Be Joyful

Be Joyful

A Sermon on Philippians 4:1-9

By Griff Martin

For the Beloveds of First Austin: a baptist community of faith

On Sunday October 15, 2017

Incarnate God, we ask that you once again take the Word and transform it into a living and breathing Resurrected reality we can all together experience. Be present here in this space and in these words God for if you are present here then nothing else will matter, but if you are not present here then nothing else will matter. In the name of the Creator, the Risen Christ and the Comforter.  Amen.

Rejoice in the Lords always, and again I will say, rejoice.

Be joyful….

Anne Lamott’s pastor often reminds her congregation that one of the most repeated commands in the bible is rejoice, and she follows that up with “so to rejoice that means that a lot of us have to get our joice back.” Which seems more than fair these days.

When I read the lectionary texts for today my first thought was give me a break, you have got to be kidding me? Because joy seems about the furthest common human experience for most of us today, these are not days many of us are calling joyful. And if you are calling them joyful, well the rest of us are a bit concerned about you and want to let you sit at your own lunch table.

As a friend texted me a few weeks ago who has just received word of a bad medical diagnosis in their family, her text simply read: “Welcome to 2017… The year that no one makes it out without at least limping.” And that seems fair to me, I mean I don’t have to tell you that this year has been a tough one. Most families that I know have faced one of the big three this year (and sometimes more than one): death, divorce or disease. For many in our congregation this has been the year that we dealt with aging parents, we said goodbye to a loved one, we had a dream come crashing down, we woke up to a reality we had long avoided, we got a medical test back with poor results, we experienced episodes with our kids.

We have gone through a lot of Kleenex this year in this building.

And then you add that to everything else that is going… hurricanes, earthquakes, mass shootings, rumors of nuclear war and then all the headlines that make your head spin… and Welcome to 2017, the year that no one makes it out without at least limping.

And so when I read Paul’s words to the Phillippians: “Be joyful.” I want to shake my head and argue. It feels like saying to the grieving widow, “Have no fears, God is in control.” It feels like quoting Romans 8:28 to someone just diagnosed with cancer. It feels like that awful nod and whisper “we’ve all been there” other people give you when your kid is having a fit in the middle of the aisle at Target.

And sometimes you just want to say, no let me have this moment. Or you want to shake the person who just offered you this advice and say no more of that cheesy Christian speak.

And that is what I felt when I read this text for the first time, surely this is a joke. I can’t preach this right now, this seems to be the last thing the world wants to hear.

And then I remembered sometimes the last thing we want to hear is the exact thing we need to hear.

So I read Paul’s words again: Be joyful. And then I thought there is only one thing I can do: I have to turn against Paul.

And suddenly God became tricky and I began to see joy everywhere.

It started when Holly Phillips had me in a most captive place as my dental work was being done and I asked her something about happiness and she responded by telling me all about the joys in her life. This was very frustrating for me because Holly is the only dentist I have ever enjoyed seeing and I really like her, but all this talk of joy and I was going to have to turn against her and Paul.

New York Times ran a cover story on our living Rock and Roll Saint Bono and U2’s new album and in the interview Bono starts talking about the sound of the new album and the word he used was joyful, the reporter questioned him on this word since U2’s albums have typically had a real political edge to them and tend to provide soundtracks for that time and Bono replied: for this album I learned that “Joy is an act of defiance.”

And so then, as sad as it was, I knew I had to turn on Paul and on Bono.

And then one morning a dear friend, who never sends me religious texts, but knew I was having a bad day and he simply sent me: “rejoice in the Lord always and again I say rejoice.” And he sent it with no snarkiness, even though I read it with lots of snarkiness.

And so then I had to turn on Paul, Bono and this dear friend.

And then I stumbled upon this scientific mega study on joy, a vast study composed of over 200 studies of 275,000 people that proved joy leads to success in nearly ever domain including work, health, friendship, sociability, creativity and energy. This included studies that among other things taught me that those who tend to be more joyful produce 50% more antibodies against the flu whereas those with less joy tend to take an extra 15 sick days a year.

Now add science to list of things I was suddenly over.

And then I remembered everyone in Symposium class who had raved about Desmund Tutu and the Dali Lama’s latest book, The Book of Joy.

And then I was going to have to turn on Paul, Bono, a friend, science, the entire symposium class, Desmund Tutu and the Dali Lama. And I decided maybe it would be easier to just surrender to joy.

So I sat with joy and with this text and I held on to the truth that this has been a very hard year for a lot of us… but then I began to see that is the truth of this moment right now (this is a present tense truth) and there is a bigger truth than that and Paul reminds us of those truths in this text: The Lord is at hand and the peace of Christ is with you and those are eternal truths.

Paul’s command to the church, a communal command it’s worth noting- this is for us to do together, it would appear joy can’t be done alone- and this command comes right in the smack middle of those other two reminders:

The Lord is at hand, the Lord is near to you, the Lord is present, the Lord is with you.

And the peace of Christ, the wholeness of Christ, the future coming, the future kingdom is still the reality of what will be.

And in between the reality that Christ is with you and Christ’s kingdom will come, we find joy.

And those truths so far outweigh the reality of the world at this moment that we can have joy.

And those are the truths on which the church and her people are called to stake their very lives.

And this is a verse that must be read in context: Paul was not sending them a Hallmark getting card, this is not syrupy spirituality or Christian speak. In fact it’s far from that. Things are not looking good for Paul or for the church when this letter is written. Paul is writing this letter from jail in Rome. I was in this space about a decade ago and it’s far from what we think of when we think of jail. It’s more of a cave, but very short, nowhere in the space could I stand up fully. It’s dark with only a small hole in the top. It would not have been a pleasant space. And Paul is not sure if he will get out or he will be killed…. And it’s in that space where Paul reminds this community that joy is critical to faithful living.

Paul finds joy in the midst of a very dark place

And the community, the church of Phillippi, is not doing a lot better. It would appear that this was one of the first communities Paul founded and they have struggled to continue to be a community. There is fighting within the community. They are dividing over theological issues and over leadership. They are experiencing persecution and hearing rumors of persecution. And they are scared that their founder might be killed soon…. And it’s to that church in that place that Paul reminds them that joy is critical to faithful living.

The church is reminded to be joyful in one of their darkest hours.

One commentator on this passage simply noted: “unaffected childlike joy in the Lord is the hallmark of the Christian life.”

Joy is foundational to Christ following.

Joy is one of the most important things we can hold on to as a community.

Joy is a spiritual discipline so needed in our world today.

Joy, unlike happiness, is not content bound.

Joy comes from the confidence and faith that no matter what happens we are connected to God and we are saved.

Joy is knowing that we are loved.

Joy is knowing that all will be well in the end.

Joy is the sign of the presence of the Risen Christ in our community.

Joy is a discipline of how we see, not what we see.

Joy is the outflowing of gratitude.

Joy is not escaping pain, joy is resurrection.

Joy is knowing we belong to Christ and nothing can separate us.

Joy is knowing there is a greater truth to which we hold.

And joy is terrifying, in fact history will show that joy is one thing that tyrants of every age have feared because they don’t understand it and it’s unstoppable.

Almost a year ago we lost a beloved member of this church, Donald Keeney. When Doug and I sat with Rachel to plan the service she had a few requests, one of them was that we would sing one of Donald’s favorite hymns Joy to the World. She said I know most people think of that as a carol, but Donald always said that song should be sung all the time and not just at Christmas.

I heard it in a new way at that service. And I have to tell you I agree with Donald.

In fact that hymn and the history of that hymn is very telling. We spend 4 weeks in Advent, four weeks where we focus on darkness and waiting and then we spend 12 days singing the carols of joy, hymns like Joy to the World.

And maybe that has nothing to do with hymns and everything to do with our own psychology. Brene Brown notes that in all of her research she has found that joy is the most vulnerable emotion that we ever feel. She says we are afraid to feel joy because we are afraid that if we give ourselves to joy we will get blindsided by a disaster or disappointment. Isn’t that telling?

Choose love not fear, choose joy not fear.

So how do we find joy?

We begin with a deep breath.

We risk being blindsided by disaster and disappointment.

We look around and see this community around us… a community that will hold us up when disaster and disappointment come.

We look up to that cross and we remember that love will win.

We choose to let something other than the headlines dictate our days.

We look around the world and say this is not all there is.

We choose to say that there is a better reality and we can live our way into it.

We choose to live in between the beautiful tensions that the Lord is at hand and the Kingdom will eventually come on earth.

We remember that on the night he was killed Jesus broke bread and shared stories and sang hymns, that Jesus knew joy was defiance.

We choose to notice…. We notice the crisp fall air, we notice the taste of dark coffee in the morning, we notice the last blooms on bouginviella, we notice the beauty of Mary Oliver’s poetry, we laugh at our children’s Halloween excitement, we smile at baseball practices, we cry when we hear the first notes of Swan Lake played or Tom’ Petty’s Freefalling, we stop and look up at the sky, we look into our lover’s eyes, we take our friend’s hands, we savor each bite of a warm chocolate chip cookie.

And upon noticing we are grateful.

And that is the beginning of joy.

And it might not make any sense, but neither does love or grace or beauty… so we just let it be, just like Mother Mary.

And in letting it be, we are Mary and we just might allow Christ to enter the world anew through our joy, our resistance.

So may we be joyful.

Amen and Amen.

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*artwork: Ask Me If I'm Happy, 2012, by Alberto Macone, useum.org/artist/Alberto-Macone