Waiting
Jesus tells us to be like servants waiting for their master to return (see the passage from St Luke’s Gospel below).
Waiting is a great way into the spiritual life. It is relational: we are waiting for something that is not us. It involves freedom: we don’t always have to wait – sometimes we can walk away – but if we do wait, we are usually waiting because of another’s freedom.
But waiting is difficult. There is the temptation not to wait. To fill in the silence. To do something else. Move on. It is usually difficult for the same reasons that make it a window into our spiritual lives. We want to be in control, and so we want to be in charge of both sides of the relation. To do the other’s part. Take away their freedom, so as to take away our own feeling of dependence. To do without them.
We can see this in the servants who get drunk. When we stop waiting, when we move on, we often want to deny the truth that lies behind the waiting. We need to become oblivious to the experience of waiting, talk over the silence of the other person.
It is interesting to think about our own experiences of waiting, to map its beginnings and the associated emotions and temptations, and study their structure, because the same patterns come up in so many other places. Waiting can be an experience that points us to the personal nature of our lives – that we are always in relation – and to the face that seems to lie behind all else.
Luke Ch 12: 35 ‘Be dressed for action and have your lamps lit; 36be like those who are waiting for their master to return from the wedding banquet, so that they may open the door for him as soon as he comes and knocks.37Blessed are those slaves whom the master finds alert when he comes; truly I tell you, he will fasten his belt and have them sit down to eat, and he will come and serve them. 38If he comes during the middle of the night, or near dawn, and finds them so, blessed are those slaves.
39 ‘But know this: if the owner of the house had known at what hour the thief was coming, he would not have let his house be broken into.40You also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour.’
41 Peter said, ‘Lord, are you telling this parable for us or for everyone?’42And the Lord said, ‘Who then is the faithful and prudent manager whom his master will put in charge of his slaves, to give them their allowance of food at the proper time? 43Blessed is that slave whom his master will find at work when he arrives. 44Truly I tell you, he will put that one in charge of all his possessions. 45But if that slave says to himself, “My master is delayed in coming”, and if he begins to beat the other slaves, men and women, and to eat and drink and get drunk,46the master of that slave will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour that he does not know, and will cut him in pieces,and put him with the unfaithful. 47That slave who knew what his master wanted, but did not prepare himself or do what was wanted, will receive a severe beating. 48But one who did not know and did what deserved a beating will receive a light beating. From everyone to whom much has been given, much will be required; and from one to whom much has been entrusted, even more will be demanded.
[The New Revised Standard Version (Anglicized Edition), copyright 1989, 1995 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.]
