ON WAITING FOR A BUS OR SOMETHING
Have you ever waited for a bus? For those who are dependent on public transportation to get from here to there the hope is that the bus will arrive at or around the time promised. When I lived in New York City buses could be counted on to arrive about every 10 minutes during the rush hours of the morning and evening. I didn’t always take the bus the dozen or so blocks from my apartment to work, but on really cold or rainy days if the bus was there I got on it. In South America once some friends and I waited half a day for a bus that had been scheduled to take us to a city in the Southern part of Colombia. The bus drivers in that part of the world didn’t really pay attention to the time tables. They picked people up and dropped them off all along their route; so what was supposed to be an express bus with no stops turned out to be a local with lots of stops. I still have the photograph I took of my friend Rose sitting on the curb outside the bus station waiting. The earliest definitions of the word wait, from the around the year 1200 meant to “lie in wait” to watch for with a hostile intent. I’ll grant you that those obliged to wait “forever” for a bus might well be waiting with hostile intent! In those earlier centuries wait meant “to watch,” “to be awake,” “to guard.” Not until the 1400s did “wait” come to include the sense of “remaining in some place,” “to stand by in attendance on,” “to serve as an attendant at a table.” Wow! Going from the meaning of lying in wait with a hostile intent to serving as an attendant at a table is quite an evolution for one small word.
We live in a society that grows impatient when obliged to wait, but we have an opportunity to be waiters with the many who are waiting in the world around us. Some are waiting to hear if they landed the job they applied for; others are waiting fearfully for the results of a biopsy, or a CT scan, or an MRI; some are waiting for others to make a decision which affects our congregational life; some are waiting to hear if they have been accepted to college, some are seated at the bed side of a loved one waiting and keeping watch in case they awaken or do not ever again.
As I see it we have some choices in the manner of our waiting for the, arrival, the results, the inevitable and the decisions of others. We can stay in one place and twiddle our thumbs, looking frequently at our watches. We can stew and storm and throw up our hands in frustration as we remark on the ineptitude of the bus lines, the inefficiency of the health care system, the uncommunicative nature of corporate decision makers; the unfair politics of educational institutions, and the mysterious unpredictability of the human body. OR We can be waiters who serve, who keep on keeping on, doing ministry, witnessing to our faith, telling our story, praying for the decision makers. This gives a whole new meaning perhaps to your understanding of waiting upon the Lord. It means we serve the Lord and attend to God’s people.
In the 6th chapter of Matthew Jesus said to his disciples: “And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life? So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today’s trouble is enough for today.”
As we enter of the season of Lent let us let go of impatience and stewing and find ways to wait upon one another in the name of the Christ.
Peace,
Rev. Amanda
No comments:
Post a Comment