The problem of patience. . .

God comes by His patience naturally.  He does not cultivate it as virtue or character trait but it proceeds from His nature.  God is patient.  We say this all the time even though we may use different words.  There are different words that get translated as “patience” in the Bible. In Nahum 1:3, the prophet says God is “slow to anger”—greatly patient—yet the acknowledgement of His patience does not leave us without the promise that He “will not leave the guilty unpunished.”  Wickedness will not go unpunished by God but it happens in His own timing and not ours.  One of the most beloved statements in Scripture is that God is  “slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.” This means that His restraint is tied to His saving will and purpose and not simply a mark of His personality.  The word used to describe Christ’s patience in 2 Thessalonians 3:5 is “steadfastness,” or “perseverance;” or even “patient endurance.” Check your translation.  In any case, it is again tied to His saving will and purpose.  The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance. But the day of the Lord will come like a thief.  I Peter 3:9-10  Again, the patience of the Lord is tied to His saving will, a mark of His mercy, and the goal of it is our repentance.

God is patient until He is not.  The people in Babel, in the days of Noah, in the forty years of the journey to the promised land, and in the exiles, among others, found out that God's patience is not without limit.  It comes to an end -- unpredictably so.  He does not give us a three minute warning or send a shot across the bow -- unless you consider the voice of the prophet calling the people to repentance such a warning.  In any case, Scripture is also replete with examples of how God came to an end with His patience and His wrath was visited upon those who have presumed God's patience to be indifference.  God's longsuffering nature is a blessing and a problem.  It often becomes a stumbling block for the hard-hearted who choose to abuse that patience and ignore the warning and the call to repentance until they find their end at the hands of God's destruction.  Solomon perhaps warns us of this, ‘A man who hardens his neck after much reproof will suddenly be broken beyond remedy.’” 

I wonder if it is about time for us to rethink the patience of the Church with those who refuse correction, who ignore the reproof of God's own Word, and who persist in their own understanding even when it conflicts with His clear revelation.  The Roman Catholic bishops have long had patience with Roman Catholic politicians who openly and defiantly refuse the teaching of their own church with regard to sexual desire, gender identity, abortion and the sacredness of life, and a host of other things.  The politicians wait for friendly bishops or popes or those who love worldly power and prestige more than they love the truth of God's Word and what has it bought Rome?  Little good.  Instead the non-famous in the pews have presumed the silence of Rome and its patience to be license to push the limits even further and ignore the teaching of Rome without recrimination.  So we end up with Roman Catholics who cohabit, practice birth control, abort, approve of the GLBTQ+ agenda, support the violation of secular law for political purpose (like immigration), and now do not even believe that the Christ is present in the Eucharist.  How has that worked for Rome?

Before Lutherans smile smugly, we have had our own patience problems.  We have presumed that if you can agree on some generic thing about Jesus nothing else matters -- it does not matter how much of Scripture you reject, who you welcome at the altar rail, who is ordained, how you worship, if you worship, etc...  Look at the ELCA.  They have gone from being against but politically neutral on the issue of abortion to now insisting it is the right of the mother, indeed a civil right, that must be protected at all costs.  They went from typical Lutheran Eucharistic practice to an open table that offers merely a symbolic Christ to those who only believe that far.  They went from a liturgy that must be preserved because of what it says to words that sound nice but do not intersect with actual faith (Virgin Birth).  They went from allowing theologians to say that the historicity of many things in the Bible did not matter to an insistence that even when the Bible speaks clearly it does not mean what it says.  Missouri is not quite there yet but we are headed on the same strategic trajectory -- if only because ecclesiastical supervision has become rare and when applied, selectively used.  Think here of the furor created when a person who openly taught and fought for such things against Scripture and Missouri's confession as the ordination of women and the historicity of Adam and Eve was challenged and finally removed.  Think here of the way we struggle to find the line between what can and cannot be taught and practiced on our Lutheran universities.  

Those cohabiting have seen the patience of the Church as proof that marriage does not matter.  Those using the patience of the Church to have sex without marriage and marriage without love have been confirmed in this error.  Those who allow questions about Scripture to overpower what Scripture clearly says have learned that God is a toothless lion and His Word powerless to do anything unless and until we give it power.  So maybe the time of patience has come. . . and gone.  At least it is time to consider if our patience and our silence have worked against the cause of repentance instead of for it.  Again, I do not presume to have all the answers but it is worth our time to have a serious conversation about what we are saying, how we are saying it, and what people are hearing -- inside and outside the Church.