"I wait for the Lord"

"I wait for the Lord"

People who are on the streets or are otherwise poor have to wait.  Every morning when I come to Manna House to start the coffee at 6:30a.m., there are people already waiting. 

“How long have you been here?” I ask. 

“I dunno, maybe an hour.” 

After I unlock the gate, they wait for Manna House to open at 8:00a.m.  They wait to get on the “socks and hygiene” list or the “shower” list, and then they wait again for their names to be called. 

“Where am I on the list?” is a frequent question; a polite but persistent way to ask, “How long do I have to wait?”

They wait in the coffee line once we are open.  These are the people, on the streets and poor, who also wait in soup kitchen lines.  They wait for the bus.  They wait to get hired at a labor pool.  They wait in emergency rooms for medical care.  They wait in jail for a court date because they can’t make bail.  They wait in jail hoping for a letter or a visit or maybe for someone to put money on their “book” (few get any of those things).   They wait to get housing to open up for them.  They wait to get into a shelter.  They wait to get into rehab for an addiction.  They wait for social workers and ministers and cops and judges.

They wait.  They keep vigil.  They watch.

Spend a night on the streets.  The darkness seems to last so long one begins to wonder if day will ever come.  When will the dawn begin to break?  The temperature drops throughout the night, and it is coldest just before first light.  In addition to everything else for which they wait, they wait for the sun to rise.

Some guests at Manna House wait better than others.  “I just can’t wait any longer” says one, and off he goes before his name is called.  Another says, “I can wait.  Where else do I have to go?”  Some wait by reading a book or the newspaper.  Some wait by playing Scrabble. Some wait by sleeping quietly on the couch in the midst of the noise of a busy morning.  A person has to be deeply tired to be able to sleep in all the commotion.

Sometimes a guest asks a volunteer working the list to enter into the waiting, to share the waiting, “Can you wait for me until I get back?”  Or, "I just got a cup of coffee.  Can you wait while I put in cream and sugar?"

We have been invited into waiting in a more difficult way lately.  We wait these days for a beloved guest to show back up at Manna House.  Where is he?  We don’t know.  We wait.  Two other guests, that we know, are in prison.  For how long?  They don’t know, and so they wait.  And since they don’t know, neither do we, and so we wait.

Waiting isn’t easy.  Our guests face waiting for so much.  We seek to serve them in ways that respect that they have waited, and in ways that do not make the waiting worse. 

And maybe, too, I can learn from our guests about how to wait in ways that are patient but not passive, hopeful and not merely resigned.  There is a lot to ruminate on in considering how to wait faithfully. How might I enter into waiting as a spiritual discipline that might even challenge the systems that make people on the streets and people who are poor wait?  How might I wait with my whole being for the Lord and for a different world in which there is justice and not all this infernal waiting?

Jesus chastised his disciples for falling asleep in the Garden of Gethsemane, “So, you could not keep watch with Me for one hour? Keep watching and praying that you may not enter into temptation; the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.” (Matthew 26:40-41).

            The Psalmist wrote, “I wait for the Lord, my whole being waits, and in God’s word I put my hope. I wait for the Lord, more than watchmen wait for the morning, more than watchmen wait for the morning.”