Galatians 5:22-26, James 5:7-11
Introduction
As we look at each of the fruit of the Spirit, I want you to imagine them for a moment as purely human virtues to work at rather than a work of God. All of these would be difficult to accomplish, but I think patience would be one of the most challenging. Why is that? Patience is not something that appears right away, it is something you have to wait for. So basically you need patience while you are developing patience.
How are you when it comes to patience? Are you someone who can calmly sit back and wait for whatever you are hoping for with very little anxiety? Or are you someone who starts tapping your leg furiously while anxiously waiting for the news?
I cannot say that I am overly patient. I remember a time when we had taken a break from pastoral ministry. I had applied for a non-church job that I thought would be a good fit. The interview went well. They told me they would email me their decision on a certain day. Since I was only employed part-time at that point, I had the time to sit at my computer and continually refresh my email. They did not email me that day. But after I checked in with them the next day, I found out I got the job. Could they not see me sitting by my computer?!
Here is an important question, a question we could ask about many of these virtues. Is someone born patient or does a person develop patience? I would say, yes. I believe that there are people who naturally exhibit patience. It’s part of their personality. On the other hand, I think it is also possible to develop patience. We can actually work at delayed gratification, even if it goes against cultural norms. Some interesting research has been done in the area of patience.
The Marshmallow Test was a study conducted by psychologist Walter Mischel in the 1960s and 1970s to explore self-control in a group of children and see whether these children tended towards a “hot” or “cool” system of thinking.
The Marshmallow Test began with Mischel and his team of researchers placing a plate of treats (usually marshmallows) on a table in an otherwise empty room. Children between the ages of three and five were led into this room one-by-one to be tested individually. Each child was told that the researchers would leave for a few minutes, and if the child could resist eating any of the treats until the researchers returned, they could have two marshmallows. If the child couldn’t resist the treats, they were instructed to ring a bell that would bring the researchers back to the room early, and they would only be allowed to eat one marshmallow. If the researchers were not summoned by the ringing of the bell, they returned to the room after fifteen minutes.
If a child rang the bell early and wanted to have a marshmallow immediately, they were more reliant on a “hot” system of thinking and were willing to sacrifice a bigger reward in the future (two marshmallows) for a smaller but immediately satisfying reward (one marshmallow). On the flip side, if a child waited until the end of the fifteen minutes, they were more reliant on a “cool” system of thinking and were able to prioritize the bigger long-term reward (two marshmallows) over the smaller, immediate reward (one marshmallow).
In follow-up studies, Mischel surveyed the same children from the original Marshmallow Experiment on how they were doing as adults. Mischel saw that the children who waited longer to receive their marshmallow treats had found greater overall success in terms of higher SAT scores, better health (measured by BMI), and attainment of higher education. Not only that, but the parents of those children who waited longer for their marshmallows were more likely to say that their children planned well for the future and handled stress effectively.
Now we are looking at patience as a fruit of the Spirit and so we believe that this is more than just waiting for a marshmallow. However, as we have been saying, it is possible to work with the Spirit in the development of the fruit. We may not be able to create patience on our own, but we can cultivate what the Spirit is doing within us.
James and Patience
The Bible has a lot to say about patience. Sometimes it speaks about God’s patience with us and sometimes it speaks of the need for us to have patience, both with others and with the challenges of life, and even with God.
The passage that I have chosen to look at is from James. James is the half-brother of Jesus, and so we should not be surprised that he uses an agricultural metaphor, similar to how Jesus used these images in his parables. James has the reputation of being more practical than theological, but we will see that he is doing both here.
Few images can demonstrate patience as much as someone planting seed and waiting for the harvest. I like the idea of gardening but my lack of patiences makes it very difficult. So much of growing a crop is about waiting. In this passage, the waiting has two elements. One is the waiting for the former and latter rains, that is the autumn and the spring rains. Those spring rains that happen in March and April are necessary for the crops in Palestine to be successful. Ultimately, the planter is waiting for the harvest that follows those rains. They are aware that there is a certain amount of time that must pass and nothing can speed that up.
So what is the waiting for the Christian? James says that the waiting is for the coming of the Lord, that is the return of Jesus. Jewish hope was in the Day of the Lord, the time when God would fix all that is wrong in the world. Christians understand this to happen when Jesus returns. So the waiting is not about escaping the world with all of its suffering but for Jesus to come back and sort out all the suffering and make everything right. Many Christians believe that the promise is that Jesus will make everything right in our lives, that we will be protected from conflict and suffering. That is not the promise. The promise is that it will happen, not when it will happen. James illustrates this by the example of the Old Testament prophets. They prophesied many things but never saw much of what they prophesied. They had patience and so should we.
Patience and the Church
So how does this help us as Christians today? While we may not want to spend too much time thinking about it, I want you to take a moment to think about the state of the world. I won’t go into details as you know what is happening. But take a moment to allow all of those things to wash over you. Can you identify with the words of Habakkuk?
O Lord, how long shall I cry for help,
and you will not listen?
Or cry to you ‘Violence!’
and you will not save?
Why do you make me see wrongdoing
and look at trouble?
Destruction and violence are before me;
strife and contention arise. (Habbakkuk 1:2-3)
I wrestled with this type of thinking in the early days of our children’s diagnosis with autism. While I do not see autism as a tragedy now, back then, trying to care for two autistic children with challenging behaviours was really hard. I knew that God could change that at anytime. God could rewire their brains and we would be able to interact with them the way we had originally expected. But that was not happening. Nor could some of the therapies who promised radical change follow through on their promises. What I needed was patience. Everything will eventually work out. By that I do not mean that they will be “healed” of their autism but that the barriers to communication will be removed, perhaps more on my side.
When we look at troubles in the world and troubles in the church, we need to remind ourselves that God has this. We are going to feel the impulse to take control and fix things in the short-term. Again, I am not saying that we are to be passive and do nothing. But what we do should be out of a conviction that this is the right time and not out of a panic that if we don’t do something now, everything will collapse around us.
Conclusion
We are approaching the end of this sermon. Thank you for your patience. How does Christian patience work? In many ways, it is the same principle as hope and many other virtues. Think about looking at a picture on a computer. If you zoom out, you may find that the part that you were looking at, which seemed to be the whole picture, is actually one small part of a much larger picture. Impatience assumes that the small part that is seen in the moment is the entire picture. Patience assumes that there is a larger picture, even if we do not see the big picture right now. God is at work in us, in our church, in our nation, and in our world. We don’t see it all and we may not see how it works out before we die. Patience points us to the coming of the Lord and the day in which everything will be put right. Please. Just have a little patience.
