Waiting for the Finish

I can remember as a child, sometimes on Sunday after church my dad would pile us all into the car and we would go for a drive. I do not know if the destination was planned but we would often end up at the home of a relative or family friend. One of those destinations was my mother’s school-friend. She and her husband were building their own home. It never seemed to be done. Early on, I can remember the outhouse, later when the bathroom was installed there was a curtain instead of a door. Each year something else got done. I suppose, being farmers, they had little time to work on the house. They may have had to wait until they gathered the funds needed for each project. I can remember thinking to myself that I was never going to build my own house – it may never be done. Although, owning a house is not much better. There are several projects that I am working on right now, none completely done. There are a variety of reasons for that. Often, I do need to gather enough funds to do the project. Sometimes, I need the span of several days in a row to be sure that the project gets done. Sometimes I get stuck on how to finish the project. There are many more reasons: The task requires multiple hands, will make a great mess (like tearing down a ceiling), or requires standing for long periods on a ladder...

Paul seems to be reflecting upon unfinished tasks in our reading from Philippians. Paul wrote the letter to the Philippians while in prison. While Paul tells us he is imprisoned while writing, we do not know from which prison. Paul had been imprisoned several times during his ministry. While scholars debate from where and when this letter was written, most believe that Paul wrote it from his prison in Rome which might mean that it was one of his last. (He may have written it from Caesarea where he was held two years before being sent to Rome.) In this letter we can hear his frustration at his inability to visit the church in Philippi and, it seems, recognize that he may not see the end results of his ministry there. While Paul had earnestly believed Christ would return in his lifetime in his early ministry, his later letters show a realization that Jesus’ return might be at a much later time. We hear this in his greeting to the Philippians as he reminds them that the work they started together will be finished when Jesus returns. 

We do not really know how Paul thought of the fact that the task God sent him on will have to be finished by another. That is the way of the church. While the task is always the same – to share the Gospel with others – the who, how, and where often changes. That change can come suddenly. Other times it develops slowly. The only certain thing is that it will happen and that God will guide us as we face the new problems and joys of ministry in the church. Our task is the same as Paul’s and the Philippians’ task: to share God’s love in Jesus with the world. This task, as Advent reminds us, is an active waiting where we share God’s gifts to us with others so that in us they experience Jesus.