"The Waiting Room"

Pastor Nagle
02/06/2005

“The Waiting Room” Exodus 24:12-18 The Transfiguration February 6, 2005
How long do you think you should have to wait before you see the doctor? Her appointment was for 10:00, but before her name was even called, she had waited thirty minutes. And after an additional thirty minutes back in the little room, she knew she should have brought a magazine. Thirty minutes after that, she wondered if she’d ever be seen, or if she had been forgotten altogether. Familiar story? It sounds awful, I suppose, but at least she had it easier than Moses who, we are told, waited six days for God.
You know the story in whole or in parts, how God chose Moses to be the leader of his people, how God used Moses as a go-between, how God entrusted the commandments to Moses, how he met with him on the top of a high mountain. You know that, but did you know that God kept Moses waiting? Maybe that’s a bit harsh, sounding as if God arbitrarily forced Moses to cool his heels. But after the second day and fourth and sixth, Moses surely wondered how much longer he’d have to wait. Wondered if something had gone wrong. Wondered if he should have brought a magazine. Wondered if he had been forgotten. And by the end of his waiting time, how was Moses? Tired? Annoyed, expectant, confused? How are you when you have to wait?
Not pleased, I’ll bet, since ours is a hurry-up society. If the traffic light shines red for more than two minutes, we’re impatient. If the email is down more than five minutes, if the passing train has more than twenty cars, if the sermon seems to have no focus, we look at our watch and wonder how much longer it will be. For, isn’t it true that we have schedules? That in our lives, we have things to do? And that we have things to do because we’re important? Yes, important, and yet, each of us, at one time or another, finds our self in the waiting room. Not necessarily waiting in a doctor’s office, but in some situation where we realize that an answer is not forthcoming because in the most important matters of life, to our chagrin, we’re not in charge. It is in fact God who calls us up the mountain, not we who summon God.
Not that our waiting is unimportant. It’s exactly the opposite. We wait because what we need is so upsetting, so critical, so life-changing. Will the surgery be successful? Will what is lost be found? Will other people come to their senses? Will the last breath be peaceful? We don’t know, and so we wait. We can imagine. We can hope. We can try to convince ourselves that it will all work out. But for many people much of the time, life is still a waiting room. Are you waiting for something right now? Waiting about something? Would it help if I told you that you don’t wait alone? Would it help if I reminded you that all through those six days Moses waited, God was close by?
I don’t know that would help at all. Intellectually, when the nurse sticks you in that back room, you know you’re not alone. You know the doctor is just feet away. You know it’s all right. But knowing that sometimes only raises the frustration. Why am I waiting? If God is so close to me, why hasn’t anything happened? Did I not have an appointment with God? Well, right there may be some of the problem. That when we are in the worst of our trials, we turn to God and expect him to attend to our needs. Our appointment. Our schedule. Our needs. Nothing wrong with turning to God. Nothing wrong with asking him for help. But there may be a great difficulty in us diagnosing our own troubles.
Hello, Doctor? I’m calling to schedule a Tuesday morning at 10:00 appointment with you so that you can prescribe a four day regimen of those red pills that I know I need to make my back stop hurting. Please have them ready for me, because I’ll keep the car running while I run in, thereby maximizing the effectiveness of my schedule. What were there—six things wrong with that? Did you see all that was wrong with that? Do you understand how much more wrong it is when we do that with God? Hello, God? My kids are having marital troubles and I’m having some addiction problems and my mother’s cancer isn’t responding to treatment, but if you could have some samples ready, I’m in the area and can run in to pick them up. Well, it surely would be efficient that way. But it doesn’t work that way because, in fact, life is a waiting room. Darn it.
That’s at least what Moses said when he saw one more day pass into another. Darn it, for God could have given his commandments right away. God could have had Moses up the mountain and down the same day. When we’re forced to wait, is God playing games with us? Or is he being diabolical? Or is he giving us time to sort it all out? Maybe time to sort it out. To understand that even if our own self-diagnoses are sometimes accurate, they may be incomplete. And though God could give us what we want and ask for, what we want and ask for may not be what we need. Impossible as that sounds. But would Moses have made good use of his time if he had thought more about God than about himself?
In the church year, today is called The Transfiguration of Our Lord. The story is written in today’s gospel, telling how Jesus took his three favorite disciples to the top of a high mountain where he disclosed a side of himself they had not seen. More than a carpenter, more than a carpenter turned teacher, more than a carpenter turned teacher and advisor to people in deep trouble, that episode on the mountain top showed Peter and James and John that Jesus was divine. He looked different, he probably sounded different, and a voice from who knows where declared that this Jesus was beloved by God. But as good as it all sounds, the story of the transfiguration isn’t my favorite one because I can’t get my hands or my head around it. The details are removed from my experience. Bright shining Jesus on the mountain isn’t something I understand. And I’d be quite content to move on. In fact, the church does move on. We hurry past the transfiguration today so that we can push on to Ash Wednesday and Lent and the Easter resurrection that caps it all. And yet, there’s something very significant about seeing Jesus in more than one way.
Do you see things in more than one way? Is your doctor a pill-pusher? A thorough diagnostician? A pawn of the insurance companies? A good friend? Someone who knows more about you than your chart tells? Does your doctor give life? What kind of life do you expect your doctor to give? What’s the relationship between you two? What should be the relationship between you two? When you’re sitting in that little back room without a magazine, might you think about the height and depth of the doctor and patient relationship? Why not? You’ve got the time.
And Moses, up there on the mountain for six days. Might he have thought through the height and depth of his relationship with God? Is God a healer? If things work out, does it mean God exists? Who decides which “working out” is right? Is God a friend, a disciplinarian, a mover and shaker, or advocate? Likely, any or all of that. But when you call for an appointment and tell God exactly what you want, you automatically distance yourself from what God might be and do for you. Doctor, I have a headache. So why are you checking my hands? And why are you asking about my diet? Or about my job or family life? I already told you what’s wrong. I told you what I want. And God says, But I told you to wait.
And what choice do we have. If God says we wait, we wait. But how should we wait? In a back room, leafing through a dog-eared Southern Living or an out of date Field and Stream? Or reaching deep inside ourselves to ask, How do I see things? How do other people see things? Is what I’m asking necessarily the right thing? What other things come into play? And if I’m still sitting here in an hour, does it mean I’m a forgotten thing? Be sure that, though you may wait, you’re not forgotten at all. Though it’s true enough that when we focus on our own needs, our own ills, our own trials, our own issues, we tend to blot out anyone else’s. For with the door shut, it’s easy to forget that there are other patients out there. Other needs, other ills, other trials, other issues. Not that the doctor or God makes us wait just to prove that, but that while we wait we can consider where all our needs fit in relation to others. We can realize that Dr. God works with more than us. That’s how we could pass the time—pondering all of that. While we wait.
But then all of a sudden, the door opens and with scarcely a breath or a hello, we launch into a description of our troubles. Doctor, I’m glad you finally showed up. I’ve got this pain. God, I’ve got this pain and I can’t stand it much longer. Can you do something about it? Can you get rid of my hurt? Can you give me an answer? Can you restore my life? And can you do it right now? That’s what we ask. That’s what we know we can ask. That’s what we think we should ask. That’s what we expect to be answered. But imagine our surprise when the answer is no.
No? You can’t get rid of my pain? You can’t solve my problems? You can’t settle my issues? What kind of God are you? I climbed this stupid mountain and waited all these days, and that’s the answer I get? But in our need and in our frustration, we didn’t hear the difference between can’t and won’t. Doctor, can you? God, will you? Probably can. Maybe won’t, because the problems we present aren’t easily solved. May be not curable at all. Probably can. Maybe won’t, because what we ourselves see as the whole thing are often just symptoms of something else. And we miss something when we ask that the smaller be dealt with when it’s the larger that’s more important. Probably can. Maybe won’t, until we see how our pains, our cares, our needs, our expectations are wrapped up with everyone else’s. And see how God is the God of us all. Probably can. Maybe won’t settle all our issues according to our diagnosis and our schedule. But don’t be discouraged. It’s not done with yet. That’s the doctrine of the church. That’s the hope with which we live. That with God it’s never done yet. And that though we get tired and sad and frustrated and angry at the very thought of having to wait, in this waiting room called life, we know that we can turn the waiting into seeing and turn the seeing into believing and turn the believing into rejoicing that a loving God has never forgotten about you and me. And isn’t that the point—that we want to be sure that God hasn’t forgotten about us.
Be sure. Be hopeful. Be aware that just now, the door to the place where you wait is about to open. And what’s the first thing you’ll say to him?