I was listening to someone the other day saying that they could recall a time when the world was more unstable. I might quibble a little bit with that assessment, but with much of what is going on currently, it does feel that things are spiraling out of control – the falcon cannot hear the falconer and all that. North Korea is acting even crazier than usual (which was a pretty high bar already), Russia seems to be pining for the old Soviet days, China is building islands and then claiming them as sovereign territory, the Middle East seems even more Middle Easty than usual and in the United States the people who are not involved in sexual harassment seem to make up for that by just hating each other. The only good news that I have heard in a while is that George Clooney says that he is going to be taking a break from acting. And the question that this inspires in many of us is when will it change? When will there be peace on earth and goodwill towards men? And further, I think the question asked by those of us who are religious and even by many of the non-religious is why is God allowing this to happen? Shouldn’t God intervene? What is the point of being God if you let us humans make a dog’s breakfast out of everything? Well, there is an interesting line that we have from 2 Peter today, that while not answering that question in its totality does offer some thoughts. It states, “Do not ignore this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like one day. The Lord is not slow about his promise, as some think of slowness, but is patient with you, not wanting any to perish, but all to come to repentance.”
This passage addresses two things. The first is the seeming slowness of everything. That is if Jesus came to save mankind why are things still so messed up? It’s initial answer has to do with the timing, that is it will happen, but not quite yet. That is what it means by saying that a day to God is like a thousand years. So while it may seem like God is not doing much we need to see things from God’s perspective, where it has only been two days since Jesus was born in Bethlehem. And that may be interesting but I really want to focus on the second piece of information which has to with why God allows for the world to be in such turmoil. The answer according to Peter is that this allowing for poor behavior is in actuality a gift. We may not like that the world is in its current state, but in order for God to save as many as possible, which is his will, he needs to be patient.
In the small scale you can think of it like when you are doing something wrong. Do any of us want God to come back at the moment when we are egregiously sinning or would we like God to wait a few minutes until we have calmed down and put our house in order? The idea that Peter seems to be expressing is that, if God would like everyone to repent and return to him, it is going to take time. So if God came at this moment and separated the sheep from the goats lot of people would be on the goat side of the fence. But since God wants everyone to return to him he is patient, he is waiting for things to change. And of course with anything involving humanity such a hands off aproach will have its good side and its bad side. Giving us time to get better also gives us time to make things worse.
We are in the season of Advent, which contrary to popular belief is not a divinely sanctioned shopping trip, but rather a time of preparation. A time in which we look at ourselves and ask what in us is not ready for the Messiah to come. A way to think about it is like the parable we heard a few weeks back about the wise and foolish bridesmaids. If you recall half of them brought extra oil and half did not and so when the bridegroom finally arrived those that had not brought enough oil were not ready for him. And so the question for us is are we ready for Christ to come, or put in the terms of our reading from today, what in us is God being patient about because he does not want us to perish?
I was having a discussion with a friend the other day about the fact that many Christians can be a real pain and do not behave in very Christian ways. The friend asked me why this was. I said that there is always the issue of original sin, but I said that I think there is another issue, that while not entirely Martin Luther’s fault, comes from a sort of over-eager reading of his doctrine of sola fide, that is by faith alone. This doctrine came out of the Reformation and was basically meant to show that we cannot earn our way into heaven. In other words, I cannot do enough good things to make God have no choice but to let me in. It said, instead, that it was really only through faith in the power of God that we can be saved. Salvation is the work of God and not through our own works, abilities or actions. And I do not disagree with this as a theological understanding, but in practicality it can become a sort of the hammock of salvation. In other words you can claim that you have faith and then just sot of lie back and do whatever you want, because if works do not have anything to do with salvation then why bother to do anything? Why try and make the world a better place or for that matter make yourself a better person? Now I don’t think this is what Luther was getting at, but a misreading of that idea has lead to a sort of stagnation among some. However when properly understood, faith is not just an ascent to a certain belief, but rather is something which should infiltrate every part of our being. If I have faith in gravity I am not going to try and walk off a cliff like the Wile E. Coyote did in the old Looney Tunes cartoons. Instead I am going to act in ways that accord with my faith in gravity. Similarly, if I have faith in God I am going to live in ways that are in accord with my faith in him. And if there are parts of my life that prevent this from happening, those areas need to be examined and changed.
And this is much the idea of not only what Peter is getting at but with Advent in general. We are to look at ourselves and ask what in us is not glorifying to God and needs to be changed. There should be something different about us because we are Christians. Yes, I certainly know that none of us will be perfect, but that is what we are striving towards. God is very patient with us, God does not want us to perish, but this requires some cooperation on our part. It requires us to try and be a little better today then we were yesterday. It requires a little more of us to be conformed to the will of God. In the great Christmas Hymn Joy to World, which we will sing in a few weeks, we hear the line, “Let every heart, prepare him room.” And that is the question for us: are we preparing room for Jesus’ coming, or is God going to have to be patient with us for another year? The goal of course is to make ourselves conform to God and his perfect will so that we may be his both now and forevermore.