The Good News Proclaimed
Preached by the Reverend Elder Nancy L. Wilson at the
Sunshine Cathedral on Sunday, December 14, 2008.
Scripture: 1 Thessalonians 5: 16-18:
“Rejoice always, pray without
ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in
Christ Jesus for you.”
As the light of Advent grows, we light the candle of Joy today, and it
burns brightly in all Churches for those who will come near.
The first letter of Paul to the Thessalonians is the oldest writings of the
New Testament, and the earliest of Paul’s famous letters. It is a letter of
encouragement in the midst of stress, pressures, and even persecution. The
Church of Jesus Christ was only about twenty years old when he wrote it, half
the age of MCC today.
Paul speaks passionately to them with affection, as family. He urges
steadfastness, radical hope, and vigilance. In subsequent verses to the
passage we read, he tells them, and us, not to quench the Spirit, but to hold
fast to what is good! I want to say all those things to you today.
Imagine, if just for one day, we could do those things —
rejoice
constantly, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances
(notice, it is not for all circumstances…). Imagine if we could
manage it for a week. How would everything, even in one church community, be
totally transformed? Rejoice constantly, pray without ceasing, give thanks in
all circumstances. What a mantra for these times!
Paul was exhorting with all his heart to change the orientation of
this Church of Jesus. He wanted them to be oriented towards JOY.
In many ways, joy is connected to grace, and the grace of God in Christ was
everything to Paul. Joy was the affect, the sensate, feeling state of
grace.
Joy is not happiness. Happiness depends on our circumstances and mood. Joy
depends on our openness to God’s amazing grace. Joy cannot be planned, or
manufactured. It must be experienced. It is a gift.
Joy contains an element of awe. I am a birdwatcher, and I remember the day
the news broke that they had discovered a pair of Ivory Billed Woodpeckers,
thought to have been extinct, in the swamps of Louisiana. Hopes have now
faded, but recently a deacon from Church of the Trinity approached me with
that unmistakable joy in his face and voice telling me that someone from his
rural home town believed they had seen an Ivory Billed, what country people
call “The Lord God bird.” I have no idea if that could even be true, but the
joy and hope and sense of awe among us birders was contagious!
Holly Bridges Elliott, in describes joy this way:
“It happened to me… one noontime as I stood in the kitchen and watched my
children eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. We were having a most
unremarkable time on a nondescript day… I hadn’t censed the table, sprinkled
the place mats with holy water, or uttered a sanctifying prayer over the
Wonder bread. I wasn’t feeling particularly ‘spiritual’. But, heeding I don’t
know what prompting, I stopped abruptly in mid-bustle… and looked around me as
if I were opening my eyes for the first time that day.
“The entire room became luminous and so alive with movement that everything
seemed suspended — yet pulsating — for an instant, like light waves. Intense
joy swelled inside me, and my immediate response was gratitude — gratitude for
everything, everything in that space. The shelter of the room became a warm
embrace; water flowing the tap seemed a tremendous miracle; and my children
became, for a moment, not my progeny or my charges or my tasks, but eternal
beings of infinite singularity and complexity whom I would one day, in an age
to come, apprehend in their splendid fullness.”
Haven’t you ever had an experience like that at communion in MCC? Where the
ordinary gets transformed, barriers and defenses break down, and we are all
precious children of God streaming forward for a taste of joy?
I saws the movie “Milk” this week, and was so touched by the scenes of joy
and victory in those early days of the gay rights movement, even though you
know tragedy and loss is also coming, the joy is palpable.
On of my favorite stories of the surprise of joy, is the first MCC San
Francisco service. MCC was only a year old, and the story goes that a group of
MCCers went to San Francisco and met with some friends there. They rented
California Hall, and took out an ad in a newspaper. At 11:00 that Sunday, the
group of about 7 or 8 people waited, and no one showed. They knelt around the
table that they had prepared as an altar, and prayed and prayed, poured out
their hearts and disappointment, asking, imploring God to show them what to do
next. When they were finally done, they stood and looked up, and there was a
crowd of people watching them, silently! Then those who had been
praying just erupted in joy, and the first service began.
Joy is also transformation. It does not ignore pain or sorrow. It is not
naïve or superficial. Joy takes all into account, and embraces a larger,
transcendent experience that, like Julian of Norwich, knows that “all is well,
all is well, all manner of things are well.”
In Jamaica, today, circumstances on the ground, in terms of human rights,
have not changed all that much from three years ago, when MCC and Sunshine
Cathedral began a journey with our community. Yet, to be in their presence
today, to worship with them is to know JOY — the joy of belonging, of a
passionate message of inclusion and hope. The joy of the knowledge that
justice will come, that human rights will come, that God is with them.
Joy is the discipline of continuing to see God at work, to see victories,
even in the midst of enormous challenges. Pastor Kevin Downer, founder of
achurch4me
in Chicago, one of our newest MCC church plants, bubbles over
with Joy this season, as he writes to me this week, saying:
“Our theme this Advent is ‘Come with Joy’ — despite the (economic)
downturn, foreclosures, gang violence, all of which have touched someone in
our church directly, I am seeing joy…
“It occurred to me recently that the way to Christmas is through Bethlehem
— the lowly place of shepherds and servants not worthy or wealthy or clean
enough to reside in the nearby Temple of Jerusalem. Bethlehem where Rachel is
buried, where Ruth and Naomi covenanted to journey together despite convention
and their dire circumstances; Bethlehem where Samuel is sent to find God’s
anointed one from among Jesse’’s sons. Bethlehem, where God reminds the prophet
that God looks beyond the superficial things and chooses the forgotten one.
“‘Which Way to Christmas?’ we ask? Through Bethlehem, the city of humble
reality. Through Bethlehem, those deep valley experiences, where commitments
are made to journey onward despite the odds or convention or ridicule; our
Bethlehem, through times of uncertain choices, right here in the midst of the
profoundly mundane sloppiness and stinking dung heap of our messy earthly
existence — foreclosures, bankruptcies, addictions, disease, characteristics
that make us feel less than… this is where Christmas is found, where Christ is
born and God’s promise of Love is fulfilled, for Rachel, Ruth and Naomi,
Jesse, Samuel, David. For unconventional families, for unwed pregnant mothers,
nameless immigrants, forgotten servants, unclean shepherds, and yes, for us…”
Bethlehem, where Jesus was born on the outskirts, on the margins. Where
angels sang for joy.
I had lunch with Rev Tania Guzman, who pastors another new MCC in the
Dominican Republic — and saw the joy on her face as she described the
spiritual growth of that congregation of young people, who in three years have
gone from being totally in the closet to speaking up on the floor of the
parliament demanding equal rights for the disabled, the elderly and lgbt
people! She went from joy to glee as she anticipated their project next year,
which will be to take “Would Jesus Discriminate?” to a country where the
conservative Catholic cardinal is a part of the government itself. Joy thrives
in the midst of great challenges.
I spoke with my long time friend Rev. Judy Dahl this week in South Africa.
Judy volunteered her time and at her own expense went there for two month, at
the request of the Regional Elder, Rev. Shepherd, to help out in some
challenging times. I listened to Judy bubble over as she described the courage
and ministry she observed there. As she described “seeing Jesus” in places of
great desperation and struggle. With all the serious challenges, and even
heartbreak, there was immense, unmistakable joy.
Finally, in old evangelical, Pentecostal traditions, they told us never to
“let the devil steal our joy”. No matter what your theology, I know everyone
can relate to that image. There are forces within and outside of us that would
threaten to defeat us, to discourage us, to undermine our orientation to JOY.
Everyone who has ever tried to change an unjust law, build a community in the
midst of oppression, preach good new to broken-hearted, has experienced this.
Jesus knew this, and lived this. What attracted people to him was that spark
of divine, liberating joy in the midst of terrible oppression.
I remember a preacher saying, that when she asked a church member, “how are
you doing?” the person replied, “Well, pretty good, under the circumstances.”
“What are you doing under there?” said the preacher!
The best antidote to any attempt to steal our joy is, truly, to the very
best of our ability, with vigilance,
to rejoice always, to pray without
ceasing, to give thanks in all circumstances
. Our circumstances cannot
define us, if we are open to JOY.
Joy is an orientation — to life, to ministry, it is a response to
God’s grace and power at work within us. May joy be yours this season —
whatever your circumstances, whatever your need or your desire to give. May
joy be deep and wide in this place, in every MCC church, in every home and
heart today. Amen.