Weekly Sermon: 04-26-2026 - Values that Stick - Patience

The Holy Gospel according to Luke. Glory to you, O Lord. Then Jesus told this parable.

A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard, and he came looking for fruit on it and found none.

So he said to the man working in the vineyard, See here, for three years I have

come looking for fruit on this fig tree, and still I find none.

Cut it down. Why should it be wasting the soil?

He replied, Sir, let it alone for one more year, until I dig around it and put manure on it.

If it bears fruit next year, well and good.

But if not, you can cut it down.

This is the gospel of the Lord.

Praise to you, O Christ.

He replied, right now called Values That Stick, and they're based on the fruits

of the Spirit in Galatians 5.

There are these cards if you want to share the series with somebody out in the

gathering area, but each sermon stands alone.

And I'm posting activity cards that you can do during the week with kids or

activities that you want to try yourselves.

I'm a little bit behind because I'm not the most fastidious poster.

I've got, you know, anyway, but you can look at the Facebook page for other

activities with the fruits of the spirit during the week.

So, I woke up in the middle of the night this week from a nightmare.

And as you know, nightmares, they feel pretty real when you're in the middle of them.

First, a lizard crawled out from my slip-on shoe underneath my foot.

And then the mom came.

And then suddenly, dozens and dozens of many-legged little babies crawled out from under my foot.

I mean, I could feel them under my foot. It was creepy.

Then I was fighting a huge black spider that attached its legs to my hands,

and I could not get it unstuck.

So I'm yelling for help. And as you know, if you've had a dream like this of

whatever sort, you're trying to yell for help, but nothing is coming out.

So I'm flailing my arms. I'm yelling for help.

And finally, I yell loud enough that my own voice wakes me up while my arms are flailing.

Now, once in St. Louis fighting some creature, I don't remember what it was

at the time, I was flailing so hard I fell out of bed and kicked the dresser.

So Dan is really happy on nights when I'm just talking and wake him up.

I've actually prayed and preached in my sleep.

But anyway, so he's glad for those nights.

But anyway, after this horrible nightmare, I woke up in the dark at 4.30,

my heart racing, and I thought, huh, well, this dream did not come out of nowhere.

Um, you know, because sometimes this is how life feels, right?

Overwhelming, skitter, skitter, skitter, dozens and dozens of lizards, and out of control.

I can't get the spider off me.

Dan was out of town all week, and Aaron, at the same time, was also on vacation

all week. I will never do that again.

You know, because lots of things that could go wrong did, and I didn't have any help.

So especially technology, right?

Because both Aaron and Dan are highly skilled at technology,

whereas I am limited in this regard.

So I had problems with my laptop.

The automatic lock at home stopped working.

The printer at church wouldn't scan to my email.

So stuff I wanted to put in the newsletter, I had to figure out,

you know, download a scanner on my phone and, you know, these kinds of things.

You know, we have a new leak, the AC and the preschool needed help,

the other building issues, you know, on and on.

And then my son, our son Jacob and his business partner, Ned,

came down to stay a few nights because they were attending a conference that

was in Dallas. Wonderful.

Usually. And they also brought Jacob's puppy, Leo, who is not what I would call

house-trained, housebroken.

And it's like, Leo, my bathroom is not your bathroom.

So, and then we had Synod Assembly Saturday and Friday, the annual meeting of the whole church.

And then I tried to make meatloaf and casserole, potato casserole for Jacob

and Ned, trying to be a good host.

I mean, I can cook, but, you know, Dan is the cook.

And I forgot that Ned was Muslim, so I was trying to make the meatloaf less

watery than it normally is.

And, you know, chat GPT said, you know, add a little pork.

So my mind was too overwhelmed to remember that Ned was Muslim.

So that didn't work. And then I felt stupid. So anyway, there we go.

Dan is gone. I'm sleeping alone.

And then I'm fighting like the plagues of Egypt by myself,

which is my brain's way of processing a lot of information and a lot of emotions

underneath the surface that I

was not paying attention to during the day because I'm just trying to manage all this stuff.

And then I realized here I am preparing a sermon on patience.

And when life piles up, patience is the first thing to go, especially patience with myself.

And the ability to process all

of these things that were going on and the impact they were having on me.

And then patience with tasks and then patience with others.

And maybe you know this feeling too.

It's usually not one big thing. It's 10 small things all at once.

You know, a schedule with no room to breathe, a relationship that happens at

the same time that is asking more than you can give at that moment,

a situation that is not resolving as quickly as you hoped.

And suddenly we're not responding. We're just reacting.

We get short with people that we love. We feel irritated over things that normally

wouldn't bother us at all. We want answers now.

We want change now. I want resolution now.

And we live in a world that reinforces this. Faster is better.

Immediate is normal. Waiting feels like failure.

And if it takes more than five minutes to get through the drive-through,

we have to comment, well, this isn't really fast food, is it?

I've actually done that before. Have you done that before? I mean,

that's just silly, isn't it?

And yet, deep down, we know that the most important things in life do not work at lightning speed.

Good, healthy relationships do not grow overnight.

Healing does not happen instantly. It takes time.

It takes rest. It takes a back and forth process of a day where we feel great,

and then the next day we have to spend in bed.

It takes an ebb and flow.

Faith does not deepen on demand. It takes prayer, worship, spiritual practices over time.

And the same is true with patience.

Listen again to the Apostle Paul in our very brief reading from Ephesians.

I beg you to lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called,

with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love.

You know, patience is not just

a personality trait that some people are given and others of us are not.

It's part of our calling, right alongside humility, gentleness, love.

And the word that Paul uses, bearing with one another, it doesn't mean like

just putting up with somebody.

It means holding space for one another, making room for one another's imperfections,

for their growth, for their timing.

It is what I would call relational patience, relational patience.

And this becomes clear in the parable that Jesus tells in Luke 13 about the

fig tree that is not producing any fruit.

For three years, the owner comes looking and finds nothing. So he says what we might expect.

Cut it down. Get rid of it.

It kind of sounds like corporate downsizing to me. It's not working.

It's not producing. It's taking up space.

But the gardener says, give it time.

Give it one more year. Let me dig around it.

Let me nourish it. Let me care for it. That's patience.

That's not passive waiting. It's active, hopeful investment.

The gardener doesn't ignore the lack of fruit. Instead, the gardener leans in.

He invests. The gardener tends.

She nourishes. She trusts that growth is still possible.

And that's how God is with us.

God is patient, Not because God doesn't care about growth, but exactly because

God does care about growth.

God doesn't give up on us when we're not producing fruit. God doesn't cut us

off when we're slow to change.

God stays with us, tends to us, nourishes us with love, forgiveness,

community, bread, wine, and hope.

God invests everything in us. And that's why he sent Jesus, a human being.

He inches his way down the birth canal.

He has to learn how to read and write, go through puberty, how to make friends,

how to grow up, how to learn who he is.

Because God invests life, heart, death, and eternity in us.

That is patience.

That is eternal patience through death, through resurrection.

That is trusting that fruit will come, that our side of the relationship will

grow and produce fruit, just like Jesus did.

The good news is that we don't have to manufacture patience on our own.

Patience is the fruit of the Spirit. It's not something that we force or that

we muster by the act of our own will.

It is something that God grows in us.

Patience is that quiet confidence that says, I don't have to fix everything right now.

I don't have to control everything. God is present in this moment and in the

next one too. and in the next week and the next year and the next forever.

Still, there are ways that we can open ourselves to this kind of growth,

especially when our own patience is stretched.

Because patience is hard when we feel overwhelmed and out of control like I did this past week.

Or when a child is struggling and not changing as quickly as you hoped,

or when a spouse or partner doesn't see what you see,

or when work feels unfair or exhausting, or when prayers feel like they're being

unanswered and you're having to wait on the Lord.

It's hard when you feel like the fig tree or when you're waiting on somebody else to change.

So how do we make space for God to grow patience in us?

First, as I've already alluded to, it seems the hardest person to be patient with is ourselves.

My week this past week might have felt less overwhelming if I had just taken

10 or 15 minutes and sat with God and just named what was feeling unmanageable,

then God would have said to me, don't worry, I've got this.

And maybe I could have avoided the battle with lizards and a big spider.

You see, I don't do this perfectly either.

A second way to make space for God is to slow down our reactions.

Patience begins in that small space between what happens and how we respond.

Before the words come out, before the frustration takes over, just take a breath.

Take a pause. A simple prayer, God be with me in this moment.

For some people, it helps to count to 10 or to just say, let me think a minute.

Everyone is happy when you just say, let me think a minute. And they're happy

to give you a minute because they probably need the minute themselves.

We remind ourselves that we trust God's timing more than our urgency.

You know, if God was in a hurry, God would not have created the cosmos over

billions of years, right?

God has time. We have time.

We want things fixed now, but God is doing something deeper.

Patience asks, what might God be doing here that we can't see yet?

Third, we practice saying, third, we practice staying.

In a world that walks away quickly, patience stays present.

Unless, of course, you are feeling unsafe for any reason.

Patience stays in the conversation. Patience stays in the relationship.

Patience stays committed to growth, even when it's slow.

And how about the children or the grandchildren, or if we don't have those,

the children in our circle of life or our sphere of influence?

You know, I wish I would have thought about this more when my kids were at home.

We don't teach patience by telling our kids, be patient.

We think it helps, but we teach it by living it.

Children learn patience when we don't snap at them when we're tired,

when we listen instead of rushing, when we model calm instead of chaos,

even when we're stressed or running late, when we show them that people are worth time.

Children learn patience when they see us wait without complaining,

trust without panicking, love without giving up.

Because patience isn't taught, it is caught.

Because we have to do it by, the children learn the patience by overhearing it.

It's caught, not just taught. So here's your invitation this week.

Pay attention to where your patience is being stretched.

When are you feeling reactive?

Where are you wanting things to move faster than they are?

Where are you tempted to give up on a situation, a person, or even yourself?

Instead of pushing harder, what if you came alongside Jesus the gardener?

What if you gave it time, tended it with care, trusted that God is still at work?

Because patience is not about doing nothing.

It is about trusting that growth

takes time and choosing to stay present while God is growing in you.

Because God, of course, is already at work in you. It's already happening.

It's happening right now in this very second.

Did you know that? It's happening right now.

Slowly, steadily, faithfully, even when you don't see it yet.

So remember the God who is already patient with you.

You can pause, you can breathe, you are never alone.

Because patience isn't about having

less to carry, it's knowing who is carrying it with you and for you.

Jesus carries our whole life with us.

As his patience begins to take root in us, we can begin to experience that patience

that steadies us when life is rocky, that grounds us when life feels like too

much, and that patience,

that trust that God is doing work that is so much more than we can even see.

And that in time, like that fig tree, the fruit will come.

And as we bear this fruit that lasts,

our mission together becomes even more wonderful delicious and life-giving amen

go forth into the world strengthened in.

Sharing the fruit of the spirit peace patience kindness goodness fullness gentleness and self control.

Tell others what Jesus has done for you and invite them to St. Luke's as we love you.