So, asking for a friend…

How patient are you?

Patience is a hard one!

Because, if you are like me, then your patience varies with the person you are dealing with, the situation at hand, the time of day, and sometimes even the season of the year!

It turns out a hangry man is not a patient man!

On the other hand, take me on vacation to the lake and put me in a kayak and push me out into the bay and I can be the most patient person on the planet. 

No worries, be happy! We can do it mañana! 

But at others times, my patience is zero, zilch, nonexistent, usually because of stress. 

Sometimes things are happening and I am not ready, something is not in place, it’s a baptism Sunday, and the baptismal font is still in the closet, and there is no water to hose down the kid. Arrgh!

So, suggesting that one of the evidences of the Holy Spirit’s presence in us is patience… 

Well, I am not very patient at all, a suggestion that I still have a long way to go!

The Apostle Paul says in Galatians 5:22 & 23 that “the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience…

It’s almost as if the list is getting harder as it goes on. Think about it! After this comes kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.

Don’t they seem harder to you? I mean, I can love you from over here. I can experience joy all by myself. And I can be at peace. 

But patience? 

Some of you know I have a small laminated picture of a gorilla in my office. It perfect sums up how I feel sometimes about how things in life and in the office are going!

The caption under the gorilla is, and I quote for those of you with sensitive ears, “Patience my ass, I’m gonna kill something!” To me, that seems like a reasonable sentiment sometimes. 

But patience is a fruit of the spirit. So, it seems I should be seeing evidence of patience growing in my life and yours as the Spirit’s influence in our lives grows and fills us.

None-the-less, it’s a challenge. Did you ever hear the little ditty, “Never pray for patience, because then God may give you situations to test it!”.

Patience is hard, but it is part of being a spiritual person as Jesus teaches Peter in this story about forgiveness in Matthew chapter 18: God is patient.
I know, it seems on the surface that the whole of the story is about forgiveness, and it is, but what it also reveals is that God is patient, because if God wasn’t, our need of constant forgiving would have worn out God’s love and grace a long time ago!

Peter asks how many times we are to forgive each other. Boldly, in his estimation I am sure, he goes well beyond the number of times forgiveness had to be offered in the Rabbinical teaching.

They said three times. 

Peter instead, perhaps influenced by Jesus’ teaching and Jesus’ way of living with and dealing with people, offered up the very, very generous, seven times. 

But Jesus suggests that in fact as the people of God, we need to be willing to forgive seventy-seven times, or possibly even worse, based on an alternate reading of the original Greek verse here, seventy times seven or four hundred and ninety times, essentially an infinite number. 

That seems impossible! 

But that is exactly where patience comes in. God forgives us infinitely, because God is patient. And we, filled with God’s spirit, are to be just as patient.

Not to just let things slide. There is after all an accounting!  

But we are invited by the Spirit to be always vigilant for the opportunity to offer forgiveness. 

Because when we love others, when we are kind and good and gentle, when we see others with God’s eyes, then we are being most like God.

The fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, and patience!

And there is more to come. Amen.