Lent 5 (NL2) John B. Valentine
Psalm 37:5-8 March 29, 2020

“PATIENCE ... FOR IMPATIENT PEOPLE”

Good morning ... and WELCOME!!! Whether you’re accessing this sermon

• via an audio recording on our website ...
• via a video recording on Facebook ...
• via a transcript sent by email ...
• or maybe even just a paper copy sent via snail mail ...

GOOD ON YOU! Again we applaud you for taking the time to connect with your church family this week.

Pastor Pam and I are fully aware that this COVID-19 time is a weird time for ALL of us.

We continue to deal with an order to ‘shelter-in-place’.

We continue to be told to eliminate ‘unnecessary travel’.

We continue to be forbidden from gathering in groups.

We continue to long for the good ol’ days when we could greet one another with hugs and handshakes.

But ... at least for now ... we can’t.

Nonetheless we say “Good morning!” ... “Welcome to Worship” ...

• “Welcome to Holy Shepherd Lutheran Church” ...
• “Welcome to you who are members” ...
• “Welcome to you who are guests” ...
• “Welcome to you who are just dropping in to see what we’re all about” ...
• “Welcome in the name of the Lord our God!”

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I take as my text this morning some words from the Book of the Psalms.

You see ... as some of you know ... I’ve been trying to do this interactive devotional walk-thru of the Psalms on our church Facebook page ...

• both as a way to get ME centered in the word that is the Word of God each day ...

• and as in invitation to YOU to get YOU engaged with the word that is the Word of God each day.

And this week ... the psalms we’ve been walking though have been those in the high 30s ... Psalms 36 and 37 ... 38 and 39.

Now ... in particular ... I found myself coming back ... again and again ... to the opening verses of Psalm 37 in my head this week ... wherein we encounter these words:

Do not fret because of the wicked; do not be envious of wrongdoers, for they will soon fade like the grass, and wither like the green herb.

Trust in the Lord, and do good; so you will live in the land, and enjoy security. Take delight in the Lord, and God will give you the desires of your heart.

Commit your way to the Lord; trust in him, and he will act. God will make your vindication shine like the light, and the justice of your cause like the noonday.

Be still before the Lord, and wait patiently for God; do not fret – for it only leads to trouble.

BE STILL BEFORE THE LORD, AND WAIT PATIENTLY FOR GOD; DO NOT FRET – FOR IT ONLY LEADS TO TROUBLE.

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And the words of that psalm got me to wondering if any of you remember ever reading that little book The Little Engine that Could???

• Be it in Kindergarten before nap time ...

• Or at home before bedtime ...

• Or maybe on the lap of Mom or Dad ......

The Little Engine that Could was that story of how one little train carries a load of good things over that seemingly impassable mountain ... and it has inspired kids for nearly one hundred years.

Anyone remember the mantra that the Little Blue Engine spoke in Watty Piper’s classic version of that tale?

I ..... think ..... I ..... can. I ... think ... I ... can. I think I can!

And the Little Engine could ... and the Little Engine did ... and ... in the end ... everything worked out just fine.

To the end that many of us have been enculturated to believe that the appropriate response to insurmountable adversity is to just keep doing ... just keep persevering .... “I think I can. I think I can. I think I can.”

But what about those days ... and those situations ... like this one that we’re now in .... when ... honestly ... you realize that there’s precious little that you can DO?!?

I mean ... sure ... we like to talk about the little things that we CAN do:

• Wash your hands ...
• Keep your social distance ...
• Don’t hoard things ...
• Stuff like that.

I mean ... we CAN all do those little things ... and those little things all put together make a big thing ... we CAN persevere at stuff like that ...

But ... at the end of the day ... a whole lot of what we’re going to be doing is just waiting ... waiting ........

• Waiting for physicians to come up with some effective counter-measures ...

• Waiting for pharmaceutical manufacturers to develop a vaccine ...

• Waiting for the virus to run its course.

BE STILL BEFORE THE LORD, AND WAIT PATIENTLY FOR GOD; DO NOT FRET – FOR IT ONLY LEADS TO TROUBLE.

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You know ... although we’re not much supposed to be ‘out and about’ right now ... I have had ample opportunity to talk with people this week ...

Most of them by way of “Zoom” video conferences ... or Facetime video chats ... or plain old-fashioned phone calls.

And every chance I’ve gotten ... I’ve tried to probe a bit at the question “What – for you – is toughest about this waiting game that we’re all playing?”

• One lamented that she didn’t think she was going to be able to keep up this new home-schooling regimen for as long as the school district has hoped.

• Another said that ‘cabin-fever’ had already set in and that he was going to have to find ways to get out.

• Another talked about how ... without sports ... there’s only news on live TV ... and all that watching the news does is make her worry all the more.

• Yet another noted that ... as tough as it may be on families ... it may be even tougher on people who live alone ... just the sense of isolation.

All in all ... it was a pretty diverse set of responses ... but the one thing that was common to all of them was that nobody had any trouble coming up with an answer.

No one offered that that question didn’t apply to them.

No one claimed that the waiting really didn’t bother them very much.

No one ... not even Tom Petty ... suggested the waiting wasn’t the hardest part.

In other words ... those words from Psalm 37 ... those words that are God’s Word ... those words are words for us:

BE STILL BEFORE THE LORD, AND WAIT PATIENTLY FOR GOD; DO NOT FRET – FOR IT ONLY LEADS TO TROUBLE.

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Do you know what it means to be helpless? Honest-to-goodness helpless?

I ran across a book a number of years ago now that .... to me .. Is the ULTIMATE “helpless” story.

The title of that book is Endurance ... and it recounts the story of perhaps the most helpless group of people that the world has ever known.

It all began in August of 1914 ... when a team of twenty-eight adventurers ... under the direction of Ernest Shackleton ... embarked from England for the purpose of crossing ... on foot ... the continent of Antarctica ... “the South Pole” ... right before the beginning of World War One.

But in January of 1915 ... a day’s sail short of their destination ... the ship they were on ... a ship ironically enough called “the Endurance” ... became locked in a sea of ice ... trapped and unable to move.

For the next ten months ... those twenty-eight adventurers just sat there and waited ...

waited for the ice to break ... waited for the weather to clear ... waited to be free to move again ...

but one day ... in the midst of a violent storm ... their ship was shattered to pieces by the pressures pent up in that ice.

But ... lest you think that that’s where the story ends ... think again.

The ordeal is just beginning!

You see ... the adventurers set up camp on an ice berg ... which keeps melting and cracking and getting progressively smaller.

Until finally ... sixteen months after first being trapped ... the adventurers take to three tiny little lifeboats they’ve salvaged and dragged for miles and miles ... and attempt to sail to a rocky little outcropping of an island some hundred miles away.

∙ But their life boats are tiny ...
∙ and the waves are enormous ...
∙ and the temperature of the air is like fifteen below ...
∙ and they’re constantly dodging icebergs ...
∙ and they’ve got no heat ... no radio ... no motors ... no nothing ...
∙ and did I mention there was a blizzard??

Anyhow ... in the midst of this helpless situation ... the captain and crew are forced to make a decision.

You see ... they land on that tiny deserted island and make the determination that just six of them will take will take the best of their boats and the best of their equipment and the best of their supplies and go off and try to get help for the other twenty-two.

And the rest of the book ... for the most part ... is about how those six men brave another horrific thousand mile journey over the roughest of our planet’s seas ... and how ... eventually ... all twenty-eight men somehow ... miraculously ... make it home alive.

But to me ... maybe the most fascinating aspect of the whole Shackleton has not to do with the six men who left on the desperate sail across the Roaring Forties ... but rather with the twenty two men on that were left on that island ... and about how much ... in some ways ... they are like us.

How they were called to endure this whole waiting game with patience.

How they could do nothing ... or maybe precious little ... to effect their own rescue.

How truly helpless they were.

How they were called to “wait patiently” and not fret ... for fretting only leads to trouble.

For they could do nothing but wait ... and hope ... and trust that the one who had gone to get help would succeed in his venture ... and bring them life and help and a future.

WAIT ... TRUST ... HOPE ... BE STILL BEFORE THE LORD, AND WAIT PATIENTLY FOR GOD; DO NOT FRET – FOR IT ONLY LEADS TO TROUBLE.

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You know ... this Sunday is the Fifth Sunday of the Season of Lent ... which means that NEXT week we’re going to be tuning our ears into another amazing rescue story ...

A story which starts with a hero’s welcome on the crowded streets of Jerusalem ...

And leads ... in short order ... to an upper room and lonely garden ... and a gory hilltop and an empty tomb.

It’s the story of our salvation ... of the One who goes to get help for us ... while we ... for our part ... can do nothing but wait ... and hope ... and trust that the One who has gone to get help will succeed in his venture ... and bring us life and help and a future.

I hope that you’ll join us ... but in the meantime ... BE STILL BEFORE THE LORD, AND WAIT PATIENTLY FOR GOD; DO NOT FRET – FOR IT ONLY LEADS TO TROUBLE.

Amen!