Joy not Happiness: December 25, 2018

 Psalm 98, John 1:1-14   

                                        

            I do not know about the rest of you, but it seems that every year Christmas gets a little crazier.  I look forward to it every year and then the season seems to attack me mid December.  I can no longer stand the sound of Christmas carols.  The bright lights annoy me.  I turn into a scrooge and find myself counting down the days until the 25^th, when the madness is over, and I can finally take it all in, peacefully.   I realize that this is a precarious position for a priest to take. I mean, this should be the time when we love our job the most. Everyone comes to church, everyone is excited.  Yet somewhere along the line, it all became too exhausting.  Somewhere along the line, I forgot about joy.

              It’s not that you can every completely forget about joy. It’s on all the Christmas cards.  It’s in all the music.  But what is it really?  The word joy appears in the Bible about 250 times in some form or another.  Often, like in the Psalm for today, it is an expression of praise.  “Shout with joy to the Lord, all you lands; lift up your voice, rejoice, and sing.”  Psalm 98, like many of the Psalms, is a mix of praise and exhortation.  The Psalmist is not only praising God, he is encouraging others to do so as well. 

            One cannot help but wonder what was going on in the Psalmist life that would cause such excitement and spirit.  Some have concluded that this Psalm was the result of a military victory.  Verse 3 reads, “The Lord has made known his victory; his righteousness has he openly shown in the sight of the nations.”  I prefer to think that no event was the cause for this outpouring of joy, it was more of an awareness. 

            We know from our reading of the Psalms as a whole that the author(s) experienced many hardships.  The Psalms of lament are just as plentiful as the Psalms of praise and thanksgiving.  Many of the Psalms have elements of both lament and praise.  Even the most heart wrenching, and depressing Psalms end with praise.  It is easy to get in the habit of thanking God only when things are going well. Yet the Psalmist knew that God deserved praise at all times. 

            While some form of the word joy appears in the bible hundreds of times, forms of the word happiness only occur 25 times.  In the English language, these words are often used interchangeably.  But this is not so in the Bible. Happiness depends on circumstances.  If something good happens, then we are happy.  When we consider moments in our life when we were happy, they are almost always dependent on an event, like a wedding, or the birth of a child.  Joy has more to do with the spirit of God in you.  It does not depend on the situation.  It has to do with your knowledge and awareness of God’s action in your life.  By that rationale, you could experience sorrow, and still be joyful. 

            If you look up “how to be happy” on Amazon, you will get thousands of results.  There is a whole section called, “Happiness-self help.”  Most are how to books like, “How to make yourself happy”, “How we choose to be happy”, and “What happy people know.”  The majority indicate that your efforts will allow you to be happy.  That’s what happiness is about.  It’s about our own efforts providing positive outcomes.  If you look up “how to be joyful” on the same site, you will come up with much fewer.  Only about 10 are actually relevant and most are religious.  Why are their so few books on making yourself joyful? Because there is no systematic approach to being joyful.  It’s all about reliance on God. 

            So why even desire it? If it is not something we can achieve with our own hard work, what’s the point?  In C.S. Lewis’ autobiography, Surprised by Joy, he describes joy as, “an unsatisfied desire which is itself more desirable than any other satisfaction…I doubt whether anyone who has tasted it would ever, if both were in his power, exchange it for all the pleasures in the world.”   Well that sounds pretty tempting.  How do we acquire this elusive joy?  The most frustrating thing about joy is also the most beautiful thing about it. You can’t earn it. You can’t force it.  Whereas happiness is something we pursue, like we pursue any accomplishment, joy is something that is given.  It was given to us when God gave us the power to be the children of God. 

That line from John has challenged me during my sermon preparation.  “He gave them power to become children of God, who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God.”  This is a completely different understanding of power than we are accustomed to.   But when we put it in the context of joy, it starts to come together.  We have been given the power to become children of God.  And when we are able to fully appreciate that power, then we will know pure joy.  That does not mean that we will know constant happiness.  That does not mean things will fall into place and our life will turn out just as we always wanted.  It means that we have finally accepted our role as God’s children.  Jesus’ birth, death, and resurrection was what gave us that power.  And once we have that, we have no choice but to shout with the joy, and join with the rivers and the sea in exultation. 

            I suppose I have always put too much emphasis on the idea of being happy during Advent and Christmas.  Then, when I was not happy I thought I must be missing something.  Yet now I realize that it’s about joy, not happiness. If happiness comes along with it, all the better.  But for now, I will rest in my awareness of God’s presence and that will bring me joy.  So I wish you not a merry Christmas, but a joyful one. 

Expect the Unexpected: Dec. 23, 2018

Year C Advent 4                                                                      

Micah 5:1-5  

                                                                                     

            Advent is all about waiting, preparation and expectation.  That is what we have been telling you for three weeks now.  It’s true in that we are preparing for the birth of Christ. Our refrain when we light our Advent candles is “Come Lord Jesus.”  Yet here is the irony-- the readings we hear in the season of Advent, perhaps even the majority of the Bible stories we know and love-- tells us that God loves to surprise us.  Essentially we are telling you to “expect the unexpected,” which might be the worst advice anyone has ever given or received.  It’s right up there with “don’t worry.”

            A few weeks ago we learned that Elizabeth, a woman previously considered barren, would give birth in her old age.  Her son would be a locust eating, camel hair wearing, prophet. Instead of acquiring a religious degree and living in one of the places of power (like Jerusalem), he preached from the wilderness and told people to repent.  He was an unexpected prophet.  But then again, who better to prepare the way for a Messiah who would shock the world with his refusal to conform and his insistence on associating with the marginalized and oppressed?

            As we know, John was not the only prophet who was a little different.  Our Old Testament is chock-full of prophets, typically the people you would least expect to be prophets.  Micah was a prophet who lived about 700 years before the birth of Jesus Christ. The first verse of our reading for today speaks of a siege.  The city of Jerusalem was under siege.  They were trapped by their own walls.  Defeat was inevitable.  The city and the king would fall.  Imagine what that would be like, just waiting for death or imprisonment, knowing there is nothing you can do to escape. Yet after that verse which declared the siege and the imminent destruction of all they knew and loved, Micah switched gears.  “Bethlehem, who are one of the little clans of Judah, from you shall come forth one who is to rule Israel.” 

            Bethlehem had a certain notoriety at that point in time.  That was where King David had come from.  King David had been an unlikely king.  He was a shepherd and the youngest of his family.  It was an odd choice for God.  However, as one would expect of one chosen by God, he was a mighty king.  It was expected that the Messiah would come from the line of David.  However the line of David and the hometown of David are two different things. This reference to a Messiah coming from the same backwater town of David was strange.  It was especially strange that Micah would bring it up at this very point, when they were under siege and their present king was about to die.

            Yet isn’t that often the way--when we feel as though we are truly under siege--relief and hope can come in the most unexpected places….or in the most bizarre dreams.  Micah prophesied something almost unimaginable.  This leader, born in the small town of Bethlehem, would rule not with money and armies, but with a shepherd’s crook. Instead of depriving people of things to enforce his rule, he would feed the people.  He would do all these things in the strength of the Lord.  He would bring peace to his people who are now under siege. 

            While that sounds very nice, we know now that none of the people Micah was talking to would experience that peace on earth.  The city was taken over. Many of the people were enslaved.  But that picture that Micah painted never quite faded.  It lived on in people’s hopes and dreams. It gave those who remained something to live for.  It gave those who died, a foretaste of their imminent future in life everlasting. 

            Our Bible is full of prophesies and dreams.  So many of these visions from our prophets contain God’s dream for us.  They are full of hope and promise.  We ignore them at our own peril.  Unfortunately our divine imagination has been limited by the acceptance of our present reality.  Many consider the stories of the Bible as fairytales or myths.  But these stories contain radical truth.  They may be hard to believe, but some of the most extraordinary things in life are things we never could have imagined.  The more comfortable we become with our present reality and the more reluctant we are to imagine God’s dream for us, the less likely we are to experience the dream. 

            Our Gospel reading contains what we refer to as the Magnificat.  It is essentially written in the form of a song.  But it is more than praise or worship.  It is prophesy.  It is God’s dream for our world—a dream that Mary interpreted for all of us.  “He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.  He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things, and the sent the rich away empty.” She was able to articulate that dream because that dream lived within her in the form of an unborn child.  A child who would turn the entire world upside down.  What people thought was reality wasn’t real at all.  Jesus brought the world truth. 

            700 years before Mary shared her prophesy, Micah prophesized about a shepherd who would feed his people and bring peace to a violent nation.  Jesus was a carpenter, not a shepherd, but he fed the people.  He fed thousands with a couple fish and a loaf of bread. He inspired thousands more with his words and actions.  That was only in his lifetime.  Billions, trillions have been fed by his legacy of love since his death and resurrection. 

Yet….despite all that….we know that he did not bring peace. Look at Israel.  It is a land that has never known peace.  And our nation isn’t much better.  Violence plagues us.  Some look around and conclude that Jesus’ words and actions had no effect…no better than a dream. That could not be farther from the truth.  A dream only remains a dream if we refuse to allow it to manifest.  

                        We still carry the dream.  But we have to do more than carry it. We have to do more than talk about it in our churches.  We must live like that dream of peace and salvation is real for us...like we are trying to bring it forth, not just in the next life, but this life. In John’s Gospel, Jesus told his disciples, “Do not let your hearts be troubled.  Believe in me...”  No matter how troubled our hearts become, we cannot give up the dream.  Christmas is almost upon us.  Let us take that day and the 12 days after to bask in the glow of that dream, a dream that became real in the form of a baby boy.  That dream lives today in our hearts and actions.  Carry the dream. Share the dream.  One day it will be the only reality we know.

Walking in Shadow: December 9, 2018

Year C, Advent 2                                                                 

Luke 1:68-79                                                                           

            My husband and I did not have any advance notice when we learned that a baby would be placed with us.  We received the call the day of our son’s birth and were told we had to pick him up the next day.  It was a 12 hour drive.  Fortunately we had a lot to discuss in that 12 hour drive.  One of the topics was what we would name him. We had not talked about names.  It was just too hard to discuss tangible things like names and registries when we had no idea when we would have a child.  During those 12 hours we narrowed it down to a few names.  However, as soon as we saw him, we knew none of those names would work. He didn’t look like an Isaac or a Jacob.  We had Joshua for 3 days before we settled on a name.  By then we were already sleep deprived and completely overwhelmed with the suddenness of it all. Once we settled on the name Joshua and announced it to our family, I looked at my husband, who is also an Episcopal priest, and asked, “What’s the biblical meaning for Joshua.” He said, “God saves.  It’s the anglicized version of Jesus.”  I replied, “We just named our child Jesus?  Because having two priests as parents isn’t bad enough, now we put the entire salvation of the world on him?” While this concerned me a little, I was too tired to come up with another name and we had already told the whole family.  Jesus it was.

            Naming a baby is a big deal. It always has been. Our psalm today isn’t actually from the Book of Psalms. But it is still considered in the psalm genre. It is Zechariah’s response to the birth and naming of his son.  Zechariah and Elizabeth had wanted children for a very long time. However, Elizabeth was considered barren as she was past the age when woman normally had children. In today’s digital age, we have all kinds of creative birth announcements--but I challenge any of you to find a more unique birth announcement than the one Zechariah received. 

He was in the temple offering incense to God.  Most Jewish priests only had this opportunity once in their lifetime.  It was an extraordinary honor. According to Jewish belief at the time, he was about as physically close to God as any human could be.  He was there at the altar in a cloud of incense when an angel appeared to him and said, “Do not be frightened, Zechariah; your prayer has been heard.  Your wife Elizabeth shall bear a son whom you shall name John.”

            Now since we are in church and this is the Bible, we don’t think too much of this kind of birth announcement. But consider it for a moment.  Imagine if you experienced that today, or heard about it today. Would you believe it?  Probably not, even if it was on the internet, we would assume it was some kind of hoax.  Angels don’t deliver messages to regular people.  Therefore, we really can’t blame Zechariah for reacting with disbelief.  He asked the angel how could this be as both he and his wife were old.  Well apparently this did not please the angel and Zechariah was struck mute. (My husband has a theory that striking Zechariah mute was actually an act of mercy because who knows what would have happened to him if he went and told his dear wife that she was too old to have a baby.)

Whether his muteness was a punishment or a gift, I cannot help but think about how hard that must have been….to be mute for 9 months, after such an extraordinary thing happened.  He probably didn’t try to communicate the event since he didn’t believe the angel’s words initially. However once Elizabeth told him the astounding news that she was indeed pregnant…imagine how he must have felt. Did he try to write the story all down, or did he still doubt and wonder? 

            I like to think that he held it inside himself and turned it over in his mind and heart while he marveled as his supposedly barren wife’s belly grew.  He must have communicated with her eventually as she knew that her son’s name was to be John.  In our reading for today, a group of family and friends was gathered 8 days after the birth for the circumcision. This was also where they traditionally named the male child. Elizabeth shared that his name would be John, but the friends and family wanted confirmation from the father.  Since he could not speak, he wrote the name out.  “His name is John.” It was then and only then when Zechariah was able to speak again.  You would think the first words out of his mouth would have been something like, “The craziest thing happened to me…”  But no, the text tells us that the first thing he did was praise God and share the prophesy that we heard today as our psalm. 

The prophesy started with praise of God and ended with words about who his son would be.  “You my child, shall be called the prophet of the Most High, for you will go before the Lord to prepare his way, To give his people knowledge of salvation by the forgiveness of their sins.” That seems like a lot of pressure on a kid.  I might have named my child after Jesus, but at least I didn’t declare him a prophet.  However, then Zechariah switched gears a little. He said “In the tender compassion of our God the dawn from on high will break upon us, To shine in those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death, and guide our feet in the way of peace.”

Zechariah’s son did not end up having a very easy life.  His job was to prepare people for Jesus. He did that by talking about sin and judgment, but also offering opportunity for forgiveness.  In the end, he was killed because he insisted on speaking truth to people in power.  He did all of that because he truly believed that Jesus was that dawn that would break through the darkness.  Sometimes when we read these stories in church, we find ourselves relegating them to the past.  John was the prophet who paved the way for Jesus.  But then he died.  Even Jesus, who died and was resurrected, seems to stay relegated to the past.  We cannot leave these stories in the pages of our Bible.  We still need a dawn to break upon us.  While we have experienced the light of Christ, we still find ourselves dwelling in darkness and the shadow of death.  We have accepted darkness and death as our cultural norm.  In Advent we are reminded that while we may feel as though we are surrounded by darkness, we are merely walking in shadow.  If there is shadow, then that means there has to be light somewhere. The light is always there if we look long enough and never give up hope. 

The angel told Zechariah to name his son John.  John means, “gift of God.”  We might not all be named John, but we are all gifts of God and children of God. We are all here on this earth to remind people that Jesus isn’t dead.  We are here to remind people that even the longest night will come to an end.  Morning always comes.  My husband and I waited for a baby for 7 years and there were times when I felt suffocated by the hopelessness of it all.  Morning doesn’t always come as dramatically as a newborn, but it always comes.  Sometimes it comes with rain and clouds, but behind it all, we know the sun is there.