"Counting It All Joy
7. Don’t Give Away Your
Joy”
Matthew 11:7-19
First Presbyterian Church
Rev. Donald E. Ray
August 5,2007
Three weeks ago, this sermon had progressed in my mind to the point
where I had determined its subject would be maintaining joy in the face of
circumstances which threaten to deplete or supplant it. That was the Sunday Tom
informed me that Lori had decided not to join the staff here and asked if I
would be willing to step up my involvement to help cover some important areas of
ministry. My initial reaction was disappointment that we are losing the
opportunity of benefiting from Lori’s spirit and skills. I have long
championed the need for giving people to take care of themselves, and while I
fully respect Lori’s need to make this decision, disappointment includes
frustration, displeasure, grief—all of which I felt.
After meeting with the Christian Ed and Youth committee leadership on
Wednesday evening of that week when the scope of my stepped up involvement began
to take shape, I seriously wondered if my agreement had been a bit hasty. When I
awoke Thursday morning, my mind had already begun running not just the day, but
the next several weeks. With deliberateness, I reined it in to focus on the
present task—this sermon…on joy. I felt the weight of responsibility,
anxiousness about venturing into strange new territory, grief at losing a chunk
of retirement freedom. Not much room for joy there. I wanted to blame something,
someone for stealing it away.
In its initial stages, the title I was thinking of for this sermon was
along the lines of not letting our joy be stolen. But I realized that we have
more responsibility for what happens to that gift in our life than protecting it
from thievery. There are circumstances that rob any joy from life. Curiously, it
is in those circumstances that joy seems to spring eternal. But then there are
those situations that when we make them our focus, we give our joy away as we
allow those other thoughts and feelings to crowd in.
It’s been a rewarding and pardon the redundancy, a joyous venture this
summer to marvel at the facets of joy. Logging in on the word, “joy” in
Scriptures, I discovered it does not appear at all until reference in the book
of Judges. Apparently the Hebrews did not know that God and joy could be used in
the same sentence. There is no joy in Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus—all the
history and law foundational to the Judeo-Christian tradition. It took the poets
and song writers of the Psalms who gave expression to their sense of God
pervading all of life to spring joy from its dungeon.
Accepted in Christian historical tradition, one John the Baptist is
called the fore runner of Jesus. He appears in all the Gospels identified as the
one preparing the way. It is apparent this story is included in the Gospels
because it was understood as a necessary part of the Messianic tradition.
I have to wonder what in the life of Jesus it means that John prepared
the way. They were nothing alike which this morning’s reading from Matthew
makes abundantly clear. John was old school, threatening doom and gloom,
demanding repentance as the only possible escape from the wrath. John lined the
road with fire and brimstone. Jesus walked in love and compassion. John lived as
an ascetic; Jesus grabbed life with gusto.
Perhaps John’s exaggerated characterization of religion was so
distasteful that it collapsed under its own weight which left the road out of
that wilderness a level plain for Jesus bearing good news of great joy.
Would that John had been the last of his kind but yet today there are
the artists of hell fire that play on guilt and fears pressing us to give away
the joy Jesus said “may be in you and that your joy may be full.” (John
15:11)
As Tom has so aptly made clear these weeks, joy as we speak of it is not
the forced positive outlook that strains a silver lining out of the clouds. It
is not the glass half full rather than half empty outlook. It is not shallow
happiness from pleasant and prosperous circumstances. It is because joy and
grief and all else running through our experience are intertwined that joy is
the fullness of life.
The poet of the Psalms writes; “Weeping may linger for the night, but
joy comes in the morning.” There is something mystical about the beginning of
a new day. The rays of dawn light cannot be ignored against the black of the
waning night. In those moments are the sometimes but flickers of love and joy
which can bring hope and new vision to begin the new day.
In the story of
In the dawn of each new day, the Psalmist says, “joy comes in the
morning.” Like that fine frost on the ground, there is that which would
nourish and uplift and fill our lives. Though the night bring tears, joy comes
with the dawn. If lost in our grumbling about what ever, we call it “man-hu?”
What is it? We give away the joy of life; we give it away.
I attended the Leadership Training Conference for Stephen Ministers this
past week. The first full day I was sitting toward a back corner which is not my
style. Tuesday, arriving earlier I made my way to a table nearer the front with
a good view of the podium and screen where important materials were projected. A
group of folks who had come together and were from the area of my birth home in
Thursday morning I entered the meeting room to discover there was
someone in my seat at our table. In fact there were a couple and they were
saving seats for more. They were not about to budge. I fear I grumbled something
about taking over our table and went to a seat at the next. There I found a spot
light pole splitting my view of the screen. I never thought of whose seat I
might be taking, only that I was going to have to start building community all
over again. The Conference was a good experience and I had awakened in the aura
of this summer’s venture in joy. There I sat, having given it all away.
Fortunately not all. Like the ‘man-hu” when the Israelites gathered
it, no matter how much they gathered, there was always enough. There was still
enough joy; enough to remind me not to give it away. As others came to the
table, we shared, we became a team; another screen provided a clear view; As we
worked on the day’s exercises, we grew in new and valued relationships.
Thursday incidentally was the day we began our session in prayer
extending our love to those in
John the Baptist was a downer; a poop, a wet blanket. Jesus enjoyed life
and he advocated enjoying life. He said, “Everything I have said to you is so
that my joy may be in you, and that you joy may be complete.” (John 15:11)
In Paul’s letter to the Galatians he lists the fruits of God’s
Spirit. Naturally the first is “love.” God
is love—love is God. Second though isn’t peace as commonly paired but
“joy” then peace. God in whom we live and move and have our being is love,
joy, peace. God and joy can be used in the same sentence. Religion and joy I’m
not so sure, but God and joy are together.
If you see the listing of next Sunday’s sermon, so you know it is not
a printing error, the title will be “Give Away Your Joy.” The sermon isn’t
written yet but the title is—it must be “Give Away Your Joy.” Any of God
in our life and being must be for sharing, giving for the blessing of all life.
But as we can only love our neighbor as our self, we can only give our joy away
as we first don’t give it away to that which would sap its energy, quench its
flame, wound its spirit, stifle its enthusiasm, scramble its wisdom, starve its
affection, disturb its peace. Don’t give away your joy until “your joy may
be complete.”
Amen.
© Copyright 2007 First Presbyterian Church