The Importance of Waiting – in a Culture of Impatience.

Preaching at the on the Anniversary of a congregation, Frederick Buechner decided to preach on the theme of "Waiting".

Not future mission strategy, not church growth, not a call to more activity, not reflections on the piety or pragmatism of previous generations – but the unfashionable virtue of patience founded on trust.

Today and tomorrow, here is Buechner on the priority of waiting over impatience, and the wisdom of waiting over anxious activism.

"Look at the windows that burn like fire when the sun shines through them, and at the images of Christ and his saints, at the flowers and candles on the altar. Consider the silent space that these walls enclose and also the sounds that break the silence like the choir, the organ, the sounds of our own voices singing or praying, the voices of the men and women who stand up in this pulpit doing their best to proclaim the gospel. What does it all add up to?

What is it that we are essentially doing here in this building? The immediate answer is that we are worshipping God here. We are trying to speak to God here and to speak about God. We are trying to listen for God. We are searching for something of God's peace, trying somehow to take God into our lives the way we take the bread and wine into our mouths. But deep beneath all of this, in our innermost hearts, I think we are doing something else.

I think we are waiting. This is what is at the heart of it. Even when we don't know that we are waiting, I think we are waiting. Even when we can't find words for what we are waiting for, I think we are waiting. An ancient Advent prayer supplies us with the words, "Give us grace that we may cast off the works of darkness and put upon us the armour of light."

We who live much of the time in the darkness are waiting not just at Advent, but at all times for the advent of light, of that ultimate light that is redemptive and terrifying at the same time. It is redemptive because it puts an end to the darkness, and that is also why it is terrifying, because for so long, for all our lives, the darkness has been home, and because to leave home is always cause for terror."

Tomorrow I'll post the next two paragraphs – and maybe there is something to be learned about waiting till tomorrow to learn from Buechner the theological, spiritual importance of waiting as our disposition towrds God.