Fruit of the Spirit: Patience

Psalm 103:8; Galatians 5:22-26

Reverend Terry Minchow-Proffitt

I was standing in line at PetSmart recently, safely distanced. I knew where to stand because they had these little “paws” placed on the floor six feet apart. I looked closer at one of the paws and read: “Please stay six feet apart. That’s two Great Danes, four cats, or sixteen hamsters.”

I was standing in the checkout line at Target recently, safely distanced “sixteen hamsters” behind the person in front of me. When it was my turn, I said to the clerk, “One question: May I purchase both of these?” I lifted this huge 92-roll package of super-soft Charmin, then pulled out an equally bulky bundle of Brawny paper towels. “The sign said I could only purchase one of each: toilet paper, facial tissue, and disinfectant wipes. I didn’t see anything about paper towels.” The clerk smiled at me and said, “I think you’re making a perfectly legal purchase. Especially since I saw how politely you distanced yourself sixteen hamsters behind the previous customer.”

Thomas Paine, on December 23, 1776, during the lowest, coldest hour of the Revolutionary War, wrote, “These are the times that “try men’s souls.” I certainly believe that he’d use the same words to describe these times: this pandemic (we’re losing currently right at a thousand people a day to this virus), this divided country, this election year, this turbulent time of protests for justice and pushback for law and order, this time when even the simple act of worship requires a mask, lots of Lysol, and social distancing, when buying cat litter requires staying 16 hamsters away from the next person in line. These are the times that try our souls.

So how are we set for patience? Are we becoming more patient with each other or less? Patience is one of those spiritual muscles that gets plenty of opportunities to be exercised, but rarely do we do so. It’s kinda like exercising our “core.” We all need a strong core, but we refuse to do our sit-ups.

Sometimes we say that “patience is a virtue.” That’s not what Paul says. Paul says that patience is a fruit of the Spirit. What’s the difference? A virtue is an acquired habit, something we do and often are honored for having. Virtue is like a possession. She has the virtue of patience. But a fruit is not like this. It results from attuning ourselves to the Spirit and allowing that life to flow through us. A fruit, then, is a gift, not a possession. But it’s also a discipline. Grace always comes to us both as a gift and a task. Patience disciplines us to press pause when we feel impatient, take a deep breath, turn to the advantage of the Spirit within, then ask for and trust that patient action and words are the right way to move forward. When we are patient, the best we can say is, “Thank you, God.”

But we’re only human. And? God calls us to be more fully human, not less. And the way we become more deeply human is by the grace of the Spirit. We sometimes say we “lose patience.” I believe it’s more accurate to say, “We refuse patience.” Again, patience is not something we have and misplace; patience is a gift that we’re either open to receiving or not. Can we grow in patience? Yes, absolutely. By learning to rely upon and trust the Spirit. Is this difficult? Yes, primarily because we live in a pathologically impatient society. We want it all, and we want it now. We’re so impatient as a society that we even refuse to accept facts. Patience is only called for when the facts don’t match what we desire. What does it mean to accept the facts? Simply stated, it means to come to terms with reality and accept it on reality’s terms.

Take COVID-19, for example. It’s not personal. It’s ruthless, apolitical, and indifferent to us. And contrary to what we might think, scientifically speaking, it’s well understood. Yet impatience can tempt us to forget all this. We may even find ourselves getting very impatient with the virus, saying things like, “I’m ready for this to be over.” Honesty is good. But when we begin looking at this virus on the basis of our feelings or begin thinking that our personal needs concerning this virus have some relevance to the virus’s airborne spread from person to person, then we’re being driven by impatience: we’ve become impatient with reality. The fact is, our feelings and personal needs mean nothing to this virus.

Think about what our country faced during WWII. No one could tell us when we could travel to Europe again to visit aging parents. No one could say when rationing would stop. No one knew when their son or daughter would be released from Service. No one could promise that we were safe or would survive. The war was an open-ended fact. It had to be accepted, faced, like it or not.

We have to check ourselves daily these days. Ask the Spirit for patience in dealing with this reality. We need God to help us realize that some crises and problems are so bad that they can last for months, even years. They can cause sickness and death, disrupt economies, force us to live with uncertainty, keep us from doing what we’d like to do, cost us what we really can’t afford. With patience, we can face the facts together without having the facts turn us on one another.

People of faith down through the ages have had to learn patience the hard way. That’s the difference between superstition and faith. Superstition tries to impose its will on reality; faith surrenders our will to God’s will, a God who does not always tell us what we want to hear. God helps us face reality faithfully. Back in the time of Jeremiah’s prophecy, the Hebrews were in exile in Babylon. People were tickling their ears and making false promises to them. They are liars, Jeremiah said. Here’s the truth: “Only when Babylon’s seventy years are completed” will God lead you back to your home. “For surely I know the plans I have for you, plans for your welfare and not harm, to give you a future with hope” (Jeremiah 29:10-11). See what God promises? No quick fix, but an honest and hopeful way to face their exile.

We have been living out our own exile for a while and will be for a while longer. We can throw up our hands and say, “Well, it’s just so hard to know what the right thing is.” That’s just not true. Science has given us plenty to know and do. We can grow impatient and say, “How much longer can this go on?” But we do not know. What’s true is true for as long as it’s true.

Being patient does not mean giving up, or compromising, or denial. Faithful patience means to slow down enough for God to catch up with us. Then to press on at a new pace and with deepened resources, we move according to the rhythms of grace. It may be slower than we like, but such a willingness to recalibrate our frustration according to the Spirit can make all the difference in the world when it comes to our joy and effectiveness.

These are the times that try our souls. But the fruit of patience is ours--ours to eat, and ours to share. It may involve frustration and waiting. We may be called to forebear one another, to give each other the space of 16 hamsters when we disagree, or don’t want to be infected, or don’t want to infect them. We may even need to step up and carry some people as best we can. That’s patience. It keeps us from “losing it,” from saying and doing things that are unkind or unloving, things we’ll regret later. Consider it a gift from “the God of all patience.” Because, as we face all this harsh reality, don’t forget, patience is a reality, too, a gracious reality we can choose to live out in an utterly real world. Amen.