Scripture: Genesis 29:1-20
Given on 09/16/2018
Ernest Hemingway, in addition to being among the greatest writers to emerge from the United States, struggled with depression and mental instability much of his life. Though a man of great acclaim and ability, he never found any degree of lasting satisfaction with the life that he was given. So it was that Hemingway was constantly searching for what came next trying sport fishing, safaris, covering wars, and writing, to seek to fill in the longing, the void that had seemingly possessed him throughout his time on this earth. So phrenetic was his energy and discontent his spirit that he could not even bring himself to write sitting down but instead used a series of taller tables on which he placed his typewriter and would routinely fire off a tremendous number of typed pages in a single sitting. He was, by all accounts, a monster and it was his family and a string of wives that bore the brunt of his monstrous behaviors. He was mercurial, at times, the life of the Parisian party while other times he was painfully sad and reclusive. He had violent outbursts when he was drinking, which was often, so much so in fact that by the time that he had retired to his hunting camp in Idaho, his liver was nearly completely shut down. Towards the end of his life, wracked with depression and lost in a fog of mental decline, he tried a new, experimental psychological treatment called EST or Electro Shock Therapy and the scarring from that combined with the struggles that he had with mental health led him to take his own life when he was just 61. So it was that he was depressed, violent, monstrous, and abusive. He also was one of only a handful of writers whose very name will live on in perpetuity in iconic fame and infamy—a singular character in the story of American writing who evokes visions of blue marlins cresting out of the water and afternoons spent by la sur at a cantina with a glass of rum and cigar smoke swirling in the salty breeze that blows all around you. He was both fallen and a master of the English language. He was both up for anything and perpetually unsatisfied with the results. Yet, we was also self-aware of his faults, his struggles, his instability, especially towards the end of his life, and all of these characteristics he wrote into the last of his works published before he died, The Old Man and the Sea.
It was in my 11th grade English class in High School that I was introduced to Hemingway and his novella, The Old Man and the Sea. The story is of Santiago, an old fisherman, fishing out of one of the tiny fishing villages that dot the Cuban coastline and the relationship he forms with Manolin, a younger boy from another fishing family who began fishing with Santiago when he was 5 years old and has grown to love him like a grandfather. And Santiago as grown to love him as well. Throughout the course of the story we learn that Santiago’s wife has passed away some time ago and that he cannot even bear to have her picture on the wall for the experience of sadness that it elicits within him and that it is only the boy, Manolin, who is as family to him now. In the story we also learn that Santiago has gone out fishing for 84 straight days without a catch and this is starting to become part of the storyline throughout the village. This drought in fish combined with Santiago’s advanced age have left many of the younger fishermen believing that the profession has passed him by. He is declared by the younger fisherman in the village to be salao, the worst kind of bad luck and by the point that the reader discovers this, it is also learned that the village fisherman will no longer go out with him and that because of this designation, even Manolin is told by his parents that he may not fish with the old man. So it is that he is all by himself on the 85th day as he goes out to the sea and hooks a marlin, some two feet longer than the boat that he is steering and begins a quest land this behemoth of a fish. The lion share of the story is spent describing the manner in which Santiago patiently waits for his opportunity to catch the fish. He spends the first night hooked to the fish, not sleeping for fear that he will lose the fish in his sleep. The whole next day the fish makes a series of runs diving deeper and deeper into the Caribbean Sea while Santiago lets out more and more line to try and placate the fish. On the second night he sleeps by twisting the line in a way that if the fish takes a run, the line will burn his hand and he will wake up. The fish does and Santiago is left with a bloody hand but the fish is still on the line. Finally, the fish comes to the surface and begins to circle the boat. In the course of the circle, as it turns toward the boat, Santiago is able to bring in more and more line and the fish gets closer and closer to the boat until it is close enough to be harpooned and tied to the side of the boat. A depleted but successful Santiago begins to make his way back to village when the blood in the water from the fish begins to attract sharks. First a couple that Santiago is able to harpoon and kill but soon more and more come until, eventually, he is no longer able to fend them off and they begin to tear the flesh off the marlin until all that is left of the fish is the head and the skeleton. A defeated Santiago makes his way back to the village where he leaves his boat with the marlin carcass still tied to the side of the boat while he carries the mast like he is walking down theVia Dolorosa until he collapses in his bed. The next day the younger fisherman gather at his boat and marvel at the size of the fish that is tied to it. They find Manolin and ask him to convey their sincere apologies to the old man for doubting his fishing abilities and making him have to land this gargantuan fish by himself. The boy finds the man in his bed and assumes that he is dead until, upon touching him, Santiago stirs and with a calm voice reassures the boy, we will go fishing tomorrow. Santiago peacefully falls asleep again and dreams of his youth as his redemption is now complete.
We are told in our scripture from the book of Genesis for this morning that Jacob had been traveling for some time and was not completely sure where he was when he arrived at the well of Haran to draw water for his sheep. And so it was with some degree of surprise that he discovers that he was actually in a land in which his Uncle Laban was one of the wealthier members of the community. And because the well at the center of town served as a place where all the community all gathered together, Jacob was able to observe as sheep herders from all over the town began to bring their sheep to the well to have a drink. And as he inquires about his Uncle, he learns that Laban’s daughter, Rachel, is making her way to the well with Laban’s sheep to water them and upon seeing her he immediately falls in love with her. And we know this because, in an effort to impress her, Jacob removes the stone that it typically took a whole group of shepherds to remove from on top of the well and begins to water Rachel’s flock for her. And then as a way of greeting her Jacob kisses her and introduces himself as her cousin. Soon thereafter, Laban arrives at the well and welcomes Jacob to their land and invites him to stay with them as long as he likes. And as a way of continuing to impress Rachel, while surely trying to get in his Uncle’s good graces, Jacob begins to assist around the house. And this goes on for a couple of months until Laban, a little confused, offers to pay Jacob for his time and asks how much a fair wage might be. Quick to respond, Jacob offers to work for Laban, without wage, for seven years in order to gain his daughter’s hand in marriage. Seven years, of day in and day out work, seven years of patiently putting hand to plow, and sheep to pasture, of drawing water and harvesting grain knowing that at the end of it all you will be married to you beloved but still, let’s be clear, seven years. Can you even imagine the degree of patience and faith that it takes to work that long and still maintain the goal, that drive, that hope for the future? But so patient was Jacob that the scriptures tell us that those seven years seemed like a handful of days. The is the patience that emerges when the spirit is deep in you and yearning to come out. That is the patience that emerges when we are doing the will of God and nothing can get in the way of. That is the patience that emerges that doesn’t ever presume to know the outcome, doesn’t ever assume that there is a script in which all will be ok. Patience simply presses forward, holds onto faith, holds onto hope that in the end, we will arrive where we are seeking to go. Patience is Santiago holding onto the line believing in the end that he will land the fish and no amount of sleepless nights or pain or struggle will keep him from getting there. Patience is Jacob putting the rest of his life on hold when in love and in service he faithfully arrives where he is supposed to be for 7 years straight. Patience that comes in the form of faith is the ability that we all possess to struggle against the darkness knowing that in the end that there will be a light that shines that the darkness can never overcome.
Patience is one of those qualities that does not come natural to anyone really. Developmentally, when we begin to see ourselves within creation we see the world solely through our own lens and cannot understand why the world does not acquiesce to our every whim and desire. And it is not until we begin to grow older that we learn that there is a world full of other people who each possess their own desires and that those desires necessarily mean that we cannot (and should not) get our way all the time. And for those times that we don’t patience becomes the key to managing one’s emotional response to delayed or denied gratification. But in order to develop it, we must be prepared to suffer in some form or another. We must be prepared to learn to place the needs of others above our own needs and desires from time to time and not completely crumble when that happens. And putting this to practice runs the gamut from the trivial to the critical. The folks in my Wednesday night bible study can tell you that much of the New Testament was written by folks who sincerely believed that Christ was going to come back for them in their lifetimes and so when the faithful began to die off with no sign of the return of the Christ there was great consternation within the nascent Christian tradition of how to continue to be faithful while waiting for the savior’s return. Patience when one is waiting in the line at the grocery store is one reality but patience to see if your faith will be proven to be true is a whole other reality. In the case of the former, it will take you an extra 5 minutes to get out of the Target. In the case of the latter, one’s whole life, one’s whole existence is staked on the return of the messiah. Patience, in the face of this challenge is indeed a virtue and it is the foundation of a growing and deepening faith in God.
In the Christian faith, everything we do is predicated on patience tempered with hope. Patience to see this life to its completion. Patience to keep our eyes open for the reemergence of Christ in our lives. Patience that endures whatever it is that challenges us and makes us want to lose that faith. For those of us in the Reformed Tradition it is even greater struggle to patiently remain faithful to the movement of the spirit because we maintain that humanity is fallen, sinful, broken. That “man,” to quote the Rev. John Maclean, “is a damnable mess.” And most of the time we can’t do a whole lot about this sin-soaked world though we might very much wish we could. So much of our existence testifies to the degree to which we as a species allow cycles of sin and brokenness to run unabated. It is not hard to look at this world of natural disasters and those made in the luminous dark that tries to swallow the hearts of men and, in turn, it is not easy to remain patient in the face of crushing suffering and sadness for the coming of redemption. So it is that we find ourselves constantly and chaotically bouncing back and forth between the two poles of how things are and how we wish them to be. Thus, even as we are broken, even as we are sinful, even as we can, at times, feel totally worn down by the pain and agony of those who are closest to us and those around the world that we will never meet face-to-face, we are conditioned, created to remain hope-filled even in the midst of the struggle. And it is this hope that makes patience a Christian virtue, a fruit of the spirit. Hope and patience when brought together become a potent force within history. From the earliest pleas of the Hebrew people in bondage, it was the combination of patience and hope that led Moses to demand time and again for Pharaoh to “let my people go.” Throughout the Hebrew scriptures, it is the combination of patience and hope that leads the prophets to demand justice for the poor, the disinherited, the stranger in their midst. Throughout the Gospels, it is the sound of Jesus voice saying, see the Realm of God is all around you. Keep trying and, one day, you will see it. It is the clinging to the combination of patience and hope that allowed the faithful to see Jesus dead on Good Friday but made their cry be one that declared that, “It may be Good Friday, but Easter is coming.” In the New Testament, it is the combination of patience and hope that struck an exiled John of Patmos to cast his downtrodden vision to the sky and see and proclaim “a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away. To see the Holy City of God coming down out of heaven because God’s place is not in some distant and far off realm but is here with us, today. Patience and hope flowed through the martyred souls of Polycarp and Justin and helped them bravely face death while always claiming the cross of Christ as their rock and their cornerstone. It was patience and hope that brought about the Reformation, the Catholic Reformation, and all those times when the stagnancy of Christian has demanded a revolutionary era. It was patience and hope that rested with those in the Civil Rights Era who faced down beatings, and lynchings, and dogs, and water hoses, and still they sang with one voice, “We shall overcome.” It was patience and hope that dwells in all those places in the world in which the gospel of Jesus has been shared but the hands and feet of Christ have yet to deliver enough food and water because still they proclaim, “Holy, holy, holy, God, God of power and might. Heaven and earth are full of your glory. Hosanna in the highest. Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the most high. And it is in patience and hope that we gather here today. In this place. It is here and dwelling among all those whose faith has brought them into this space this morning. We believe that the spirit is among us. We believe that God’s new creation is bursting forth. We believe that God’s grace awashes all God’s children with a river of holy water and we believe that all these things will come to be in God’s time, with the spirit of God moving through all of creation, passing over us, as she passed over the waters of chaos at the beginning of time, bringing us all together, making us all one. Be patient, my friends. Be filled with hope as well. Be of good courage as we seek to hold on to all that is good. As we strengthen the faint-hearted, support the weak, help the suffering, as we honor all people as children of God. Be patient, be hopeful, be faithful as we love and serve the Lord, rejoicing in the power of the Holy Spirit. And let us come together with one voice as we join with our brothers and our sisters, with saints and martyrs, with mortals and angels of the past who courageously sang out, Glory be to God in the highest, and on earth peace amongst all God’s peoples. And let all God’s people say, Alleluia, Amen.
*-Image taken from Guy Harvey’s pictorial interpretation of Ernest Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea