If there is anything worthy of praise, Live in the Joy.

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.

Sunday's Sermon - We do not know the hour

Isaiah 2:1-5

                                                                Romans 13:11-14                                   

Matthew 24:36-44

            I’d like to start today by asking the young people of all ages a question.   Have you ever had a babysitter come and stay with you?  When that happens, do your parents usually give the babysitter instructions on things you are supposed to do while they are gone?  Like what?  (going to bed at a certain time, doing your homework, cleaning up, getting a shower, etc.).  When your parents come home and those things HAVEN’T been done, how do your parents react?  And that reaction tells you that they feel…what?  You know they love you and you love them and so when your parent comes home and is disappointed or angry or sad, how do YOU feel?  So generally we try to do what others expect us to do, right?

            Okay, changing gears for a moment, I want to ask you another question: I want to invite you to think a minute about the greatest surprises you have experienced in your life.  If you feel so inclined, I would love it if you would share one or two of them with me.  They can be good surprises, or…not such good surprises.  Surprises thrown by life, or by family or by friends. 

Okay, you guys can go sit back down though I will use what you’ve said and thank you for your help with this. 

I’ve been thinking through the greatest surprises I’ve experienced in life so far.  Life is full of surprises, right?   Here’s a few that I remember experiencing…  I remembered the first time I put on glasses after having my first glasses prescription filled.  I remember looking out the window of the car, and seeing actual leaves on the trees and being deeply surprised, even SHOCKED that people could actually see those!  That was an amazing surprise, one I still remember because of how wonderful it was to be able to see in that way.  I’ve won things that I didn’t anticipate or think through at all.  Those were good surprises, too.  Finding friendship again & again in the people and places I least expected, those were awesome surprises.  When I went to work at Bethel, I went as an “interim” expecting to be there only a few short months since I thought the other pastor there would be too strong and hard to work with and for.  She was and is a very strong woman but I had the wonderful surprise of discovering how amazing she was to work with and to become good friends with this extraordinary pastor and person.  I ended up staying 8 ½ years in large part because I didn’t want to leave the amazing working relationship I had with this person I thought I wouldn’t want to work with at all!  That was a wonderful surprise.  Occasionally I’ve had the joy of experiencing the healing of a relationship –those, too have always surprised me in ways that leave me almost breathlessly grateful.  There have been bad surprises as well – deaths, divorces, people saying unkind things, traumas … surprises I did not and could not anticipate.  But whether the surprise was bad or good, anticipated at some level or completely unexpected, all surprises have something in common.  We don’t know when they will come.  We don’t know how they will come.  We don’t know IF they will come.  And even with all of that, they manage to still surprise us.

            The scriptures for today are all talking about an unexpected time.  A time we cannot know the date of (though people keep trying to figure it out and build whole careers on those guesses!) when God will come to us again in ways we cannot expect.  We will be surprised, we are told.  So knowing that a surprise is coming, even while knowing what that will be – God coming to be among us, but that it will happen in an unexpected way at an unexpected time, we are called to be prepared as much as we possibly can.  How do we do that?  How do we prepare for a surprise?  Or, going back to the first question that I asked, what is it that God has called us to do that we need to get done so that when God comes to us, in whatever way that may be and at whatever time that may be, like when our parents come home after a babysitter has been over, we are ready?  What is it that God wants us to do while we wait for Jesus to come, during Advent or at any time? 

            What are we called to do while we wait for our maker?  It is interesting that most of the time when we hear that phrase, “I am going to see my maker” we think of death.  But Jesus coming, God coming to be among us, Emmanuel, “God with is” is also a way we meet, or encounter, our maker, our God, our Lord.  And I believe we are to prepare for it actually, in the exact same way that we are called to meet our maker when we die.  Preparing to meet our maker, whether it be in the wondrous and amazing gift of a baby coming to be with us; or preparing to meet our maker because we are done with this life – both require the same preparation, the same attuning of our hearts to God, to looking for God, to hearing God, to seeing God, to experiencing God.

            In today’s scripture lesson from Romans, Paul said, ^“The night is almost over, and the day is near. So let’s get rid of the actions that belong to the darkness and put on the weapons of light.  Let’s behave appropriately as people who live in the day, not in partying and getting drunk, not in obscene behavior, not in fighting or jealousy or obsession.  Instead, dress yourself with the Lord Jesus Christ, and don’t plan to indulge your selfish desires.”

             So what is Paul saying?  How do we plan to “meet our maker” this Advent or any time, according to Paul?  Do you believe that Paul is trying to say that we should not enjoy things in this life because we never know when God is coming?  Well, I will just tell you straight out that I don’t believe that.  Jesus ate and drank – he turned water into WINE, he feasted and went to weddings, he allowed and even encouraged the indulgent expenses of oils to be poured on his feet.  No, I don’t think that’s the message.  I think the message IS to try to get your house, your spiritual house, in order.  And by that, I mean doing the things Jesus kept repeatedly telling us to do…learning to love ALL people, learning to love GOD, and learning to love ourselves.  And that may change the way we have fun.  It means having fun in a way that doesn’t damage others or ourselves.  It means having fun in a way that doesn’t ignore the pain of other people or exclude them or fail to love them.  But it also doesn’t mean failing to appreciate the good world that God has given us, or failing to enjoy it, or failing to delight in it. 

            We prepare by doing the things God calls us to do every day as if that were our last, as if we were “going to meet our maker.”  So, as a child of God who loves God, if you had only one day left to live, what would you do?  It may be hard to know what we might do in a situation like that.  But I think about what people did on 911 when they knew they were going down.  The stories are that they called their loved ones, when they were able, and told them they were loved.  They told them “thank you”.  They reassured them.  They prepared to meet their master by expressing love. 

            That is what we should be doing every day.  Expressing as much love, as much compassion, as much gratitude and caring (for others, for ourselves, and for God) as we can muster each and every day.

            We live in an uneasy world, an uneasy country right now.  We do not know what tomorrow will bring, truly.  Each day that we are given is an opportunity to do what God calls us to do.  Every time we see another human being in pain or being treated unkindly, we are given the opportunity to do things differently, to demonstrate compassion and love but also to stand up for one another.  Every day should be a day of preparing to meet the God who only calls us to do three things: love God, love neighbor and love self.  If we prepare for each day as if it were the day we would meet God, face to face, I cannot help but believe we would be behaving differently in the world.      

So here are some more specifics about what that might look like for us this Advent:  First, don’t leave any relationship unreconciled or unhealed, if there is any way to reconcile or heal it.  I know you can’t force that.  God knows you can’t force that.  But if you have left something untried or un-attempted in terms of healing with your sister or brother, now is the time to do it.  Second, don’t leave anyone short of hearing the words that you love them.  Say them today, this day, to everyone you love, and especially to those whom you have not had the courage to speak to before.  Third, don’t leave any “thank you” to God or to another human being unsaid, and leave no prayer unspoken.  Fourth, don’t leave anyone unforgiven.  Fifth, don’t leave anyone out in the cold, waiting for a blanket or warm food, or place of safety or healing that you have to give.  This is not easy.  I know that.  But I challenge you to remember Matthew 25 each day, that every time you offer food or warmth or comfort to someone else, you do it for God.  And every time we FAIL to do this, we also do it to God.

Does this mean that life needs to be nothing but work, work, work?  No.  We are also called to enjoy life.  If this were your “last day” you would do your best to relish and appreciate the life God has given you.  But do it, as you do all things, with love.

            Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “You can never do a kindness too soon because you never know how soon it will be too late.”  Life is full of surprises.  During advent we anticipate and remember the best surprise ever…the surprise gift of God’s coming to be with us in person as one of us, to walk with us and among us, to lead us, to guide us, to save us, and to overcome even death.  But each Advent we are called again to prepare.  To prepare as if we were going to meet our maker this very day.  And the best way to prepare is simply to do what God calls us to do every single day.  To love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul and mind.  And to love your neighbor as yourself.  Love, love, love.  Amen.