Hating Just Waiting

I hate just waiting, which helps explain why I can’t stand amusement parks. Did you know that if you visit the Magic Kingdom for a day (adults: $105; children 3-9*: $99) and visit the top five attractions, according to thrill-data.com, you will spend an average—average!—of 10 hours and 46 minutes in line, or on line to be grammatically correct, or on queue to be just pedantic. This barely gives you time to wait on queue for food.

Waiting just seems like such a waste of time I could spend something—anything—else.

According to the internet, in their lifetime, the average American will spend just north of five years waiting on lines or queues, where about six months of that are spent at red lights. It just breaks the heart. And it’s impossible to avoid. We spend a lot of life waiting, and this has always been the case.

Jesus is talking about waiting in this week’s Gospel reading. We’re at a point in Luke where Jesus is talking about his second coming. That time when he will usher in the kingdom of God in its fullness. When justice is done. When everything that’s wrong will be made right again.

But he’s not asking us to “just” wait. There’s something else we can do. Something important.