Pastor's Pen John Bletsch Pastor's Pen John Bletsch

Patience in Advent

Nowhere is this impatience more on display than the Christmas season for which retailers now start decorating the week before Halloween. My boys didn’t have a chance to collect their candy and come down from the resulting sugar buzz before Santa, Christmas lights and holiday music appeared in stores.

Not Everything has to be Instant

The season of Advent is all about patience as we prepare to celebrate the Christ’s entry into our world so long ago in Bethlehem and anticipate his coming in final glory at the end of the age when God establishes his Kingdom. The problem is that most of us (including myself) are not very patient. We live in the instant age where we can pull our smartphones out of our pockets and look anything up, anywhere and anytime. We can order something from Amazon and have it delivered the next day for $3.99 (if you are an Amazon Prime member). Amazon and Google have even rolled out same day delivery to select cities in the country so lucky customers only have to wait a few hours to receive their purchase. We can stream millions of songs instantly via Apple Music or Spotify and get sneak peaks at unreleased albums that the artist has just finished recording.   We can download a movie from the internet to watch in just a few seconds. No more driving to the video rental store and waiting in line to check it out. We can choose from a smorgasbord of pre-prepared meals from the the grocery store and pop them in the oven instead of diligently gathering the necessary ingredients and following the step by step instructions of a recipe and then waiting for it to finish cooking. For these and so many other reasons we are terrible at waiting and have become extremely impatient as a society.

Nowhere is this impatience more on display than the Christmas season for which retailers now start decorating the week before Halloween. My boys didn’t have a chance to collect their candy and come down from the resulting sugar buzz before Santa, Christmas lights and holiday music appeared in stores. Churches start singing Christmas carols on the first Sunday of Advent rather than dwell for a time in the slower, less joyful hymns of Advent. And so we rush around in a constant state of stress because we can’t and won’t slow down. Indeed some of us have forgotten how to do so.

However, we must recover the art of waiting and cultivate patience in this season of Advent if we are to truly experience the joy of Christmas and the birth of our Savior. The ancient Hebrews waited for centuries before the Messiah appeared. Surely we can wait a few weeks to bask in the joy of Christmas. Join me in trying to slow down this month and work to linger more in the moment. Let us try to recover what it was like to wait for something we knew we wanted and deeply needed. If we can do it we will find that Christmas is even more joyful and our shouts of praise will be even more exuberant when the Christ child is born into our hearts once again.

Grace and Peace,

Pastor John

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Pastor's Pen John Bletsch Pastor's Pen John Bletsch

Priorities

If this was going to be a priority in my life I had to treat it as a priority and not an afterthought.

We make time in our lives for what is important

Several years ago I decided to become a runner. I needed a way to improve my cardiovascular health and relieve the stress that comes with being a pastor. The decision to take up running was easy. Actually becoming a runner and putting in the miles to see the benefits that come from running was not nearly so easy. Over and above the fact that my body was not conditioned to run distances, I faced the challenge of finding the time to run in my hectic schedule. Like almost everyone else these days, I didn’t have a lot of free time on my calendar. My schedule was already full of important events and tasks and it took an iPhone and Google Calendar to keep track of it all. Running was going to be one more thing to try and squeeze in.

At first, I tried to find the time in my schedule to run. The truth is that finding the time to run didn’t work so well. My days and weeks were already filled with things to do and places to be. I didn’t have any empty slots in my calendar where I could just lace up my running shoes and run. When a time slot did occasionally open up in my schedule, the circumstances were always less than ideal to run. I was too tired or I only had a short period of time before I had to be doing something else. Consequently, my runs were sporadic and I couldn’t make significant progress towards my fitness goals.

After a month of struggling to find the time to run, I realized what the problem was: I was trying to find the time to run and I wasn’t making the time to run. If this was going to be a priority in my life I had to treat it as a priority and not an afterthought. That meant scheduling the time to run before I filled my schedule with other things. From that point on, I decided to schedule time to run before I scheduled other things. Of course, some things - like Sunday morning worship and my prayer time - are inviolable and I would have to schedule around them but the truth is that I usually have some say in the rest of my schedule. Instead of being the last thing to go on my calendar, running became one of the first things to get scheduled. It should come as no surprise that this worked. Before long, running was a regular part of my weekly schedule. I started accruing the necessary mileage to see improvements to my cardiovascular health. As the weeks passed, I started could farther and faster. My ability to handle stress also improved. The more I ran, the more stress I could handle.

For this to happen I had to make running a priority. When we make something I priority it shapes the way we use our time and resources. We allow it to claim our time and attention. The good news is that often we see a return on our investment of time and dedication.

In Matthew 6:25-33 Jesus asks us to examine our priorities:

“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? 26 Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? 27 And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life? 28 And why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, 29 yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. 30 But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is  thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? 31 Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear?’ … 33 But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.”

There are a lot of things that consume our focus, energy and resources. There are many things that compete for our time and money. Some of them are important. However, Jesus is saying that the most important is the Kingdom of God. He reminds us that God’s Kingdom should be our priority. He is also saying that a paradoxical things happens when we prioritize God’s Kingdom: we end up receiving all the other things about which we normally worry. So as we engage in our stewardship campaign at St. Matthew’s, I invite you to ask yourself, “How am I using my time, talent and financial resources in service to God’s Kingdom? Is God’s Kingdom the top priority in your life? I invite you to answer those questions as you prayerfully consider the gifts and talents survey and financial pledge card for the coming year.

Grace and Peace,

Pastor John

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