Daily Reading for January 30
Suffering, disappointment, bad economies, lost jobs—all these are part of our lives. We all will have times of dependence, of being patients, of having to be patient. But those are times with a dignity and even a beauty all their own. To be a Christian is to believe that our lives are not our own, and that the worth of our lives is not measured on our resumes. It is to believe that suffering and disappointment come as opportunities to grow and to love and to receive love, and that God is working through all these events. . . .
And our larger public life calls for patience. I remember several years ago when former President Carter had been sent to negotiate with North Korea, former UN Ambassador Andrew Young told an interviewer, “This is the sort of situation which you can afford to talk to death. We ought to be willing to take all the time in the world with this one. We must be patient.” Our leaders need that kind of patience.
Years ago, not long before he was murdered, Archbishop Oscar Romero offered words of encouragement to his companions in the struggle for justice in San Salvador.
“We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction of
the magnificent enterprise that is God’s work. . . .
We plant seeds that will one day grow.
We water seeds already planted, knowing that they hold future promise.
We lay foundations that will need further development.
We provide yeast that produces effects far beyond our capability.
We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of liberation
That enables us to do something, and to do it well. . . .
We may never see the end results, but that is the difference
Between the master builder and the worker.”
Those are words of patience. Of course patience alone can’t be our only guide. Sometimes we should be impatient—impatient when we see injustices that should be righted. At a conference at Georgetown University this week focusing on stopping the terrible devastation of malaria in Africa, you could feel the impatience in the room. We have the resources, we know what to do, and millions are dying, they said. We have to act. But even that impatience is meant to flow out of a patient discernment of God’s timing, and even that commitment to impatience will require patient persistence over the long haul.
From a sermon for the Third Sunday in Advent, December 14, 2008 by the Very Rev. Samuel T. Lloyd III, preached at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. ; http://www.nationalcathedral.org/worship/sermonTexts/stl081214.shtml