Do This With Joy

12.16.2018 Lk 3 7_18_ Phil 4 4_7 (1)

I think of all the church seasons, Advent is my favorite. Advent has a mood about it that appeals to me as I’ve gotten older, lived more, loved more, grieved over the deaths of family members, beloved church members, and experienced the transitions and changes that life inevitably holds. Plus some of my favorite hymns and tunes are in this season: Classics like “Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence”; “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel” and “Of the Father’s Love Begotten”; as well as newer hymns like “Now the Heavens Start to Whisper”, “My Soul Gives Glory to My God”, and “View the Present Through the Promise.”

The variation of voices describing the glorious, mysterious, strange, and startling ways in which God comes creates a beautiful mosaic in these four weeks, carving out footpaths in the wilderness. Advent is a twilight time; darkness and light blend together casting shadows against the backdrop of a shifting sky of royal hues: pinks, purples, and ever-deepening blues.

I also love Advent because this season offers us the gift of practicing how to wait well. I don’t know about you, but I need this gift on a yearly basis, to hear stories every year that call for a slowing down and paying attention. Advent bids us remember our call as disciples of Jesus is to stand up and raise our heads and awareness about the goings-on around us, and to recall the promises of our relentlessly faithful God who lives and moves and comes to us in time and who works justice and righteousness in all times.

Yes, Advent is full of expectation and anticipation for something beyond our wildest and most faithful imaginations, offering a different kind of joy – a slow, thoughtful leading towards the mystery and celebration of the coming of God into our midst as one we can see, touch, hear, and welcome into our lives. God comes to us in our most profound griefs, hopes, and joys.

Which is glorious, but also comes with risk. God’s coming has consequences – things will not be the same, and that means as disciples we must adapt and change as God comes into our lives and our world. There is no risk assessment that can fully prepare us for such an arrival, and no reducing the likelihood of its coming, for in fact the Reign of God is already here. Therefore, what kinds of preparations need to be made?

John the Baptist has some suggestions. But unlike his cousin Jesus, who said things like “go and sell everything you have and give it to the poor and then follow me”, and “whoever doesn’t hate family and life itself cannot be my disciple”, John’s instructions for preparations are doable!
“If you have two of something, share! If you are in positions where your job allows for lining your pockets and cutting corners, don’t do it! Be ethical and just in your relationships and don’t use your power to make other peoples’ lives miserable.”

John doesn’t tell people to have perfect worship attendance, to overthrow the Empire, or to transform the world in some sudden, dramatic fashion. No, he tells them the same things that my parents taught my sister and me: Share with one another. Be kind to one another. Don’t fight. Be fair. Don’t hoard, or lord what you have over one another.
Truly, I think John’s message of fundamental goodness and justice genuinely practiced would knock the support beams out from under every out-of-whack, crooked, unstable, upside-down, oppressive structure and system we’ve built and benefit from as a society.

And in response to brother John, I think brother Paul would say “yes, do all of these things, and do it with joy.” For without joy as our foundation, faithfulness becomes rigid fundamentalism, relationship gives way to rule-following, and compassion is replaced by calculated competition to ensure “I” have more than “you”, and “we” are better than “them.” Joy is the stabilizer for the works of goodness and justice to be sustainable.

But I believe John had joy – he had it in utero upon hearing his Aunt Mary’s voice when he danced like Snoopy when a piano starts to play. John’s joy came from knowing One more powerful was on the way, and whose coming would set in motion the processes of turning this world right side up. This is what drives him to speak with such passion.
Paul had joy, too, and the understanding of what it sounds like when joy, or love, is absent: a noisy gong or clanging symbol, rattling on about nothing. Finding joy in unlikely and surprising places is part of the waiting: where is joy in your life? Where is joy in the world around you? What does joy look like? Smell like? Feel like?
Let me tell you a few places where I’m finding joy these days:

I’m discovering joy in serving dinner on my grandmother’s Spode Christmas dishes – the ones that she had for decades and served hundreds of meals on and that stayed on her cabinet shelves all year because Christmas was her favorite season. For the longest time I thought I wouldn’t want them – I’m a millennial who has no place for seasonal table settings.

Except after she died in March, I wanted these dishes and coffee cups with their matching saucers because I wanted to set my Christmas table for family and friends like my grandmother always did, continuing the tradition of serving meals made with care and joy for those I love.

I found joy in being snowed in for much of this past week. (Actually, it was joyful for the first 3 days, on day 4 it got to be too much.) There was time to read books that were good for my spirit, not just for vocation. I had time to write cards and make phone calls all at a prayerful pace. And I spent more extended time than I’ve been able to in awhile with my husband and dog, nurturing relationships and working on projects at home together.
And I find joy today experiencing the fullness of God’s love for Sardis Baptist Church as a granddaughter bringing a Word today to a church my grandfather nurtured, pastored, and loved, who wore perhaps one or a few of the ties that now make up this stole as he proclaimed the Good News in this place.

I find great joy in that 30 years ago, joy became a taproot for this congregation determined with the grace of God to be a place for people who’ve been wandering in the deserts of faith for a long time, and who need to discover there is life, there is a community willing to experiment with living faith differently.

So keep on being Christ for one another and for the community around you – do it with joy.
Keep on asking the question of God, “what should we do?” – do it with joy.
Keep on being a people who love God and are committed to loving what God loves – do it all with joy!
Be a true center of rejoicing: a community of diversity held together in integrity and care for all God’s creation, and above all, do it all with the joy of knowing you are being formed into this community, together. Amen.

“So let a joy keep you. Reach out your hands and take it when it runs by.” ~ Carl Sandburg