Mark 10:35-45
Walking the baby in a stroller the other day, my 2-year-old decided to toss out his milk bottle.
I stopped the stroller on the sidewalk and bent over to pick up the baby bottle. That's when a woman in a flashy car decided to turn into a commercial driveway that I was now blocking.
There was no traffic, there was no hurry, but for some reason this woman had decided she needed to get into that driveway right away, and started honking furiously.
I picked up the bottle and got out of the way as quickly as I could, and after she whizzed past me I wondered why this woman was so angry?
Then, the other day my friend was walking his dog on her street. It was his mom’s dog because she had just been taken to the hospital and my friend was texting his mother in the emergency room.
That's when an angry driver slowed down and shouted at my friend, "Stop looking at your phone and pay attention to your dog!"
My friend immediately looked up, saw that his dog was just fine, walking on the grass and nowhere near the road, and wondered why this person was so angry?
Or take the Harvard psychologist who actually counsels people on anger and has come across the same thing: “Personally I was on a run the other day and somebody yelled at me for wearing a mask, in Boston.
So, I looked into it, and they’re actually right. I’m running around a reservoir; I’m away from everybody. "So the next day, I think, “Maybe I won’t wear my mask today.” Then I approached a lady, I’m 20 feet away, and I smiled at her and she angrily yelled, “Don’t smile at me. You’re not wearing a mask. You’re taking a chance with my life!” So you can’t win."
I'm sure I'm not the only one with stories like this, have you noticed that there are a lot of angry people out there? But it’s probably because there's a lot of fear - which is turning into the anger around us.
We're scared of the virus, we're scared about our economy, we’re scared of our politics, we're
scared about social justice reform - and our fear fuels a lot of this behavior that we are, frankly, not proud of.
Mental health therapists say they have more patients than they can see. Marriage counselors say their business is booming. And dentists say more people are experiencing dental problems because they are grinding their teeth.
How do we deal with all this anxiety?
How do we put up with all these crazy people?
We get some advice from our gospel this morning.
After all, Jesus lived a pretty stressful life, and he also put up with some pretty crazy people.
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And this morning we see that no more clearly as Jesus deals with his disciples. James and John, their pictures are on your bulletin covers, they decide that they want to sit at the right and left hand of Jesus when his kingdom comes. Jesus takes their comments at face value and tells them what he thinks.
Then the other disciples hear of this, they get angry either because they didn't think of it first or because James and John are just so clueless about the servant nature of being a disciple. Again, Jesus takes it with a grain of salt.
He does not exhibit anger or frustration.
What we see him exhibiting here is patience with his disciples. Jesus tells James and John about a cup they we'll need to drink and a baptism they will have to undergo. James and John assured Jesus they know exactly what he's talking about, but Jesus knows better, and instead of correcting them, yelling at them and pointing out their deficiencies - notice what he does: he shows them patience - he is calm, tolerant, and restrained - this is how he trained up the 12 disciples who would change the world - and underlying how important patience is for you and me and the Christian mission.
Patience is defined as an the ability to endure difficult circumstances. Patience may involve perseverance in the face of delay; tolerance of provocation without responding in disrespect or anger; it is forbearance when under strain, especially when faced with longer-term difficulties. Patience is at the heart of getting through much of the stuff you and I brought to church this morning.
Writer Amelia Barr says: "Everything good needs time. - "Don’t do work in a hurry. - “...[patience] pays in every way."
In his letter to the Galatians, St. Paul included it in his list of 9 Fruits of the Spirit alongside mainstays like …"love, joy, and peace, - there’s patience..." - And it could be argued that we need patience today more than ever because we’re shortchanging ourselves without it.
Take the breakfast buffet - which is never what people in the pews are thinking about on Sunday mornings during the sermon...
But a recent study of behavior at breakfast buffets showed that the first item in the buffet is taken by 75% of the diners. What’s interesting is that it’s the same number even when the order of the items is reversed. What’s more - two-thirds of all the food taken, comes from the first three items, regardless of how long the buffet line is.
This means that optimizing marketers usually put the things they most want to sell, first.
And that smart consumers benefit from adopting patience as they consider what’s on offer.
Patience.
It’ll get diners a better breakfast.
It’ll also get kings and queens a longer reign.
Take the family of King Edward the First and Queen Eleanor of England in the 13th century.
Edward and the Queen enjoyed the best conditions available in Medieval times - they lived in palaces, ate as much food as they liked, had plenty of warm clothing, well-stocked fireplaces, the cleanest water available, an army of servants, and the best doctors around.
And during their marriage, Edward and Eleanor undertook the number one task of any royal family: continuing the family’s reign by producing a male heir. Eleanor and Edward began this task when the Queen was 14 years old. She bore 16 children over the next 29 years - and here’s what happened.
The first was a daughter who died at birth,
The second was another daughter who died at 3.
A third daughter died at 6 months.
Then, finally a boy was born - but he died at age 5 - followed by another boy who died at 6.
Then they had a girl who lived until 29 - Another who died at 5 months - Then another who lived to 35.
Followed by yet another boy, who only lived to 10. Then another daughter who lived to 58. Another daughter who lived to 2. An anonymous daughter who died just after birth. Another daughter who lived to 53. An anonymous son who died shortly after birth. A daughter who lived to 34 -
Then, finally, a son named Edward who was the first of the boys to survive childhood and at his father’s death, ascended the throne as King Edward II. In other words, it took 16 tries over nearly 3 decades for the couple to fulfill the most fundamental mission of a royal couple: talk about patience.
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Now I realize that a sermon that says ‘Well, just be patient! You know, like Jesus!' is not at all helpful - because if we could be more patient we would! What we need is to see how our faith - how deepening our faith in Christ - helps us be more patient.
Jesus showed unending patience with the people around him - today’s reading is just one occasion - And what we find is that the more we cultivate virtues that Jesus commends - the more patient we can become in this impatient world of ours.
And this is backed up by science.
Social scientist David DeSteno has conducted numerous studies on how to increase our
patience. And he’s found, scientifically, that the practices of gratitude, self-worth, and compassion, can greatly improve patience.
For example, DeSteno ran an experiment on delayed gratification - asking people if they’d like
to get paid a small amount of money right now or a much larger amount in a year.
Those who were feeling neutral or happy were pretty impatient - and were willing to forego receiving $100 in a year for $18 today.
However, those who were feeling gratitude fared much differently - and showed nearly twice
the level of patience - they required at least $30 to forego that later reward. His research found that when people feel grateful, they’ll spend more time helping someone in trouble. They’ll maintain financial decisions that benefit partners equally ( versus selfishly ) - And they’ll show loyalty to those who have helped them - even if it costs them something.
It makes me wonder how I am practicing gratitude.
What are the ways I regularly remind myself of how blessed I am?
The same results came when DeSteno ran studies that enhanced self-worth - making people feel proud, not arrogant, but proud of the skills they have - good about themselves - makes
them more willing to wait for future rewards - it makes them more patient.
Thinking better of myself - being proud of who I am and what I’ve done - what are the ways I regularly do this?
And then there’s compassion -
Dr. DeSteno found that when we make people feel compassion for others they’ll take on the burdens of others - spending more time and effort to get others out of jams, to ease their distress, and as a result, they will become more patient.
How am I practicing this virtue of compassion?
What occasions do I take to notice and take on the burdens of others?
For us Christians, these three virtues lie at the heart of the faith we are striving to practice -
Gratitude is baked into everything we do - as we thank God for the world God created, redeemed, and has a plan for.
Compassion is one of Christ’s fundamental attributes - passed on to us - as we are compassionate to others because God has been compassionate to us. And self-worth comes from God who thinks we are so valuable, so precious, and so ‘worth it’ - that God would come down to earth to love to us. It’s in these Christian practices that we become more patient -
Yes, we can become more patient as we grow in gratitude, compassion, and self-worth.
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A Father and daughter are playing in the park when the little girl spots an apple vendor. She
asks her father to buy her an apple. So Dad buys two apples and gives them to his daughter.
She holds one apple in each of her hands. And dad asks if he can have one. Upon hearing this, his daughter quickly takes a bite from both apples. Dad's surprised.
He wondered what mistake he must have made raising his daughter because she’s acting in such a greedy way. But maybe he's just thinking too much and his daughter is too young to understand about sharing and giving.
Then all of a sudden his daughter looks at her dad and holds up one of the apples and says-
“Dad, take this one, it’s much sweeter and juicer.”
Dad was speechless.
Next time he would be more patient.
Amen.