PATIENCE

INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily for this 33 Sunday in Ordinary Time B is, “Patience.”

To be honest these readings at the end of the Church Year are tricky. They are sort of all the same. Then they show up again in Advent -which is just around the corner.  So I don’t look forward to the end of the year readings. However, I like the Advent readings. To me that’s strange. So I have to be patient with these readings. What to preach on?  I began working on a few different themes - but then said, “They are not too practical.”

Then the theme of “Patience” hit me. That’s practical. We all want more patience - yet what does one say about patience other than saying, “Be patient!” and “Learn how to be patient”?

SITUATIONS

Maybe for starters it would be helpful to list situations that call for patience.

Restaurants:  there’s waiting to get a table. Then there’s wanting the waitress or waiter when we want the waiter or waitress.

Church: there’s those long or meaningless sermons or people who won’t move in or babies crying or slow priests or an extra verse in a hymn that puts over the edge.

Doctors offices: it’s now 25 minutes after our scheduled time and then it’s 35 minutes - then 40 minutes - and we’re still waiting….

Phone calls for information or to buy something: a fake voice puts us on hold and we don’t like the music and then the voice says, “We thank you for waiting” and the music starts again. Then the phone suddenly goes dead. Do we redial or just give up?

Politics: there’s those we don’t agree with. Then there’s politics in church. There’s bumper stickers - or road signs. Or it starts too early or every conversation becomes politics or what have you. "Help!" we yell inwardly.

Kids: they are who not growing up or showing up or they are  throwing up and we are inwardly screaming, “Why are so and so’s kids so perfect and ours are so messed up?” She’s dating a jerk. He’s not going to church. She’s not studying and we’re paying for an expensive school. He’s on drugs or drinking too much. Ugh. Ugh. Ugh.

Old People: they are too slow in step or in driving. They won’t give up their license. They are too demanding - or other members of the family won’t or don’t pitch in with regards be the care of aging parents or other family members - and we want a break.

CHRIST

I know Christ threw the money changers out of the temple and got totally frustrated with the Pharisees and the Scribes. So he wasn’t always patient.

Yet one of the things that hit me about Jesus was his patience with his disciples - including Peter, including Judas - including me.

A nuance that hits me comes from my experience with a priest I know who has a great musical ear as well as the ability to play the piano - etc. I have a tin ear - can’t sing - lasted on the trombone for 2 weeks - so when someone is off key, it doesn’t bother me. It drives him nuts when he hears crummy singing or music that is off key. He’s also a  type A driver - so the rush hour is not the best time for him to drive - even if he has music playing in his car.

Reflecting on that, it hit me that people who have talents, have a difficult time with those less talented. Those who are smart have to be patient with those who are dumb - much more than I have to deal with dummies.

It would be the same with sports, art, cooking, etc. The more the talent, the more that person has to be patient with anyone weak in one's area of expertise.

Go figure.

So I figure, Jesus - with his mind - and sensibilities - had to be very patient with his disciples when they were slow on the uptake.

OBSERVE, JUDGE, ACT

One way to become more patient is to watch other people and notice how they deal with the stuff of everyday life.

Comparisons can crush. Comparisons can also teach.

I was once visiting a niece as she was feeding her first baby with a spoon out of a baby food jar. I was just sitting there in the kitchen talking with her. She was making the experience a wonderful funny game with her baby. She would fake it with the spoon putting it over here and then over there. It became a game to get that ugly looking food off that baby spoon into the kids tummy. The kid would start laughing and laughing and loving this moment with his mummy.

Her husband came home from work during this. She asked him to finish feeding the baby, so she could turn to pull supper together for the 3 of us. Well, he was all business and wanted the kid to lick the spoon - eat the food - and finish the jar - immediately. A pleasure became a job. The kid wanted fun. The father didn't. So the baby started to scream.The father - he must have had a tough day or a tough drive home - didn’t want any tears. Just eat the food - just lick the spoon.

I said nothing and wondered what kind of a father I would have been like.

TODAY’S READINGS: A DILEMMA IN THE EARLY CHURCH

These end of the year readings give us evidence of a dilemma in the Early Church. At first they thought the end of the world was about to happen. It wasn’t.  It didn’t. So slowly different folks had to figure out what Jesus meant - as well as get back to work.

Today’s gospel has as its last sentence, “But of that day or hour, no one knows, neither the angels in heaven, not the Son, but only the Father.”

The readings tell us it took a lot of time and patience to come up with a decision about when the end would happen.

If we know the history of the world, we know from time to time people predicted that the end would be coming.

The one we’re waiting for this year is next month, December 21, 2012.  Some folks are saying the Mayan Calendar is saying that’s when the end of the world is going to happen.

If you’re into these kinds of predictions, don’t start buying and doing your Christmas cards and Christmas shopping till December 22^nd.

3 MORE WAYS TO DEVELOP THE GIFT OF PATIENCE

Besides watching others and learning from them, here are 3 more ways to develop the gift of patience:

1) Pray for it.

2) Learn how to do other things while waiting. I remember hearing a priest psychiatrist in a workshop tell us about a heart specialist who tells patients to go into a bank and get on the longest line. Then when almost to the front, get off that line, and then go to the back and get on another line. While on the line do things like trying to recall as many of your high school senior class that you can remember - or as many of your high school teachers as possible.

3) When antsy, when angry, put yourself in the shoes of the person you’re antsy or angry with - for example a waiter or a waitress. Of if you’re a waiter or waitress, put yourself in the shoes of your customers and serve them well.

A FEW QUOTES

Let me give a few quotes - in case they help you - because you’re the type that wants substance not fluff in a sermon.

“Better to be patient on the road than a patient in the hospital.”

“The end never justifies the meanness.”

“Investigate mistakes only when you are calm.”

“Patience is accepting a difficult situation without giving God a deadline to remove it.”

“Be patient and you will have patient children.” Is that true?

“The herb patience does not grow in everyone’s garden.” [How about mine?]

‘Who has patience sees his revenge.” Italian proverb

“Patience: a minor form of despair, disguised as a virtue.” Ambrose Bierce

“I am extraordinarily patient, provided I get my own way in the end.” Margaret Thatcher

“Look at a stone cutter hammering away at a rock, perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it. Yet at the hundred-and-first blow it will split in tow, and I know it was not the last blow that did it, but all that had gone before.” Jacob Riis. Ben Franklin said it much simpler: “Little strokes fell great oaks.”

CONCLUSION

Today’s gospel tells us to learn a lesson from the fig tree.

To learn patience plant a tree. Learn from the experience. Trees are notoriously slow. Watering helps. Time helps. They learn to deal with seasons. And I’ve noticed, trees don’t have mouths! They just stand there.