And now, the time is here

James 5:7-12

         And now, the time is here....

         Be 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. You also must be patient. Strengthen your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is near.^* Beloved, do not grumble against one another, so that you may not be judged. See, the Judge is standing at the doors! As an example of suffering and patience, beloved, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord. Indeed we call blessed those who showed endurance. You have heard of the endurance of Job, and you have seen the purpose of the Lord, how the Lord is compassionate and merciful.

Above all, my beloved, do not swear, either by heaven or by earth or by any other oath, but let your ‘Yes’ be yes and your ‘No’ be no, so that you may not fall under condemnation.

          Yesterday I wrote about graced moments. We should be thankful for all the moments of our lives.   The thing is though, as the example with my husband, we met at the right moment. Had we met at any time earlier, it would not have been that 'right moment'.

           Sometime we need to be patient for that moment. We can search and try our hardest to accomplish something but there is a proper time in the cosmos, in the eyes of God. We must do everything we can but sometimes we must wait. 

           As a child wants to expand it's boundaries of experience and knowledge but still must wait until they are older. So must we wait until the right moment for things in our personal lives and lives of the world. My thoughts are running wild with ideas that had to wait until the time had come. We have prophets who speak and we make all human efforts but some things must wait until we have understanding.

          Was the world ready to hear of sub atomic particles at the dawn of written history? Could they understand, even imagine? We were mere children, we could not understand. So God gave us somewhat simplistic stories that helped us understand for that time until we were perhaps more grown up as humans.

            In Jesus's time, in the time of Hebrew scripture, slavery was accepted. I am sure there were a few who had the knowledge it was wrong but it took many centuries of fighting, learning and growing for us to finally realize how wrong it was. I just saw the move Lincoln. It artfully, masterfully, conveys the struggles of humanity, of even a country that claims it's inalienable rights of equality endowed by the creator.  Wow.

             Recently, the great State of New York made marriage equality a reality and I was able to marry the man of my dreams. We fought hard for it and it's time had come. Many are still growing in knowledge that gay people are no different that any other group of people in God's creation. Surprising if you think that homosexuality appears in 1500 different species of God's creation. But this is the time to realize, the time has come when we can put aside ignorance and stereotypes and know that gay people are a part of God's good creation. Capable of love and commitment and capable of sin and depravity but NO different than any other of God's creations. Heterosexuals and Homosexuals are equal in God's eyes. So now is the time. We are mature enough to know this, to understand this, to know and embrace love and equality.

         And the continuum of life marches on, in maturity, in knowledge, hopefully in peace. 

         We should be wise enough to know there is a right time and a wrong time but we must push and stretch, fight and prophesy over new knowledge of God's love, creation and equality.