Anticipation

The scriptures referred to are Genesis 15:1-6, Hebrews 11:1-3, 8-16 and Luke 12:32-40.

When I was a kid, drinking a soda or eating candy everyday was not an option. Such things were special treats and were only indulged in on special occasions, or as a reward for very good behavior. For that matter, fast food was also a treat, reserved for when we were traveling and more rarely, when my parents didn't have time to prepare anything. Today, of course, soda, candy and fast food are ubiquitous and are commonly part of people's daily diets. Small wonder 60% of all American women and ¾ of all American men are overweight or obese as are 1/3 of the people in the world. And many of our health problems are due to obesity, including cardiovascular disease, stroke, diabetes, osteoarthritis and even cancer.

The problem is that for most of human history getting enough food was not a sure thing. So our instinct when we have food before us is to overindulge, as a precaution against future shortages. The ability to store fat was a helpful adaptation for surviving famines. Now that food and especially calorie-dense foods are available in abundance this survival mechanism is killing us.

We see analogous effects in other areas of modern life. When I was a kid if you missed a movie during its original theatrical run, you wouldn't see it for years and then probably when it came to TV, edited for content and punctuated by commercials. For that matter if you missed an episode of your favorite TV show you had to wait till summer and catch the rerun. If you wanted to find information, and you didn't have an encyclopedia at home, you had to go to the library. Nothing was instantaneously obtainable.

Today you rarely have to wait for anything. Hungry? Just pop some food into the microwave and in a minute or two it's ready to eat. Missed your favorite show or movie? You can order it up on your TV, tablet or phone. Need a fact? Google it. Want to buy something? Find it on Amazon and buy it with one click. Almost anything you want is at your fingertips. So with all this immediate gratification, everyone is happier. Right?

Wrong. The prevalence of depression in this country has increased significantly between 2005 and 2015, and it has risen more rapidly in youth than in older groups. Suicide in the US has increased by 31% in just 16 years (2001 to 2017). It has gone up in almost every state, except Nevada where it was already high. It is the second leading cause of death for those aged 10 to 34 and 4^th leading cause of death in those 35 to 54. It is 4 times higher in men than women. Suicide and deaths due to overdoses of opioids, which experts label “deaths of despair,” have led to a decrease in life expectancy in this country.

Now I can't show definitively that getting what you want almost instantly is behind all this but I do think that one can argue that it is a significant factor. Studies have shown that having smartphones makes us dumber. Since we can look up practically anything we are not bothering to remember such things. I can remember the phone number of my childhood home but not those of my son or daughter since I can simply scroll through my contacts and dial them with one touch. And I think that having rapid access to most of our physical desires and preferred entertainment has made us unable to handle having other desires frustrated. For instance, you can find porn online but getting to know and court a real person face to face takes time and aspects of emotional intelligence you can't get from internet interactions. Consequently, a recent study has found that, because young people are spending more time on the internet and are confused by the modern rules of dating and relationships, they are having less sex!

The ability to live with delayed gratification is eroding. In the old days you had no choice. Now you do. But not with everything. The movie you can download and watch in seconds took years of planning and executing by thousands of people, whose names zip past you at the end of the film. If you are a filmmaker, gratifying your desire to realize your vision is a long and often grueling ordeal. Most things that matter are. Marriage doesn't end with the vows as you see in a romcom but is the arduous process of trying to keep them despite all that life throws at you. Raising a child is not like a movie montage of scenes where you and your kid laugh and hug but a non-stop daily grind of teaching them, arguing with them, encouraging them and discouraging them. Unlike sea turtles, we can't just push them out and crawl away, leaving them to dig their way out of the sand and find the sea before the birds eat them.

Another factor in today's atmosphere of despair is the decline in church membership and the fact that most children never go to church. Because of this I think many people may not even realize that they have spiritual needs, the way Stephen Spielberg may never have discovered filmmaking had he been raised Old Order Amish and never seen a movie. Lack of exposure leads to lack of knowledge.

All of today's scriptures are about delayed gratification. Abram wants a child and must trust God to fulfill his promise in his good time. Our passage in Hebrews builds on that story in Genesis. And in our passage from Luke Jesus encourages us to be ready for the coming of the kingdom, which is not going to happen right away. We like Abram are going to have to rely on the divine promise.

Of course, it's not like Abram is placid in the meantime. He complains in our passage that he has had to adopt one of his slaves as his heir provisionally. God assures him that he will have a flesh and blood heir. In fact, his descendants will eventually be as numerous as the stars. And here is where we find the famous verse: “And he believed the Lord; and the Lord reckoned it to him as righteousness.”

What does this mean? It means that Abram's trust in God is credited as his being in a right relationship with God. All relationships are built on trust. You really can't work with someone you don't trust or who doesn't trust you. Abram trusts that God is as good as his word and that faith is puts him in good stead with God.

Not that Abram's son is born immediately after this conversation with God. Isaac isn't born for another 6 chapters in Genesis, during which Sarai gives her slave Hagar to Abram to father Ishmael, God renames Abram and Sarai, Abraham and his household are circumcised, Sodom and Gomorah are destroyed and we have that weird episode with Abimelech. Throughout all this, Abraham continues to trust that God will keep his promises. And eventually he does.

This is what our passage in Hebrews means when it says, “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” It is not saying that faith is believing something without evidence or in spite of evidence to the contrary. It is trusting in God's promises despite delay. It is recognizing that God is faithful based on his past actions and that he makes good on his word when the time is right.

Often we are like kids who complain that we are starving to death because dinner is taking so long. Faith is like trusting that, despite the fact that Mom is not using the microwave, she is making dinner. You will get fed when it is done and not one minute before. And it will be worth it.

One thing I remember about the days when you couldn't have dinner in a minute or less is the anticipation. Cooking the old fashioned way gave you the enjoyment of smelling the food cooking, hearing it sizzle, and watching things rise and brown. You would see how much work went into transforming the raw ingredients into delicious meals. Your mouth would water and your tummy would growl. If you were lucky, you might get to sample a spoonful as it was being seasoned or get to lick the beaters. Sometimes the anticipation was almost as pleasurable as actually eating it.

I think this is what C.S. Lewis was getting at when he defined “joy” as “longing.” Think of the manic glee and urge to jump up and down you see in children when you tell them you are taking them to Disney World next month or that Christmas is just a week away. The expectancy is as exciting as the thing they are looking forward to. Or remember the sweet agony of waiting to see your boyfriend or girlfriend when you were first in love. As the moment of their arrival grew closer, the thrill of seeing them rose to a fever pitch. The anticipation was as much a part of the pleasure as its consummation.

In a world where the interval between wanting and getting is measured in seconds, you lose that. And you lose the practice of patience. So when God doesn't deliver as fast as Amazon does, we get discouraged. We feel that he will never come through for us. The truth is that like a really good dinner, it takes time to get things right. If you don't cook yourself you don't realize that. And since none of us has ever created or run a universe, we really don't know all the steps that God must take to bring things together at just the right time.

An example of this process is found in the story of Joseph. He is faithful but his brothers want to kill him at first and then they sell him into slavery. He is bought by a high official in Egypt and does well running his household but then is falsely accused of sexual assault and thrown into prison. Then he meets two guys on the outs with Pharaoh and correctly interprets their dreams. He tells the one whom he knows will get out of prison and work for Pharaoh again to remember him to his boss. But the guy forgets. For 2 whole years! Suddenly Pharaoh starts having weird dreams. Only then does the guy go, “Oh, yeah! I met this guy in prison who can interpret dreams.” Joseph is brought before Pharaoh, correctly tells him that the dream foretells 7 years of bumper crops and then 7 years of famine and says, “If I were you, I'd save the extra grain from the 7 good years to get everyone through the 7 bad years.” Pharaoh says, “Great idea. You do that for me, OK?” And now Joseph is second in command in Egypt.

But at any point previous to his final situation Joseph could have given up on God. And it would be understandable. From his point of view at those low points in his life, it would have seemed that God abandoned him. But everything had to come together for Joseph to get where he ends up. He probably would not have left his father and gone willingly to Egypt had he not been enslaved. He would not be in prison had he not been accused. Had he not been the slave of a high official he would not be in that particular prison where he could meet other high officials. Pharaoh would have no reason to release a slave from prison did he not need his dream interpreted. And it all had to happen at a precise time before the 7 good and then 7 bad years. Afterwards Joseph says to his brothers, “As for you, you meant to harm me, but God intended it for a good purpose, so he could preserve the lives of many people, as you can see this day.” (Genesis 50:20, NET) Joseph saw the hand of God working in his life but only by looking back at his journey and seeing the turning points in the light of his ultimate destination.

We see this in the arrival of Jesus in history. Rome was the first stable empire to encompass not only Judea but all of the Mediterranean. It connected Europe, Asia Minor, the Middle East and Africa. The Romans built roads and patrolled them and they patrolled the waters, making travel and the sending of missionaries and letters safe. They allowed Greek from Alexander's old empire to remain the lingua franca of the known world, thus making it possible for people of different countries and cultures to speak and write in a tongue understood by all. They imposed the Pax Romana, a time of relative peace throughout the region. Into this specific time God inserts himself as a Jewish man in a province primed to seek the Messiah. He makes enough of an impact that he is remembered for his words and deeds. He dies a very public death; he rises again, and no one can produce a body to quash the idea. His resurrection so galvanizes his followers that they spread all over the empire, proclaiming his word even though it gets them killed. Jesus appears to a man who is both a zealous Jewish scholar and a Roman citizen, who then uses both of those assets to spread his message to both Jews and Gentiles throughout the Asia Minor and Europe, even taking it to Rome, the capitol itself. Paul leaves a record in his letters, which after his martyrdom get copied and traded between the churches. People who knew him and Peter and other principals in Jesus' life then record Christ's ministry, each writer using materials he gathered and his own unique perspective. The gospel appeals to everyone, Jew and Gentile, slave and free, male and female, rich and poor and inspires such Christlike behavior in its followers that periodic persecutions cannot stamp it out. Eventually it encompasses the globe.

God plays the long game. He is like a chess master, thinking many moves ahead of any of us and ready to counter any opposition or obstacle we put in his way. We cannot see at any given point in time exactly how he is bringing the pieces of his plan together but we can be sure that he is. And we can trust that he has our best interests in mind. As Paul wrote, “And we know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.” (Romans 8:28)

What should we do in the meantime? In the verses following our excerpt from Luke Jesus says, “Who then is the faithful and wise manager, whom the master puts in charge of his household servants, to give them their allowance of food at the proper time? Blessed is the slave whom his master finds at work when he returns.” (Luke 12:42-43) In other words, the meal is in the oven. Start setting the table. Invite others. As Jesus says in the parable of the great banquet, “Go out quickly into the streets and alleys of the town and bring in the poor, the crippled, the blind and the lame.” (Luke 14:21) The gospel is not a war cry but an invitation to God's great feast of healing and wholeness in Christ.

So Jesus says, “Sell your possessions and give alms.” Speaking for myself, in 6 decades I have accumulated a lot of stuff that I don't need. And my kids don't want it, nor do they want to sift through it when I'm gone. Much of it may be thrown out then. Whereas I can get rid of it now while it's worth something to someone else and help others with the proceeds. It can be gathering dust in my house or garnering gratitude for Jesus' kingdom. We must remember that “...where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

Jesus also says, “Be dressed for action and have your lamps lit.” We are living through some dark times. I am not saying the end of the ages is upon us, though one might be forgiven for thinking that at times. But we are definitely living in a period of moral blindness, where people are saying that what is good is bad and that what is bad is good. We are living at a time when people have forgotten that what we do or do not do for the poor and disadvantaged we are doing or neglecting to do to our Lord Jesus Christ. We are living at a time when, as in ancient Rome, communications are easy and life is cheap. We are called to be light to the world. We are called to help the helpless and be the voice of the voiceless. We are called to heal, not harm, to call people together in love, not to divide with hate. The symbol of our faith is not a weapon to meet out punishment on those we think are evil but an official instrument of execution on which our Savior took upon himself all the hate and evil of the world and disarmed it.

I wish I could say the kingdom is coming this week or the next, this year or the next, this century or the next. Jesus says no one knows when he will return. He also says, “Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” So as the heroes of the faith greeted from afar the better, heavenly country they desired, we too must find pleasure living in joyful anticipation of the fulfilling of his promise.