James 5:7–10 (NRSV)
Read James 5:7–10 on biblegateway.com
Verse 7Be patient, therefore, beloved, until the coming of the Lord. The farmer waits for the precious crop from the earth, being patient with it until it receives the early and the late rains. Verse 8You also must be patient. Strengthen your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is near. Verse 9Beloved, do not grumble against one another, so that you may not be judged. See, the Judge is standing at the doors! Verse 10As an example of suffering and patience, beloved, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord.
Devotion
Patience is one of the virtues cultivated by the Advent season. In this text from the letter of James, hearers are called toward patience in the eschatological expectation of the coming of the Lord. Like farmers wait for crops or for rain, we too exert patience.
But patience is not the same thing as complacency or apathy or sitting idly by waiting for something to happen. After all, the farmer that roots the metaphor in this passage has certainly done his work! But the rain and the resulting crop yield is not entirely up to him. As biblical scholar Elsa Támez notes, “patience,” for James, is not passive or submissive because nothing can be done. It is, instead, a “militant patience” that is an active, working patience—like that of a farmer, or those who strive for justice (another concern of James), or “the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord.”
Prayer
God of the prophets, and God of the good earth from which the crops spring and the sky from which the rain falls, root us in patience. May we work when we need to work, find rest when we need to rest, and wait with expectation for that which only you can bring about. Amen.
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