St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church, Strathroy, Ontario

Little By Little

November 27, 2011

Over the course of the season of Advent, I’m going to be using some symbols to draw our minds to certain aspects of the season – they are going to tie in with the candle, and they’re meant for you, and you can discuss them with your children when you go home after the service.  Our word for the day is “Hope,” and our symbol for the day is the tree – true, it’s an evergreen in front of us and in our minds as we consider most “Christmas trees,” but the way I want us to consider trees does not just limit us to one of those.

Let me set the stage of my thinking for you with this story:  A couple of years ago, on a bright Saturday morning in the summer, I took a load to the dump out in Mt. Brydges.  Now, there is just something cathartic about dump runs.  I mean, on one hand, there’s the feeling that you are getting rid of something that has been cluttering up your space;  on the other hand, there is also the fact that what you’re taking is not just something small that you can drop at the curb, but something large that potentially requires flinging, perhaps on top of something fragile that survived its last owner’s toss.  I had had a fight with one of my children once – the fight was on a Friday, and on Saturday we went to the dump together;  we barely said a word all the way there, but ten smashed flower vases and a splintered guitar frame later, we were in a much better place together.  But I digress…

On this particular Saturday, I discovered to my chagrin that I was not the only person who had decided that this was a perfect day for a dump run.  If you’ve never been there, the Mt. Brydges Tipping Station is a block and a half off the main road if you turn in at the Hollandia cookie factory.  I joined a line of cars, trucks, trailers and what-have-you, all full of what were once great and welcome treasures, that was backed up to the crossroad, and it was at least 45 minutes before I got to turn in at the gate.  I remember that had CBC on the radio, was listening to some inane Saturday morning comedy show, and was just looking out the window to see what there was to see.  It’s farm country out there, and the fields are bounded by old, rusting, barbed-wire fences.  There was one spot near the entrance to the dump, though, where I remember thinking on first glance (a silly thought, I realized in retrospect), “How clever!  That farmer ran the wire through a tree!  What a great support for the fence!”  I sat there for a further ten minutes or so, idly speculating as to what type of drill one would use for a job like that, how long the bit would have to be, how much swearing and cursing there would be as you tried to feed the wire through the hole (hoping it wouldn’t catch on the inside), and then wondered how you would keep the wire from breaking because the tree would expand as it grew…

…and that’s about the point where the light went on in my head.

The farmer didn’t put the wire through the tree.

The farmer, once upon a time many years ago, put the wire on the tree, and the tree grew around it.  It took years for it to get to that stage, a hair of growth and absorption at a time.  It surely is a strong support for that fence, though taking it down will be a challenge when the day finally comes!

But this is where these two things come together in my mind:  Hope (from the candle) requires patience, and patience requires time, the same kind of time that was required for that tree to grow around the wire.  Time is also something that is in short supply in our world.  We always seem to be on our way to something else – rushing here, dashing there, eating fast-food or makeshift meals that we grab and chew and swallow almost without tasting because we’ve got still more to do.  So often, we don’t have time to be patient.  So often, it seems like we don’t have time for hope.  I may just be speaking about my own family, but I suspect I’m not.

To hope for something is to look to the future, looking ahead to a time that is better than this one, a time when the struggles of this present moment are past and gone.  And that’s a problem when the future is there and the struggles are here in your face!

The diagnosis is here.

The fight with your spouse or your child is here.

The downsizing at work is here.

The empty fridge is here.

How do you get from here to there?

Hope is what gets us across that distance.

This brings me to the first point that I hope you’ll take home with you today, which is:  We grow through our difficulties.  I know that some of you know this, but sometimes we all need reminders.  Romans 5:3-5 says, “suffering produces endurance, ⁴and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, ⁵and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.”  This list of characteristics marks things that come over time, over exposure, through the experiencing of rough patches in life.  I heard someone ask once upon a time, “How can we know what light is unless we know what darkness is?  How can we know heat without cold, or joy without pain?”  We know that metal is refined by being passed through fire, and that tools are sharpened by being ground against a stone.  If they could speak, I’m sure their words for those times would not be happy ones, but they needed those times to become better and more useful than they were.  And sometimes, it takes similar period of discomfort or downright pain for us to grow into something that God needs us to be.

Unfortunately, there is no guarantee that those will be quick times!

Most likely, they will be slow times, perhaps on a scale of that tree enshrouding that length of wire.  Again, if it could speak, I’m sure it would tell you how unpleasant it was to have the wire biting into the layers of bark that it was trying to add, year after year, crushing and compressing and slicing in until, finally, the layers of bark grew around it and met and fused and allowed the tree to continue growing with only the two holes at the ends, though even then it would be growing along the wire.  Every tree also grows both towards the sky and into the earth, putting out leaves above and roots below – sometimes trees grow where they have no business growing, but such is the way things are in nature.  You couldn’t plant a fully-grown three there, though;  it had to grow over time.

Thus, our second “point” is that God works at His own pace.  God doesn’t work at our pace, which is, as I say, impatient and hurried.  If you hurry in creating something, you will make a mistake;  or, at least, it won’t turn out to be as good as it could have been.  Well, God works that same way with us and with the world that He has given us – slowly, gradually, and at His pace.  We may indeed wish that something was moving faster, but it can take a while to undo damage that took a while to build up!

Take our Scripture readings as an example.

The psalm is a confession with a petition in it – “Restore us, O LORD God of hosts;  let your face shine, that we may be saved.”  Whatever the people had done, they felt that God had hidden Himself from them and, as a result, their enemies were getting stronger and stronger;  please, Lord, forgive us and restore us to where we need to be in Your eyes.  “Give us life, and we will call on your name.”  Now, that may sound a little bold – the created saying to the Creator, “you give and then we’ll give back,” but it’s typical language for the authors at the time.  They’re reminding God, “You created us;  You delivered us;  if You don’t save us, we won’t be here to praise you!”  It’s thought that this psalm is from the Northern regions of the united kingdom of Israel and Judah, from around the time of King David, which would make it almost three thousand years old.  Whether God restored the people at that time, in response to this prayer, is historical speculation – Israel as a nation has been broken and restored many times throughout history.  We pray this first and foremost for ourselves, as individuals – weak, faltering, lost and going farther into the darkness, some of us.  Seeing the light may be a sudden thing for some of us;  getting to it will most definitely take time.

The Isaiah reading is a prayer for sudden involvement, though, a call for a sudden, cataclysmic appearance of the Lord on earth.  The prophet is hoping that this will shake everyone out of their disbelief, Jews and Gentiles alike, because they are “lost,” he says;  “There is no one who calls on your name or attempts to take hold of you;  for you have hidden your face from us, and have delivered us into the hand of our iniquity.”  He’s been patient.  He’s done being patient.  Please, Lord, do this, because it is so needed!  And yet, he says, and yet we are only the clay;  you are the potter, and we are only the work of your hand.

Hope.

Patience.

Hard things to have, especially when you see things going to pieces around you.

And yet, Hope is one of the things that Jesus ultimately came to give to all people, everywhere, in every time and place:  hope through faith and trust in His words and His teachings.

The gospel passage that is listed in your bulletin is part of what is known as “Mark’s Little Apocalypse” – Jesus is warning His listeners about signs that will come when the end of all things is near, things such as a darkened sun, a blackened moon, stars falling from heaven, things like that, and says that these things will indeed come before the Son of Man returns in glory and gathers the faithful from the four corners of the earth.  He says from verse 28 on, “²⁸“From the fig tree learn its lesson: as soon as its branch becomes tender and puts forth its leaves, you know that summer is near. ²⁹So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that he is near, at the very gates. ³⁰Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all these things have taken place. ³¹Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.

³²“But about that day or hour no one knows, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. ³³Beware, keep alert; for you do not know when the time will come. ³⁴It is like a man going on a journey, when he leaves home and puts his slaves in charge, each with his work, and commands the doorkeeper to be on the watch. ³⁵Therefore, keep awake—for you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening, or at midnight, or at cockcrow, or at dawn, ³⁶or else he may find you asleep when he comes suddenly. ³⁷And what I say to you I say to all: Keep awake.”

Jesus has promised us that our patience will be rewarded.  (That’s point three, by the way).  The catch?

It may not be in our lifetime!

We’ve been waiting for Jesus for two thousand years now.  Some have lost their way while they have waited.  Others have gotten fixated on the wrong things and have forgotten that Jesus called us to be ready, yes, but also to reach out to others in His name, with love and mercy and compassion.  One question that I’ve often been asked is, What happens at the moment of death?  Paul in 1 Thessalonians and John in Revelation seem to be saying that the dead will be called at the moment of Christ’s return and not before, while the thief on the cross was told, “Today you will be with me in Paradise.”  Which is it, Rev. Steve?

I don’t know!

It’s one of my questions, too!

In time, though, I know I will learn.  “For now we see in a mirror, dimly;  but then we shall see face to face.  Now, I know only in part;  then, I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. (1 Cor. 13:12)  When God wants to show me the answer to that question, I will learn it.  If I could, I’d bring it to you, but somehow I doubt I’ll get to.

Until that day, though, God will be chipping away at me, trying to change me, trying to move me, trying to make me what He ultimately needs me to be.  Someone once asked a sculptor who was known for carving beautiful animals out of stone how he did his work.  When he shrugged and said that it was hard to explain, the person pressed for an answer, so the sculptor said, “Well, take this large block of stone here.  When I’m done, there will be an elephant there.  Actually the elephant is already there – what I will be doing is simply eliminating everything that isn’t the elephant.”

That’s what God does to us, if we let Him.  He sees who and what is inside of us, much better than we do, and He spends our entire lifetimes trying to clear away all the things that aren’t us.  I used to sing a camp song that said, “He’s still workin’ on me / To make me what I ought to be / It took Him just a week to make the moon and the stars / The sun and the earth and Jupiter and Mars / How loving and patient He must be! / He’s still workin’ on me.”

 

Let’s pray.

God, in your infinite patience, you are still working on us;  and you ask us to be patient as you work in the entire world around us.  You chip away at us, trying to clear out all the things that are not part of the image you have in your mind of what we can become for you.  Too often, though, we seem to add to the clutter that blocks us up and keeps us from attaining that image.  Like that strand of barbed wire, we add things to ourselves that are painful and long-lasting, and their removal, be it through confession, apology, or other ways of mending fences or returning to right relationships is hard.  We forget that you are the master craftsman, who can heal with a word and in a moment if that is your will, or guide us and walk with us through the flames if that is your will.  Refine us, Lord, and make us the best we can be.  In this Advent season, and indeed every day, help us to bring hope to those around us who need it, and help us to feel it when we are the ones in need.  We pray all of these things in the name of your Son, Jesus the Christ.  Amen.