At work this week, we were talking about the fact that one of the difficulties with teaching others is that we usually do not get to see the fruits of our work. If we're lucky, we see some seeds being planted, but we won't see those seeds watered and blooming. From my own reflection on my education, I realize how many people have affected me and encouraged me to grow, and how very, very, very few of them I have an opportunity to see again or to thank.

 

That sense of starting things, but not knowing where they'll end is a common theme in teaching, parenting, being a disciple of Jesus and the life of today's saint. St. Athanasius spent much of his life in exile, because he spoke out against political leaders and others who were unsure about the idea of God becoming human. Christians now honor him as a great scholar who helped Christians think about the immense love God must have for us to send the Son to be human.

 

Planting seeds without knowing the outcome requires patience. Patience is one of the themes in today's readings.  Acts 5:34-42 shows Gamaliel, a Pharisee, giving good advice to his colleagues.  "If this is a false movement," he says, "just wait it out.  It will fizzle on its own.  But if it is true, we will not be acting against God's will." How true this is.  There were people in Jesus' day who claimed to be the Messiah, but all of those eventually died out when their founders died. Jesus would have seemed like one among many others.  So, just as with the seeds, it would have seemed improbable, and indeed futile, to expect that Jesus would be any different from the others, especially that there would be any new faith spring from his death.  Yet from this horrific death, we see new life.  Gamaliel's patience is also the practice of faith and hope in God; even if something hasn't happened with the other supposed messiahs and even if it seems like nothing will happen, being patient and waiting to see what this new messiah brings is still the best thing to do.  

 

The story of the five loaves and fishes (John 6:1-15) deepen our sense of what patience requires.  Here, a crowd has followed Jesus because they have heard he performs miracles, but they haven't actually seen a miracle.  They listen to him, waiting all day, wanting him to be their messiah.  They finally see something of a result: some bread and fish.  But this crowd is hoping that this is the messiah they have hoped for - the one who will lead an army and defeat the Romans and other oppressors.  Jesus sees that they desire to make him a king and so he retreats.  In this scripture, we learn that patience isn't only about waiting to see what God will do, it is also about not expecting God to act in the ways and times that we suppose God should act.

 

In our culture, it is easy to think the resurrection is too improbable to have happened, or that faith in a God we cannot see is futile.  Today's scriptures ask us and today's saint both ask us to be patient, and to have faith in God's love for us, even to the point of acting in unexpected ways by taking on flesh for us, and dying on the cross.  

 

- Jana M. Bennett