Zephaniah 3:14-20
Philippians 4:1-13
Luke 3:7-18
The Advent candle that we light for
today is the candle of joy. As we read
today’s passages, each one of them touches on the subject of joy in different
ways.
Starting with the passage from
Zephaniah, we see a community of people that have experienced deepest darkness. They have been taken from their homes and
sent into exile, they have lost everything they valued and no longer have a
home, a center, a temple. It seems that
God has abandoned them, left them, forsaken them. And the reason God gives for this is that
they have been acting unjustly. They
have oppressed their poor, their widows, those already in pain and grief they
have injured more. According to the
prophet it is their own behavior that has led them to this place, this place of
exile and alienation from God. They are
at rock bottom, and there is nothing more to lose, nothing more to grieve. All is gone.
Still, it is from that bottom, from that place of despair and
absolute loss that the light begins to shine.
There was nowhere to go but up, and when the Israelites hit that bottom,
only then was there room to finally make the changes they needed to be able to
return home, to reclaim their lives, to begin again and to live into joy. Only then could they look at their own oppressive,
hurtful actions. Only from that place of
themselves experiencing some of the pain they had inflicted on others could
they begin to change. Only then could they really look and see the way that
they held power and wealth at the expense of those who had little. Only then could they choose to be faithful to
God’s call for their lives, and in that faithfulness be answered by God with
the promise of return to new life. It is
after the weeping, after the exile, after the horribleness, after the dark
night that Israel is able to repent, to change and find herself then with the
promise of restoration, light in the darkness, and new life. That recommitment to God, that recommitment
to living the Godly life, to answering the call for justice and compassion, that
look towards what God is doing, towards the light that God is shining, only that
will bring the joy that God promises, that will bring the joy of new life.
Next we heard the passage today from Philippians. This passage contains the direction, the
admonition, to “rejoice in the Lord always.”
ALWAYS. But committing ourselves
to joy, fully, and at all times is frankly not an easy task. When we reflect on our own lives we know
this, but also as we reflect on the Biblical stories, like the one from
Zephaniah we know this to be true. We all
go through struggles, we all go through times when we feel God’s absence, when
it feels that there is little or nothing to rejoice about. Our challenge is to remember in those times
that joy is not the same thing as happiness.
Also, joy comes to us as grace from God.
It is a God-given gift. We still
have the responsibility to claim it or reject it, but it is a gift from God,
not something we can create in ourselves or by ourselves. My friend and colleague, pastor James
Lumsden, said it this way, “I start to realize that while God continually offers me the gift of
joy, I have to make room for it – if there’s no room in the inn of my heart for
Christ’s blessings – then the Spirit of Jesus is going to be born someplace
else and I’ll be the poorer for it.” JOY
takes practice, and it takes discipline.
It is a gift of grace – God offers us this joy, but unlike the “happiness”
that comes with Christmas, Advent joy, the preparing for Christ’s coming joy, requires
effort on our part, it requires us to make room for that joy. And that takes work. It does take looking at our lives, repenting
our lives, striking out in a new direction and choosing to follow God’s
call. That makes room for joy.
Fr. Richard Rohr speaks of this commitment to joy in this
way. He says, “I have committed
myself to JOY. I have come to realize that those who make space for JOY, those
who prefer nothing to JOY, those who desire the utter reality of JOY, will most
assuredly have it. We must not be afraid to announce it to refugees, slum
dwellers, saddened prisoners, angry prophets: now and then we must even
announce it to ourselves. For in the prison of now - in this cynical and
sophisticated are - someone must believe in JOY.”
What does that mean practically? It goes back both to the Zephaniah text, but
also to the passage we read today from Luke.
We cannot claim joy, real joy, unless we are doing God’s work, are part
of ushering in the kingdom to earth, are part of making the valleys rise and
the hills lower. We do this, as John
tells us today, by giving our second coat to the one who has none, by sharing
our food with those who do not have.
These aren’t really choices for Christians. John says we MUST share our coat if we have more than
one. We MUST share our food if we have
more than enough. That is following our
call, and that is how we claim the joy of God.
Sister Joan Chittister says, joy is the deep-down awareness of what it means
to live well, to live productively and to live righteously (that is for justice
and compassion). In other words,
Joy is God- centered, not us centered.
Joy requires looking beyond ourselves, and looking beyond the moment of
our own pain or struggles or thoughts, even beyond our own happiness. Instead, Joy is centered in doing God’s will,
doing God’s work, seeing beyond pain and death and into the awe and
wonder and amazing gift that is God.
In Ben Mikaelsen's book, Touching
Spirit Bear, a 15 year old juvenile delinquent named Cole has been given
the opportunity to change his life, change his path, change his future by
spending a year on an island by himself rather than the rest of his life in
jail. At first he is not ready to
change, but he, too, hits “bottom,” like the Israelites, when he is attacked by
a bear and faces the real possibility of his own death. He then comes to a place where he really is ready
to repent, to change, but there is much he has to learn in order to do
that. He goes back to the island after
his physical recovery from the bear attack, accompanied by two men, Garvey and
Edwin, Native American men who try to help him see his world differently. They tell him that his first step that
evening is to cook them dinner. This is
what follows.
“What would you guys do if I refused to cook anything?” Cole
asked with a wry smile, as he sharpened a sapling for a hot-dog stick.
Garvey crouched beside the fire and reached his palms toward
the flames to warm up. “First, we’d get
hungry. Then we’d take you back to
Minneapolis (and to jail).”
“What’s the big deal if I fix a hot dog or not?” Cole asked.
“It’s not the end of the world.”
“The whole world is a hot dog,” Garvey said.
“What does that mean?”
“Go ahead, eat a hot dog and I’ll show you.”
Cole poked a raw hot dog onto the stick and held it over the
fire. He hadn’t realized how hungry he
was, so he held the hot dog in the flames to cook faster. All the while, Edwin and Garvey stared
patiently. When the hot dog was charred,
Cole placed it on a bun. “Now what?” he
asked.
“Eat it.”
Cole squirted on a glob of ketchup, then devoured the hot
dog. Edwin and Garvey kept watching. “There,” Cole said, finishing. “I ate the hot dog. Now what?”
“How was it?” Garvey asked.
Cole shrugged. “Okay,
I guess. Why?”
“That hot dog did exactly what you asked it to do. You asked it to feed you, and it fed
you. No more, no less.” Garvey held out his hand. “Pass me a hot dog.”
Cole pulled another one from the cooler and handed it across
the flames. Garvey took the hot dog
carefully in his hands and examined it.
“This is a fine hot dog,” he said.
“The finest I’ve seen all day.” Carefully he slid it onto the stick. He started humming. Soon Edwin hummed along. For ten minutes they hummed the melody over
and over. All the while Garvey patiently
turned the hot dog over the coals, careful not to burn it. Finally, when the hot dog was a glistening,
crispy brown, Garvey drew the stick back from the fire. “The song we hummed is a song of friendship,”
he explained.
“What are the words?” Cole asked.
“There are no words because each person makes up his
own. That’s how friendship is.” As Garvey spoke, he rummaged through the
cooler, pulling out salt and pepper, cheese, a plate, cups and a tomato. He leaned a bun against a rock near the coals
to let it toast lightly, then wrapped it around the hot dog.
“You going to eat that thing, or play with it all day?” Cole asked.
Garvey smiled and kept working. He cut the hot dog into three pieces on a
plate and lightly shook on salt and pepper.
Next he cut slices of cheese and tomato and put them on top. With a flair, he added a small circle of
ketchup to each. Last he poured three
glasses of water. He handed one to Cole
and one to Edwin. “This is a toast to
friendship,” he said, raising his glass.
After taking a drink, he handed Cole and Edwin each a piece
of the hot dog he had prepared.
“That’s your hot dog,” said Cole.
“Yes, it is, and I choose to share it,” said Garvey. He began eating, savoring each bite. “Eat slowly,” he said, raising his cup again
to toast. “Here’s to the future.” After each bite, he raised his cup for a
different toast. “Here’s to good
health.” “Here’s to the sun and the
rain.” “Here’s to the earth and the
sky.”
When everybody had finished eating, Garvey turned to
Cole. “How was my hot dog different from
yours?”
Cole shrugged. “You
shared yours and acted like it was a big deal.”
Garvey nodded. “Yes,
it was a big deal. It was a party. It was a feast. It was a sharing and a celebration. All because that is what I made it. Yours was simply food, because that is all
you chose for it to be. All of life is a
hot dog. Make of it what you will. I suggest you make your time here on the
island a celebration.”
Cole scuffed at the dirt with his shoe. “What is there to celebrate?” he asked.
“Discover yourself,” Edwin said. “Celebrate being alive!” (2001: New York. Harper Collins. p145)
Celebrating being alive is choosing joy. Looking at things not with eyes of every day
cynicism or pain, but with eyes to see where God is moving, where God is
acting, where God is calling us to be, that is choosing joy. It sometimes takes hitting bottom, going into
and through the darkness to come to the place where we are ready to repent
enough to be open to God’s joy. But when
we do that, when we can take our experiences as launching places into new life,
then we become ready to do the work of repentance and opening ourselves to
God’s joy. Thanks be to God that the
gift of that joy, the grace of that joy is offered in every day and in every
moment! Amen.
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