Why Should Christians Care About Waiting Their Turn?

The people behind us are our neighbors

You are waiting to collect something at a counter when a familiar face waves you forward. Several people have been standing there longer. Moving ahead would save a few minutes and avoid an awkward conversation with your friend. Staying where you are recognizes something easy to overlook: those other people have appointments, responsibilities and tired feet too.

James and John asked Jesus for places beside him in glory. Mookgo Solomon Kgatle reads their ambition against Jesus’ call to serve. The question reaches beyond whether we enjoy being important. It asks what our importance is for. Friendship with someone at the desk, responsibility in church or professional standing should make us more attentive to other people’s access. ^{1, 2}

Jesus says that the Son of man came “not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45). Matt Skinner emphasizes that Christ’s death does liberating work beyond offering a good example. We do not earn this gift by patiently standing in line. We receive it, and learn to use our opportunities in its light. ^{1, 3}

Philippians 2 begins with consolation in Christ, love and “fellowship of the Spirit”. David Alan Black shows why these opening verses belong with the account of Christ’s humility that follows. Shared grace grounds the appeal to consider one another. The Lord who took the form of a servant remains divine; humble service reveals his character rather than canceling his deity. ^{1, 4}

Michael Joseph Brown distinguishes unity from uniformity in this passage. Equal regard does not require that everyone have the same task or receive precisely the same assistance. Ryan Schellenberg also warns against using humility to conceal unequal power. A powerful person telling the overlooked to wait meekly may be avoiding the very consideration Paul requires. ^{5, 6}

A fair turn expresses shared standing

Johann Go argues that queues concern our relationship with one another as well as the distribution of time. An orderly line can communicate that ordinary people have a claim to consideration without needing an influential sponsor. Cutting ahead for a friend can therefore cost more than the minutes it adds. It can suggest that the public arrangement is only for people without connections. ⁷

Elizabeth Anderson’s account of equality makes the relational point sharper. A person should not have to establish their inferiority or grovel before someone powerful to receive ordinary consideration. At a church registration desk, a new visitor should be able to understand how to obtain help without first locating an insider willing to speak for them. ⁸

Tyler John and Joseph Millum argue that arriving first does not generate an unlimited moral entitlement. Yet people participating in a reasonably just cooperative arrangement have reasons to respect its rules, and organizers have responsibilities toward those who relied on them. When others have accepted a common wait, privately obtaining an exception can take advantage of their cooperation. ⁹

Michael Sandel asks us to consider what a good or service is for before deciding how access should be distributed. An ability to pay more, or a willingness to press harder, does not establish greater need. A congregation distributing ordinary assistance should examine whether its process serves the people the assistance is intended to reach. ¹⁰

There is also a difference between a bottleneck, where everyone can eventually be served, and scarcity that leaves some people without the good altogether. Gil Hersch and Thomas Rowe develop that distinction. Benjamin Avi Itzhak and colleagues show how arrival order and the amount of service required can pull in different directions. One rule cannot settle every arrangement in advance. ^{11, 12}

Explain legitimate differences and question private favors

A clearly announced appointment system, assistance for someone unable to stand, and a separate counter for a brief task can serve reasonable purposes. McGuire and Kimes’ hypothetical restaurant study found that participants distinguished arrangements based on party size or calling ahead from an influential official’s special treatment. The relevant question is why an exception exists and whether its reason can be explained to those affected. ¹³

People’s reactions deserve attention without becoming the sole test of fairness. Rafaeli and colleagues’ computer based waiting experiment found a single line felt fairer than several lines, even without overtaking in the multiple line condition. In Zhou and Soman’s imagined licensing scenarios, unequal waiting durations could trouble participants even when arrival order was respected. Clear rules and actual burdens both deserve a hearing. ^{14, 15}

Quietness cannot safely be counted as approval. In Milgram and colleagues’ selected New York waiting lines, reactions to staged intrusions varied with where people stood and whether others intervened. Someone may dislike what is happening while choosing to avoid a dispute. A leader should not treat the absence of protest as evidence that a favor harmed nobody. ¹⁶

Perry and Zarsky’s discussion of consent adds a useful boundary. An invitation to go ahead must be free and informed, and one person cannot authorize the use of everyone else’s time. You may offer someone your own place when the arrangement permits it. You cannot assume that friendliness between two people settles the claims of the whole line. ¹⁷

A well known photocopier study by Langer and colleagues found that the framing of a small favor affected acceptance. Folkes’ partial replications complicated a simple account of automatic compliance: the reason given could matter. These were requests to individuals, not a license to bypass a crowd. Courtesy should invite truthful explanation, never become something we manipulate with an invented urgent excuse. ^{18, 19}

Ajay Gandhi’s fieldwork in Old Delhi describes different local arrangements of waiting and influence. It gives us reason to examine the particular process before judging everyone in a place by one encounter. Ask where the line begins and whether someone has already registered. Seeking clarification can protect fair treatment while leaving room for facts you have not seen. ²⁰

Make access possible without needless strain

Julie Rose distinguishes time available for chosen purposes from time required by necessary work and care. Someone else’s spare hour may be much smaller than it looks. Jeppe von Platz adds that making participation possible and fairly sharing cooperation’s burdens are different questions. A process can admit everyone while routinely placing its avoidable costs on people least able to absorb them. ^{21, 22}

Go’s analysis of bureaucratic burdens extends the concern beyond minutes. Finding the right information, understanding instructions and physically reaching a service all take effort. An arduous process does not automatically identify the people who need help most. At a volunteer desk, clear directions and a way to ask a question can matter as much as the order of the chairs. ²³

Patience also needs protection from misuse. In a selected Buenos Aires welfare office, Javier Auyero’s ethnographic work describes how uncertainty and repeated waiting could produce compliance. We should be wary when an organizer praises people’s endurance while declining to correct unnecessary delay. Bearing inconvenience graciously does not absolve the person who can make the arrangement more humane. ²⁴

The Principles of Universal Design recommend flexibility, understandable information, low physical effort and equivalent access when identical access is impractical. That gives a church serving team concrete work: make instructions available in more than one form, allow room for assistance, and avoid making the ability to stand for a long time the unofficial price of a fair turn. ²⁵

Donald Norman’s discussion of waiting recommends understandable entrances, categories and feedback. A number system can preserve order while allowing people to sit. When using one, explain where the number comes from and how it will be called. A clever system that newcomers cannot understand simply moves the difficulty somewhere less visible. ²⁶

Give people information they can use

David Maister’s practitioner essay highlights the discomfort of uncertainty and unexplained waiting. Organizers can acknowledge that someone has arrived and say what happens next. In Munichor and Rafaeli’s university telephone experiment, position information reduced abandonment compared with music or apologies. A useful update tells people about the process rather than merely repeating that their patience is appreciated. ^{27, 28}

Accuracy matters. Efrat Treister and colleagues’ emergency department research found that information did not have a uniformly reassuring relationship with reported aggressive tendencies as waiting increased. The ordinary service lesson is modest: an estimate needs honest limits and updating. Giving a confident answer that no longer fits the situation may leave people less able to plan. ²⁹

Nor is entertainment a universal solution. Pruyn and Smidts’ study in three Dutch hospital clinics found that turning waiting room televisions on did not shorten perceived waiting time. An attractive environment was associated with satisfaction, but pleasant surroundings do not settle who should receive access. A comfortable chair is worthwhile care; it cannot make favoritism fair. ³⁰

Arveson and colleagues’ retrospective review proposes greater attention to how tolerable waiting is, alongside how long people estimate it lasted. The distinction helps a serving team evaluate an improvement honestly. A clear explanation may make an unavoidable wait easier to bear while leaving its duration unchanged. It still matters whether anyone can remove the avoidable part. ³¹

The person at the counter needs consideration too

Iglesias and Günther’s review examines how people explain delays, including whether they locate the cause in a person or in circumstances. The worker you can see may not control the missing supplies, computer failure or staffing decision. State the problem clearly, ask who can address it, and avoid making uncertainty about responsibility a reason to humiliate the nearest person. ³²

Rudeness can also affect what happens next. Porath and Erez’s student experiment found poorer task performance and less helping after an indirect rude remark. In Yue and colleagues’ simulated library encounters, participants who faced a rude customer received worse ratings in a subsequent encounter. Our frustration can become somebody else’s burden even after we have left the desk. ^{33, 34}

Give the person being served enough space to finish. Dahm and colleagues’ German ATM observations and student experiment examined the pressure felt by someone with others waiting behind them. A person learning how to complete a task should not have to perform competence for an impatient audience. Looking away, allowing room and withholding contempt can be small acts of neighborly care. ³⁵

Some work is simply hard to see. In Buell and colleagues’ small university sandwich experiment, observing preparation affected customers’ perceptions of value, although both groups received prepared sandwiches. A brief, truthful explanation of what staff are doing can help. It should make real work intelligible, while respecting privacy, rather than stage activity to distract from a preventable problem. ³⁶

Practice patience without surrendering judgment

Zhou and Soman’s ATM observations and hypothetical post office experiment suggest that seeing people behind us can affect our willingness to keep waiting. Our sense of progress is partly comparative. That is reason to check our judgment: satisfaction that someone else is farther back does not establish that the arrangement is good, any more than another line’s progress proves ours is unjust. ³⁷

Kate Sweeny’s proposed model of patience distinguishes feeling impatient from regulating its expression. A Christian may feel irritated and still answer gently. Paul Dafydd Jones also describes patience that chooses when to act and can challenge injustice without retaliation. We need neither pretend that waiting is painless nor make anger our only way of asking for change. ^{38, 39}

Proverbs 20:10 condemns “Divers weights, and divers measures”. Its immediate concern is dishonest dealing, rather than a rule for every queue. The moral challenge remains searching: do we expect one standard when others wait and another when our own convenience is involved? We can decline a private favor, explain a legitimate priority, and seek correction without treating anyone as an obstacle. ¹

Pentecostal confidence in the Spirit’s help belongs at an ordinary counter as surely as in a church gathering. Philippians 2 directs our attention to Christ and then says that God works in his people “both to will and to do of his good pleasure.” Our turn will come and go. The person waiting beside us remains someone to whom Christ calls us to show consideration. ¹