5-9-21
Grace and peace to God our divine parent, and from our
crucified and risen Lord Jesus the Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit.
Amen.
What do you think of when you hear the word “joy?” It’s
one of “the fruits of the spirit,” from Galatians; it’s one of the four candles
on our wreath in Advent; and the first word in one of our favorite Christmas
carols. You know the one “Joy to the world!” But is Joy just a “churchy” word
we use to decorate Christmas ornaments and hear in Easter hymns?
The world around us, especially lately, doesn’t seem to
be contain a lot of Joy – while the vaccine role out is improving in much of
the United States, and the covid positive rate in our county has been falling,
we are still dealing with the very present realities of the past year – losing
family members, losing jobs, losing year of our lives to milestones and plans.
If you are not feeling “joyful” right now, even with
things in our lives “going back to normal,” that’s ok. While our state and many
communities around our country are lifting restrictions as covid cases go down,
we find some distressing things coming back with a vengeance that we’re
considered very regular in the before times – mass shooting events, income
inequality, and crisis in our mental health.
This is not to mention the personal tragedies and
struggles we each experience every day without a pandemic. Where can joy be
found during all of these troubles? Joy seems nowhere to be found right now.
In the way of many children’s movies, I happen to love
how Joy is described in the Pixar movie from a few years ago called “Inside
Out.” According to the movie, Joy is a blue-haired, green dress wearing person
of unlimited optimism and the voice of Amy Poehler. Joy, along with
Disgust, Sadness, Fear, and Anger, are personified emotions inside the head of
an eleven-year-old girl named Riley.
Sadness and Joy find themselves lost deep in Riley’s
brain while on a mission to get back some of her formative memories. At every
turn, Joy is frustrated by Sadness’s… Well, BEING SAD. Joy keeps being
dismissive toward Sadness… that is, until… Joy finds herself trapped in a dark
place called The Memory Dump, and needs Sadness’s help. There, Joy discovers
that our most joyful memories only feel so joyful because sadness was part of
them too. And they forge a powerful, if unlikely friendship, because of the
experiences they had together.
In a similar way, is there a possibility that Jesus might
be on to something, that joy can also be found in the everyday, mixed up
together in the pain and troubles of the world and in our own lives?
Jesus told his disciples “Do not let your
hearts be troubled.” He said this back in John chapter 14, at the start of his
goodbye speech, on the night that he was betrayed – Maundy Thursday. That’s
right, we are “back” in Holy Week even though we are in the sixth week of the
Easter Season.
How incredible it seems that here is Jesus, talking about
love and joy, just hours before the disciples would scatter in fear
and dread… abandoning Jesus to be arrested, falsely tried, and sentenced
by crucifixion. On such a night, right before all of this pain was to come to
pass, love and joy seem terribly out of place.
Love and joy seem nowhere to be found when your rabbi and
teacher says things like he’s leaving you, and that the world
will hate you in his name. Love and joy seem nowhere to be found when
Jesus tells you that the greatest love, which he commands you to emulate,
possibly might mean laying down your life.
But it turns out that Easter Joy is only complete because
of Maundy Thursday and Good Friday. Joy is complete when that Jesus chose to be
his disciples a rag-tag band of perfectly flawed human beings, though they be
betrayers, deniers, and abandoners.
Joy is complete on the darkest night that Jesus ever had,
when he chooses to break bread with US – rich and poor, queer and straight, the
power-full and the power-less, with abled and the differently abled, the neuro-
divergent and neurotypical, young children and wise elders.
Joy is complete in seeing the beautiful image of God in
the faces of people of all faiths, races, cultures, languages, genders, sexual
orientations, and ALL family configurations.
Joy is complete when just when you thought that death had won, joy is
that NEW LIFE HAPPENS.
It may have appeared a little odd to still be back to the
night that Jesus was betrayed during the celebratory season of Easter. But we
know that you cannot have one without experiencing the other. New life cannot
happen apart from death. Resurrection cannot happen without crucifixion. Easter
cannot happen without Good Friday. Joy cannot exist apart from being open to
the possibility of discomfort.
The reason that we have no need for troubled hearts in
this troubled world and in our troubled lives is not because Jesus makes the
lives of his followers into easy and overflowing with cupcakes and lattes. Being
a friend of Jesus does not earn us any bonus points or bragging rights or a
ticket to easy street. Just look at the lives of Mary, Peter, James, John,
Paul, and the rest, after the resurrection. Their preaching of the joy
of Jesus brought them: prison, pain, and persecution.
But when we do the will of Jesus, when we follow Jesus
commands to love one another… THAT is where Jesus continues to impact our lives
and our world. Like the memories of people who we love who are no longer with
us – their love and their memories live on in us, in what we do in their name.
And so, even when they no longer here, they are not actually gone. As Jesus
said, “Do this, in remembrance of me.”
Joy is complete that Jesus chooses US to be his disciples
too, also flawed and imperfect human beings. Joy is complete by being chosen as
children of God, and through us our faith is conquering the world in a
revolution – not of might and power, but a revolution of peace and love and
understanding and friendship. Thanks be to God. Amen.
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