“Counting
It All Joy”
6.
For the Sake of Joy
Hebrews 12:1-3
Matthew 5:1-12
First Presbyterian
The Reverend Thomas A.
Sweet
July 29, 2007
Return to the Sermon Archives Page
As
Andrea was leaving us to go back to
“So, then, in the arena of life we are surrounded by a vast
crowd of spectators. We must
therefore, as an athlete strips for action, strip off every encumbrance and the
sin that clings to us, and we must run with gallant determination the race that
stretches in front of us. And all
the time we must concentrate on…Jesus, in whom our faith had its beginning and
must have its end, for he, for the (sake of the) joy that lay ahead of him,
courageously accepted the cross, with never a thought for the shame, and now has
taken his seat at the right hand of God. The
way to avoid the failure of your nerve and heart is to compare your situation
with the situation of him who met the opposition…with such constancy and
courage.”
We
have been talking about joy this summer and the contribution that this passage
makes to our consideration, I think, is to tell us that authentic joy is hard
won. “For the sake of the joy
that lay ahead of him, Jesus courageously accepted the cross…” Joy is no
Pollyanna feeling arising from favorable circumstances, for that costs us
nothing. Joy is revealed precisely
where we might not at first expect to find it - in the midst of brokenness,
adversity, disparagement, discouragement, failure, and heartbreak – if we stay
with them long enough and do not too quickly run from them.
Joy is not, as we sometimes imagine, the fruit of good fortune and
pleasant living, but is rather the acceptance of the full mix of life, trusting
that all of it is being lived in God in whom our lives are kept, and so we
resolve to live life deeply, all of it, no matter the cost.
The
apostle Paul was shipwrecked, imprisoned, scorned, and ridiculed and yet, toward
the end of his life, he exclaimed, “I
count it all joy.” Jesus
encountered fierce opposition throughout his ministry and came to know that his
end would be execution, yet he said to his disciples on the night before his
crucifixion, “It is all about
joy.” Etty Hillesum, a young
Jewish woman who lived in
There
is a story about a spiritual teacher who once was questioned by his students as
to why he was so full of joy. “After
all,” they said, “you are surrounded by suffering and loss.
How can you have such joy?” The
teacher picked up a crystal glass and said, “I love this glass.
I love the way it sounds when I touch it.
I love the way it glistens in the sun.
I love the feel of it when I put it to my lips.
And yet one day, no doubt, my elbow will knock it off the table and it
will break. I love this glass
because I know that it is already broken.”
Ironically,
I happened onto an internet column the other day in which a new question is
posed to its readership each morning, and then responses are posted throughout
the day. One reader replied to the
question, “For you – is the glass half empty or half full?” – by
saying something similar to the spiritual teacher: “For me, the glass is
neither half empty nor half full. I
enjoy the glass because it is already broken.
Life is short and fleeting, and too often not appreciated when it is
here, and mourned when it is gone. I
enjoy the glass because it is already broken, just as I already have died, and
so I am grateful for having the glass at all, just as I am thankful for every
breath I take.”
Do you see? Our lives
are like broken glass. To be sure,
our humanity sometimes shimmers in the sunshine of life and sometimes chimes
with the sounds of love shared and cherished, and yet Jesus said that it is in
the broken places of our lives, the vulnerable places of our humanity, that we
shall find and experience joy. It is
hard to believe, I know, because our culture has schooled us otherwise.
But Jesus was insistent:
“Blessed
are the poor in spirit…” “Blessed
are those who mourn….” “Blessed
are the meek…” “Blessed are
those who hunger and thirst for righteousness….”
“Blessed are the merciful....” “Blessed
are the peacemakers...” “Blessed
are those who are persecuted for the sake of justice.”
“Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and try to
discredit you on account of me and my gospel of love that puts people first and
poor people first of all…”
So
often when we talk about the blessings of life, or wish blessings on others, we
are thinking of all manner of good and fluffy things.
But, according to Jesus, the blessings of life are the hard things.
The Greek word, makarios, often translated in the Beatitudes as
“blessed” perhaps can better be understood in its alternate meanings…one
of which is “you are on the right road.”
So, “you are on the right road” if you are poor in spirit.
Another alternate meaning is “happy,” not happiness as a fleeting
feeling born of good fortune, but joy born of deep living.
Happy are those, joyous are those who mourn, who care enough, who go deep
enough within themselves, to be touched by the sadness and sorrow of the world,
who experience a solidarity with those who suffer.
“Jesus,”
the writer of Hebrews says, “for the
sake of joy, courageously accepted the cross, with never a thought for the
shame…” He did not shy away
from the hard places, from the hardest place, because he discovered that joy,
which he valued more than anything else, is found in the pouring out of our
lives and the pouring out of our love.
I have
struggled all week to know how to make this point with you and I only have been
able to come up with this, so let me try it:
When we try to live from a position of strength, then we are committed,
as the saying goes, to grabbing life by the tail.
We do whatever we have to do to make it work for us and our goal is to
position ourselves through the accumulation of power, wealth, things, and
reputation to be and to feel less and less susceptible to the vagaries and
vicissitudes of life. That is one
way to live and it has its own substantial rewards.
But
the other way, living from an acknowledgement of our brokenness, means that we
are more free to experience life as it comes to us in all of its nuances and
serendipities, in its ambiguities, opportunities, and mysteries.
This way does not seek to separate us from the mass of humanity by dint
of personal privilege inherited or acquired, but to immerse us in the mass of
humanity by virtue of a social consciousness and a shared life.
This way does not bestow charity from above, but grieves and supports and
both offers and receives companionship and wisdom from below.
And therein lies joy.
Maybe
this poem by Mary Oliver says it in a more helpful way, a poem entitled, simply,
“Egrets.”
Egrets
Where the path closed
down and over,
through the scumbled leaves,
fallen
branches,
through the knotted catbrier,
I kept going. Finally
I
could not
save my arms
from the thorns; soon
the mosquitoes
smelled
me, hot
and wounded, and came
wheeling and whining.
And that’s how I came
to the edge of the pond:
black and empty
except for a spindle
of bleached reeds
at the far shore
which,
as I looked,
wrinkled suddenly
into
three egrets—
a shower
of white fire!
Even half-asleep they had
such
faith in the world
that had made them –
tilting through the water,
unruffled, sure,
by
the laws
of their faith not logic,
they opened their wings
softly and stepped
over every dark thing. (1)
Not
steeling ourselves against life, but opening ourselves fully to it, trusting
that in doing so even the dark things will not overwhelm us or undo us but teach
us and make us more human, that is the way of joy…and I commend it.
For it is in God that we live and move and have our being, and so we need
not finally fear, but only live, truly live.
Amen.
(1)
(Mary Oliver, New and Selected Poems, Volume 1.
© Copyright 2007 First Presbyterian Church