Title: Patient Awaiting
Author: Christopher Harbin
Text: James 5:7-10
Advent is waiting. I don't particularly like waiting. I don't especially like sitting around waiting for something to happen, for something or someone to arrive, for an event to begin. I'm a little more in the camp of saying this like, "Justice delayed is justice denied." I want immediate resolutions to all the big issues and problems in the world. I want to see peace on earth, not in my lifetime, but last week, yesteryear, decades ago. I want to see the Reign of God take full effect and be implemented to fulfillment reaching back into my childhood and beyond. How do I deal with the reality that my sense of timing and God's don't align perfectly?
James addresses patience in awaiting the full realization of God's Reign in our midst. He does that against a backdrop of economic oppression akin to what we would call wage-theft today. He speaks of economic injustice as having its own voice that cries out to God for intervention, for putting things to rights, for taking the side of the afflicted and oppressed, for coming to their aid and making them whole. It is in this context that he refers to patience in waiting for God's arrival or action. He uses the image of the farmer awaiting the rains in spring and late summer, knowing there is nothing he can do to usher them in and waiting on them to come at the proper time.
Serving as a pastor in rural Virginia, I heard a lot about praying for rain. I heard stories of farmers paying the preacher. I heard the two things tied together as a matter of course. If the rains were not coming on the farmers' schedule, there would be numerous comments about someone not paying the preacher. I don't know how much of that was tied to an understanding of today's passage. The concepts, however, are definitely related. James charges the wealthy with accumulating wealth unjustly at the expense of workers who have not shared in t ...
Author: Christopher Harbin
Text: James 5:7-10
Advent is waiting. I don't particularly like waiting. I don't especially like sitting around waiting for something to happen, for something or someone to arrive, for an event to begin. I'm a little more in the camp of saying this like, "Justice delayed is justice denied." I want immediate resolutions to all the big issues and problems in the world. I want to see peace on earth, not in my lifetime, but last week, yesteryear, decades ago. I want to see the Reign of God take full effect and be implemented to fulfillment reaching back into my childhood and beyond. How do I deal with the reality that my sense of timing and God's don't align perfectly?
James addresses patience in awaiting the full realization of God's Reign in our midst. He does that against a backdrop of economic oppression akin to what we would call wage-theft today. He speaks of economic injustice as having its own voice that cries out to God for intervention, for putting things to rights, for taking the side of the afflicted and oppressed, for coming to their aid and making them whole. It is in this context that he refers to patience in waiting for God's arrival or action. He uses the image of the farmer awaiting the rains in spring and late summer, knowing there is nothing he can do to usher them in and waiting on them to come at the proper time.
Serving as a pastor in rural Virginia, I heard a lot about praying for rain. I heard stories of farmers paying the preacher. I heard the two things tied together as a matter of course. If the rains were not coming on the farmers' schedule, there would be numerous comments about someone not paying the preacher. I don't know how much of that was tied to an understanding of today's passage. The concepts, however, are definitely related. James charges the wealthy with accumulating wealth unjustly at the expense of workers who have not shared in t ...
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