St. Paul’s United Church                                                                  Advent 3, Sunday, December 14, 2008

Everyday Joy – Rev. David Mundy

Isaiah 61: 1-4, 10-14 1 Thessalonians 5:16-24

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About ten days ago I decided to go to my computer and checked back through the sermons I had preached for this third Sunday of Advent, which is the Sunday of Joy. I wanted to remind myself of what I had said about a wonderful yet somewhat elusive subject. Most of us have a sense of what joy is, but it isn’t easy to describe, in the way that it is not easy to put the love we feel into words.

It occurred to me as I read and pondered whether I had come close to “getting it right” that joy is a quality we know when we see it even when it isn’t easy to put into words. So I invite you to sit in the quiet for a couple of minutes and feast your eyes on some images of joy which I have chosen and will help you consider what joy means for you.

Of course I appreciate as you looked at the photographic and art images I chose you had other ideas of what should be the e on the screen. I should explain to you that the smiling little boy near the beginning is an AIDS orphan in the country of Malawi in Africa. The two paintings, one of the couple celebrating their marriage, the other of the old man in prayer are by the Russian/French artist Marc Chagall and by Vincent Van Gogh.

I felt that there needed to be some quieter images of joy as well, because for some of us our jumping days are over! And as one of our great hymns declares it isn’t just humans who are capable of joy, it is both heaven and nature that sing praise to God the Creator and Redeemer and Sustainer.

It shouldn’t be a surprise that our scripture readings for this day are about joy, the joy which is more than something we can drum up in ourselves but is actually a gift from God.

The Isaiah passage is a promise really to people who had been living in physical exile from their homeland. They were going to go home again, the prophet says, and their joy will be restored just as their villages and towns will be built up from the ruins.

We didn’t repeat our psalm today, psalm 126, but it is also about restoration and we find the words “may those who sow in tears reap with shouts of joy.” The psalmist appears to understand that life can be hard, and disappointing, and frightening but there is always the possibility of our joy being renewed.

Finally we heard from what is probably the first book of the New Testament, a letter written before the gospels, in which the apostle Paul makes a crazy request or command or whatever it actually is. He says

Rejoice always,

pray without ceasing,

give thanks in all circumstances

for this is the will of God in Christ in Christ Jesus for you.

Do not quench the Spirit!

Did this man Paul have rocks in his head? He doesn’t seem to understand what the psalmist speaks about in recognizing that sadness and tears are part of the human condition. How insensitive could he be? But of course Paul did know these basic truths and he had experienced them many times. Yet he still had a deep conviction that when Christ is our companion, as Christ had been in his heart and mind, we can know an everyday joy that cannot be easily doused or quenched. Sometimes we speak of quenching or dousing the flames of a fire. Rather than discouraging us, Paul wants to encourage us that our joy cannot be doused or extinguished.

The person who has offered the reflection on the back of our service bulletin today, Hilde Seal, puts it very well: “Joy is a condition of the heart. It flows deeper than happiness and can be present even when life seems too hard to handle . . . Never underestimate the strength of deep, God-gifted joy.”

It’s interesting that she makes the distinction between happiness and joy, because while happiness is mentioned in the bible, there are far more references to joy, and nearly always it is framed as a gift of God which sustains us in the tough times of life.

There has been a raft of books written in the past couple of years on happiness, and I have wondered if the reason for this flurry of reflection on the subject is because we live in a culture where we have so much of what we are told will make us happy yet we aren’t. If anything, the false promises that the next best thing or vacation or house or relationship will bring us satisfaction often creates chronic unhappiness. It’s always that something outside of us will make life better. We have to wonder if our current economic woes will result in greater unhappiness or if we will begin to assess what really counts in this life.

What the biblical writers want us to understand is that joy is what wells up from inside and keeps us going when the tough times come, as they inevitably do.

There are actually times when we are so filled with joy that it brims over in the tears we saw on the face of Olympic athlete Carolyn Huynh, can be tears of joy. I know this first hand. Earlier this year I had the amazing privilege of co-presiding at our son’s Isaac’s wedding to his bride Rebekah. The ceremony was only a few weeks after I went on restorative leave and days after my wife Ruth’s office building was destroyed by fire. Honestly it was one of the darker times in our life, yet we were looking forward to the wedding which was in Montreal, in the French-speaking church which they attend. Their pastor led the French part of the service and I did the English part. So, Ruth and I walked Isaac down the aisle and I took my place at the front. Everything unfolded just as we had planned, each pastor did his part without a hitch, and the vows were exchanged in both official languages. They were married!

Then I invited everyone into prayer to give thanks for their covenant with one another. To my dismay I suddenly sprouted a basketball in my throat. And I developed a major leak in both my eyes! I realized I was in trouble when every time I opened my mouth my vision blurred even more. When a minister can’t speak he or she is in crisis. I could feel the congregation willing me forward: “you can do it Big Guy!” and I did manage to finish. Even though I was rather embarrassed, in my spirit I was feeling joy. In the weeks after the wedding I tried to figure what happened, and I’ve concluded that it was a coincidence that my emotion welled up – and out – when I began to speak to God in such an intimate way.

We are now in the countdown to our celebration of Christ’s birth and some of us may not feel in a joyful mood this year as we remember loved ones who are no longer with us, or as we wrestle with the effects of a gloomy economic forecast. There are a number of us who have been faces with bad news about our health. Even those of us who are in good shape struggle with keeping up with the demands and expectations of Christmas!

If there is any time of the year that we need to find our way back to that simpler, everyday joy which sustains us it is now.

You may know the story of the two siblings in the same family who had very different personalities even though they had the same parents and same opportunities. One constantly felt that he was “hard done by” and he was jealous of his brother, who seemed to enjoy life so much more.

As Christmas approached, both children made their lists of possible gifts and the excitement built. The grumpy brother decided that he would do his best to sabotage the celebration for his sibling. On Christmas Eve he set his alarm for the wee hours of the morning and crept downstairs to the tree where he found the biggest package from his parents to his brother. He carefully unwrapped it, hid the contents, then filled the box with manure from a nearby farm. Then he wrapped the box again and slid back into bed.

When the family gathered by the tree he asked if he could go first in opening a gift and there it was, the Nintendo Wii that he wanted so much. But sure enough he felt a wave of disappointment and annoyance because the games he asked for weren’t included. Then he waited with glee as his brother began to open his box. He was stunned when his nasty trick was revealed and a look of joy brightened his brother’s face and he yelled “thank you!”

“How can you possibly feel good about this?”grumpy brother shouted as his shocked parents looked on.

“Hey, with a box full of this stuff, there must be a pony here somewhere!” There are no ponies here this morning but there is a manger with some sheep. We have our own powerful story of God-with-Us, in Christ and it is God’s will for us that we experience joy in Christ.

At the risk of seeming simplistic or overly evangelical, I encourage you to give your hearts to Jesus as we continue to make our way toward Bethlehem. Christ will not or cannot stop the pain of this world but he can renew your joy.

I’ll leave you this morning with one more picture, this one created by a young artist in our congregation who wanted to offer her rendition of an angel who brings the joyful news of Christ to the world. Not only does “joy to the world” issue from the trumpet but the word joy surrounds the page.

Everyday joy. Thanks be to God!