Some
years ago when I lived in Manhattan, New York City, there was an ad on the TV
that stated, “In New York ‘wait’
is a four letter word.” meaning a nasty word.
And it is true. Everyone in that
city always seems to be in a hurry.
People always rush, are in a hurry, have no time, are go, go, go; impatient,
and … I LOVED it.
You
see I grew up taking after my Mother who had no patience. Bernice, my Mom, was always very action
oriented. “Do it, do it right, do it
right now” could have been her motto. So
I am NOT a patient person and I come by it naturally. I hate to wait. And so for me, wait is a
four-letter word.
So
when I read in today’s second reading from the Letter of Saint James “Be patient, brothers and sisters,” I
have a problem. “Be patient,…” NO! I don’t want to be patient.
This
is the only time all year long that we get a selection from the practical and
wise Letter of Saint James in the Sunday readings - and what they give us is “Be patient”! Oh come-on.
Now
some of you may find patience to be a difficult virtue, if you even
think of it as a virtue at all. But that
is our reading. So let us take a deep
breath and see what we can make of all this.
“Be patient,
brothers and sisters, until the coming of the Lord.”
We have been waiting
nearly 2,000 years for the Lord to return.
He is certainly in no rush, and there is no indication that He is coming
anytime soon. So this requires a great
deal of patience.
St.
James continues: “See how the farmer
waits for the precious fruit of the earth, being patient with it until it
receives the early and the late rains.
You too must be patient.” Note
that this is not waiting for waiting’s sake.
Something is going on. Something
is developing. It is not noticeable, but
the seed is changing, growing, preparing for the conditions to be right to
appear above the ground. This is not
waiting for waiting’s sake, but rather allowing things to develop to the right
point in order to appear. The farmer
knows the crop is coming, but only at the right time. The same with the Lord’s coming. The time is not yet ripe. So we must be
patient.
St.
James tells us: “Make your hearts firm.” This
waiting is not passive. It is not
inactive or indolent. This patience
requires firmness, strength, perseverance.
“Make your hearts firm” in
faith, in hope, and above all in love.
The patience that St James calls us to is not just sitting around
twiddling our thumbs. Rather this is a
patience that is purposeful. “Make your hearts firm” by doing good
deeds, by forgiving those who hurt you, but giving alms and by generous acts,
by speaking the unpopular truth, by standing up for what is right, by prayer
and even by penance. “Make your hearts firm.”
Too
many of us Christians I am afraid have rather flabby, lazy, weak hearts. Pope Francis in his recent Apostolic
Exhortation asks: “How can it be that it
is not a news item when an elderly homeless person dies of exposure, but it is
news when the stock market loses 2 points?" Good
question.
Well, we know why. It is
because our hearts are in the wrong place.
Our hearts are not firm, but weak and flabby. St. James calls us to make our hearts firm.
As
if it is not bad enough that St James tells us to be patient, he then goes on
to say: “Do not complain about one another.” What?!?
Do not complain? What am I going
to do all day long? I mean, one of our
favorite past-times is complaining about one another. What would happen to politics in our country
if we all stopped complaining about one another? The cable news networks would all go out of
business. It is preposterous.
But
St. James gives us a very good reason for not complaining about one
another. He says so “that you may not be judged.”
The more you complain about others, the more you set yourself up to be
judged. You don’t need to be a lawyer to
know that setting yourself up for stricter judgment is not a good policy. “Judge
not lest you be judged” as Jesus told us.
Don’t even complain about one another, because complaining involves
judging. So don’t do it.
Well,
maybe it is a good thing this is the only Sunday all year long that we hear
from the Letter of St. James, because in these few short lines he gives us
three difficult challenges: “be patient”, “make your hearts firm”, and “do not
complain about one another.”
That
could keep most of us busy for the whole year.
Amen.
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