made you urn to have its meaning made clear.  I’m not that good, so I have to tell you that that was what you should be interested in leaning right now.

            So now that you know where your interest is supposed to be peaked, let me explain.  Or better yet, permit me to let Dr. King himself explain.

Move 3

            I want to share with you a somewhat lengthy excerpt from one of Dr. King’s sermons.  It comes from the sermon “Remaining Awake Through a Great Revolution.”  I want to share with you his exact words rather than summarize them because they are far more powerful to hear in their entirety than in summation.  For they are timeless words of reality and revelation, and deserve to be heard again and again.

            Dr. King preaches these words…

            “The hour has come for everybody, for all institutions of the public sector and the private sector to work to get rid of racism.  And if we are to do it we must honestly admit certain things and get rid of certain myths that have constantly been disseminated all over our nation.

            One is the myth of time.  It is the notion that only time can solve the problem of racial injustice. 

            There are those who often sincerely say to the black man, and his allies in the white community, ‘Why don’t you slow up?  Stop pushing things so fast.  Only time can solve the problem.  If you will just be nice and patient, and continue to pray, in a hundred or two hundred years the problem will work itself out.’

            There is an answer to that myth.  It is that time is neutral.  It can be used constructively or destructively.  And I am sorry to say this morning that I am absolutely convinced that the forces of ill will in our nation, the extremists of our nation— the people on the wrong side— have used time much more effectively than the forces of goodwill. 

            And it may well be that we will have to repent in this generation.  Not merely for the vitriolic words and the violent actions of the bad people, but for the appalling silence and indifference of the good people who sit around and say, “Wait on time.”

            Somewhere we must come to see that human progress never rolls in on the wheels of inevitability.  It comes through the tireless efforts and the persistent work of dedicated individuals who are willing to be co-workers with God. 

            And without this hard work, time itself becomes an ally of the primitive forces of social stagnation.  So we must help time and realize that the time is always ripe to do right.”

*******

Conclusion

            Waiting patiently on God and waiting on time are completely opposite.

            To wait on time, as Dr. King says, brings forth only appalling silence and indifference. 

            “Wait on time” people are not patient people, but rather they are content, listless people who think the world is perfectly fine the way it is. 

            “Wait on time” people are willing to let injustice continue. 

            “Wait on time” people are ok with inequality.

            “Wait on time” people are not people of faith or people who trust in God.  Rather they are people who live in fear of the work God is doing through people like Dr, King, and other faithful believers who are willing to be co-workers with God, and who want equality and justice for all.

            But those who can wait patiently on God, who are faithful and trusting in God, who are willing to be co-workers with God, and the one’s who have heard God’s call for their lives to help the human progress toward equality and justice, they are the people who know that the possibility of equality and justice for all isn’t just a dream, but also a wondrous deed being directed toward all of God’s children.

            When stuck in a desolate pit, in a miry bog, being patient and waiting on God to respond is perhaps the hardest thing to do.  But it is a far better thing to do than to sit back and wait for time itself to put a new song in our mouths. 

            So let us not “wait on time.”  Waiting on time is a destructive use of time.

            Rather, let us wait patiently on God, while being open to how we are being called to be co-workers with God.  And let us realize, “that the time is always ripe to do right.”

            Amen.