Just Be Patient, It Won’t Be Long Now—Lectionary Reflection for Advent 3A (James 5:7-10)

 James 5:7-10 New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition

⁷ Be patient, therefore, brothers and sisters, until the coming of the Lord. The farmer waits for the precious crop from the earth, being patient with it until it receives the early and the late rains. ⁸ You also must be patient. Strengthen your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is near. ⁹ Brothers and sisters, do not grumble against one another, so that you may not be judged. See, the Judge is standing at the doors! ¹⁰ As an example of suffering and patience, brothers and sisters, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord.

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                When I was a child, after my parents put up the Christmas tree and arrayed presents around its base, I looked longingly at the scene, trying to figure out which ones were mine and what was lying beneath the wrapping paper. It’s something every child experiences. But parents will simply tell the child to be patient. Before too long, the time will come when the presents can be opened. When you’re a child, just a few weeks or days can feel like an eternity. When you reach my age, it’s easier to be patient, at least at Christmas.

                We’ve reached the Third Sunday of Advent. Churches will light the love candle on the Advent wreath, but perhaps the candle of hope would fit this particular passage a bit better. James addresses a concern we see pop up regularly in the New Testament, and that has to do with the coming of the Lord. The New Testament has a strong eschatological, even apocalyptic, feel. While we tend to think of Advent as a time to look back to Jesus’ first coming, the season ultimately points us toward a future coming, when he completes what he began during the first Advent. This is the focus of this brief reading. We just have to be patient until the coming of the Lord!

                James wrote these words about being patient to encourage followers of Jesus who were suffering. The nature of that suffering is unclear, except that the verses before our reading offer a warning to wealthy oppressors. James offers some rather strong words that speak of the miseries that will come upon them, most likely on the day of judgment when the Lord returns. He tells the wealthy that their riches will rot, their clothing will be moth-eaten, and their gold and silver will tarnish, while the people they oppress, the workers in the fields, will cry out against them, knowing that their cries have reached the Lord of Hosts. It would seem that the ones James condemns for living in luxury, and for having murdered the righteous one, are the followers of Jesus, suggesting that the community James writes to, the ones who suffer, stand on the margins of society (James 5:1-6).

                While the lectionary reading that begins in verse 7 fits the Advent season, with its call for patience as the beloved wait for the coming of the Lord, we should not overlook the preceding verses that offer judgment on the wealthy oppressors. Talk of divine judgment is not popular in my circles, and yet these same circles of believers embrace the idea that the oppressors will be dealt with (at least that is the hope). Nevertheless, this counsel of patience is apt, because it reminds us that sometimes justice takes time to take effect in our midst. Therefore, we often turn to Martin Luther King’s dictum that “the arm of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice” [The Essential Martin Luther King, Jr. (Kindle p. 138)].  The question is, how long is this arc? In the speech where he shared this message, he suggested it wouldn’t be long because “no lie can live forever.” Nevertheless, patience is becoming thinner as we watch much of the progress made in the United States since King was leading the Civil Rights Movement being eroded by Supreme Court rulings and political decisions that seek to undo attempts to embrace diversity, equity, and inclusion. Monica Coleman speaks to our concerns, writing about James’ call for patience.

Impatience can breed greater division and conflict. With patience, however, we can trust that God will fulfill the promises spoken of in the other Scripture texts for this day. While God’s justice may not come when and how we expect it, we need to trust that we will see the fruit of God’s justice around us. Like the prophets before us, we must not become weary of speaking and acting on behalf of others but should build one another up in ministries that anticipate the fruit of our good labor. [Preaching God’s Transforming Justice, Year A, p. 25].     

So, as we read James' call for patience in the midst of suffering, we need to keep in mind the call to pursue justice as we await the coming of the Lord.

                The patience that James speaks of here doesn’t involve waiting to open presents under the tree. It is an eschatological word of encouragement. He reminds the beloved that farmers of his day understood that the harvest wouldn’t come until after the early and latter rains. So, patience is needed. The time will come when the harvest will be taken in. So, it is with the coming of the Lord, a time when justice will be served (that moral arc will reach its goal).

                In the reading for the Second Sunday of Advent—Romans 5:4-13—Paul told the Roman church, a community he had not met, but one that was struggling to integrate Jewish and Gentile believers into one community, to welcome everyone as Christ had welcomed them. He also told them to live in harmony with one another to bring glory to God. Here in James 5, we read the author’s admonition that the members of the community not grumble against each other so that they won’t be judged. With that call to stay clear of grumbling, lest they be judged, James tells them that the judge is standing at the door. Once again, we’re reminded of James’ expectation that Christ’s return was on the near horizon. In the meantime, while they await the Lord’s coming and avoid grumbling against each other lest they face judgment, he tells them to be patient. He points to the example of the prophets who continued to speak the name of the Lord, while patiently enduring suffering. As Fred Craddock and Gene Boring point out, when it comes to the coming of the Lord (Parousia), the purpose of this reminder is not to strike fear, because as noted in verse 11 (omitted, unfortunately, by the lectionary creators), “the one who judges is compassionate and merciful.”  With that said: 

“The reminder about the Lord’s coming is intended, however, to put an end to grumbling and murmuring in the congregation, a condition not uncommon in circumstances in which patience wears thin (v. 9)” [Boring & Craddock, The People’s New Testament Commentary, (WJK Books), p. 721].

                Again, speaking of divine judgment, which is in play here, we might also want to consider this word from Jürgen Moltmann:

What we call the Last Judgment is nothing other than the universal revelation of Jesus Christ, and the consummation of his redemptive work. No expiatory penal code will be applied in the court of the crucified Christ. No punishments of eternal death will be imposed. The final spread of the divine righteousness that creates justice serves the eternal kingdom of God, not the final restoration of a divine world order that has been infringed. Judgment at the end is not an end at all; it is the beginning. Its goal is the restoration of all things for the building up of God's eternal kingdom. [Jürgen Moltmann. The Coming of God: Christian Eschatology (Kindle Locations 3617-3621).] 

Judgment is part of the Advent message, even on the Sunday we light the love candle. But judgment doesn’t mean that eternal death is our fate.

                It is helpful to remember that the letter that James, whose identity remains clouded with time, is focused on addressing actions that divide and destroy the community. We see this in the word of judgment against the wealthy. We see this elsewhere in his admonitions about the use of the tongue and the problem of favoritism. While Paul is focused on the sufficiency of faith in light of God’s grace, James wants to remind us that faith without works is dead. Thus, he writes earlier in the letter: 

¹⁴ What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but do not have works? Can faith save you? ¹⁵ If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, ¹⁶ and one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill,” and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that? ¹⁷ So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead” (James 2:14-17).

                If we read James as a whole, we see that he is not advocating passivity in the face of injustice. While the farmer must wait for the coming of the early and later rains before harvesting the grain, that doesn’t mean the farmer is sitting back and doing nothing in the interim. There is a lot of work that must be done to make sure the harvest is plentiful. In other words, the farmer must prepare the fields so that when the rains come, everything is ready to go. Although the farmer generally knows when the early and late rains will fall, when it comes to the coming of the Lord, things are not quite so cut and dry. James encourages us to be patient, even when we must endure suffering, because he is expecting Christ’s return to be on the near horizon. Of course, it’s been 2000 years, and we’re still waiting (patiently) for the Second Advent. This is where Jesus’ admonition comes into play: ^“Keep awake therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming” (Mt 24:42). This is the message of Advent! Be prepared, be patient, be at work in the mission of God.

                There is a tendency during Advent to skip the Advent hymns and go straight to the Christmas carols and hymns. However, the Advent hymns often have messages that fit the season much better, especially as they remind us that when it comes to the Second Advent, we need to wait patiently for his arrival. So let us sing this hymn by Albert Taulè

All earth is waiting to see the Promised One,
and open furrows await the seed of God.
All the world, bound and struggling, seeks true liberty;
It cries out for justice and searches for the truth. 

                                                                —Albert Taulè