Give more of yourself to joy: advent three...

NOTE:  Here are my worship notes for this coming Sunday, December 16, 2012 - the Third Sunday of Advent.

Introduction
Sometimes preachers can be a pain in the butt, don’t you think?  I suspect the same could be said for any of us who are teachers or leaders of one type or another including parents and politicians, professors and pundits.  Anyone who has to encourage, lead by example and inspire others into action can sometimes over do it, right? 

·       We can be too preachy or too smarmy – too caustic or too sentimental – we can try too hard to make a point and wind up causing people to shut us down.

·       I think that’s how many people hear the two preachers we’ve been asked to consider today on the third Sunday of Advent.  When St. Paul commands us to “rejoice in the Lord always” whether we feel like it or not, and, St. John the Baptist challenges us to get on the stick with more vigorous sharing, caring and preparing for a life in Christ, it can seem like overkill just two weeks before Christmas.

I mean, really, don’t these guys take a break?  Don’t they understand what we’re up against at this time of year?  For the love of Jesus, they are relentless:  Rejoice in the Lord – always!?!  (Are you kidding me?) And share your extra coat with some homeless guy – and maybe some food, too?  (Look I’m having a hard enough time making my church pledge without taking on the Baptizer’s burden, too so come on, Lord, knock it off!)

·       I don’t know if you ever react that way to the words of Scripture, but sometimes these biblical admonitions don’t sound like good news to me at all:  they sound like unrealistic and demanding encumbrances.  I mean rejoice in the Lord – always – have you seen the way some people drive?

·       And here’s the double-whammy:  when I start to realize just how frustrated and demoralized I get over my stubborn resistance to sharing Christ’s joy and compassion, then I start to feel guilty on top of my resentment.  “O Lord, I’ve been trying to serve you faithfully for over 40 years but most of the time I’m still a cranky and selfish sinner.”

And here’s the fascinating thing about the confluence of my resentments and guilt: when they come together about this time in Advent – and they almost always do come together about this time of year – God doesn’t take them away or intervene in any spectacular way.  I sometimes wish She would, but God doesn’t work that way; no, time and again it seems that God wants me to sit and stew for awhile in my own self-centered juices –  listening all the while to the words of the preacher – rejoice in the Lord always. 

And when I do this – when I take the time to go deep into both my resentments and guilt – two things have always happened:

·       First, I eventually grow sick and tired of my pity party – there’s nothing nourishing or sacred about my carping – so it burns out pretty fast.

·       And, second, I start to realize that while God continually offers me the gift of joy, I have to make room for it – if there’s no room in the inn of my heart for Christ’s blessings – then the Spirit of Jesus is going to be born someplace else and I’ll be the poorer for it.

One of my favorite preachers, Fr. Richard Rohr, puts it like this:  I have come to realize that only those who make space for joy – those who prefer nothing to joy – those who desire the utter reality of God’s joy will most assuredly have it… in the prison of now, in this cynical and sophisticated age, someone must believe in joy… and commitment themselves to it fully.

 

And that’s what this third Sunday in Advent is all about:  realizing what gets in our way to fully committing ourselves to the joy of the Lord?  So let’s think carefully about a few insights from the Bible and then note some ways that we might open the inn of our hearts that the joy of Christ Jesus might be born within and among us in new and healing ways.  In preparation, let’s pray to the Lord: 
 
Blessed are you, Lord our God, healer of creation and source of true joy, who comes to us in this season in small and challenging ways.  May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be open to your Holy Spirit.  Amen.

Insights
One of the reasons our tradition asks us to listen to these preachers again – and again and again and again during Advent – is that our joy, Christian joy, cuts beyond the obvious.  It takes practice and doesn’t arrive all at once; like a child, it takes patience and nourishment during gestation and then nearly a life time of care to bring to maturity. All around us in popular culture, the baby Jesus is already in the manger – the airwaves are saturated with holiday songs – and decorations and shopping are in overdrive mode.  But Sunday worship is still in a minor key – and we’re still wrestling with that wild-eyed preacher calling us to repentance out in the wilder-ness. 

·       So maybe we could put it like this:  a part of us – body and soul – wants to rush quickly towards the “tidings of comfort and joy.”  We would like to get to those stories – the happy and gentle endings – so we can steep ourselves in hot chocolate and Christmas carols.  Not only do they “reassure and comfort us,” but they feel good and are a ton of fun – and some of us are aching for a rest.

·       But another part of us – what I’m going to call God’s grace deep within – quietly urges us to listen first not just to the tidings of comfort and joy, but also to that “rough-voiced, almost reckless, prophet who wouldn't last five minutes in most of our church pulpits.  (Because) that is Advent. Right alongside the "merry" of the season that calls us to shop and decorate, cook and celebrate, we encouraged to nourish this other kind of preparation for the coming of the Christ Child” that takes so discipline and practice.  (Kate Huey, ucc.org)

As Gertrud Mueller-Nelson likes to say:  nothing of value and health happens quickly – not good bread, not good beer or wine – not a healthy baby or a loving relationship.  They must all simmer and bake, set and be formed over time.   And when we rush things, there are problems. I remember one Christmas when I was about 8 years old – it was the first time I remember ever having eggnog – and I loved it.  It was so rich and sweet and thick and creamy:  Lord, I was certain that it was God’s most perfect food.  So, like any other 8 year old boy, I gulped it all down as fast as I could and asked for seconds. 

 

My mother was apprehensive, but I was her first-born after all, so she gave me a second cup – and I polished that bad boy off as fast as I could and still wanted more.  “Take a little break and rest for a minute, Jimmy” she told me, but I was having none of it.  I knew what I liked so when my little sister, Linda, and brother, Philip, weren’t looking I downed the remains of their eggnog, too.  Four cups of eggnog in under 10 minutes…  Well, you know what’s coming, right?  I won’t go into the gory details, but let’s just say that after heading to bed I was one sick little puppy all night long because I had taken in way too much goodness, way too fast.

·       Advent offers a slow and thoughtful way into Christmas and the awareness that God is with us in all things through Christ.  It trains us not to over-indulge, but to look beyond the obvious sweetness towards something more deeply satisfying.

·     Joy, you see, is deeper than a feeling of happiness.  And while there is nothing wrong with happiness, joy is more profound and lasts longer.  For joy is the deep-down awareness of what it means to live well, to live productively and to live righteously (that is for justice and compassion.) (Joan Chittister)

That is what both Paul and the Baptist are speaking about:  living well, living productively and living as a part of God’s compassion and justice.  That is what it means to be joyful – to live well in the midst of all of life’s pain, to live productively within a maelstrom of wastefulness and to live in tender, right relations with one another – did you know that?  Most of us don’t because we’re like Jimmy and the eggnog – we want what we want whenever we want it – even if it makes us sick.

So let me share with you the three ingredients that are necessary for joyful living if we’re paying attention to –   and practicing –  the wisdom of Advent, ok? (And let me say from the start that I am indebted to Sr. Joan Chittister and Frederick Buechner for these insights.)  First, the joy of the Lord in our flesh has to do with living well:  living into the fullness of who God created us to be – not so much having a ton of money and nice things – but being fully alive in healthy ways.  Buechner put it like this:  living well is neither the “hair shirt nor the soft berth… but rather finding that place where your deepest gladness meets the world’s deepest hunger.”

·       Are you with me here?  Is that clear?  We’re talking about  your deepest gladness – not mine – not your parent’s – not even the church’s – yours:  that truth in your being that evokes satisfaction and life, hope and integrity at the most intimate level.

·       Bring that into concert with one of the world’s countless wounds - not all of the wounds or every hunger – just the one – and that’s where joy is found:  where the world’s deepest hunger meets your deepest gladness.

 

We might say that living well in God’s joy has to do with loving self and loving our neighbors; that’s one ingredient.  Another has to do with simplicity:  what do all the public speaking coaches advise when giving a speech?  KISS – keep it simple… sweetie, right?!? 

·       Sharing yourself in the world isn’t supposed to be complicated – it must work at the level of every person – so Jesus speaks of offering a cup of water to a thirsty soul:  or visiting a friend who is lonely – or sharing a tender song in a moment of happiness or sorrow – or a card – or a donation to dig a well in a dry community – or a vaccination in a disease infested village.

·         We’ve been encouraging you to consider buying an animal through Heifer International this Advent, right?   That’s simple – and generous – and brings great healing and hope to the life of another in need.

 

So, first joy is nourished by self-giving, second by simplicity and third by being other rather than self centered.  When I am honest, all my fears and carping are self-centered, not other centered.  What’s more, they ignore completely the fact that while I may be frustrated, resentful and guilty, God isn’t.  God is urging me and encouraging me to open the inn of my heart – quit being so self-centered, man – for only then can I rejoice in the Lord.

Conclusion
When the crowds gathered around John the Baptist, they were bewildered:  they knew they needed help, they knew they were missing joy and had no clue where to turn.  So he told them to get ready for God’s grace: “I am baptizing you with water, but there is one to come who is mightier than I. He will baptize you in the Holy Spirit and in fire. His winnowing fan is in his hand to clear his threshing floor and gather the wheat into his granary, but the chaff he will burn in unquenchable fire.”

For a long time, I used to think that John was talking about those who lived by faith and those who turned their backs on the Lord – but I think it cuts deeper than that.  In fact, I think my old perspective was wrong and all too obvious.  Now my hunch is that the fire is actually a part of Christ’s baptism and spirit.  As one scholar said:

Fire is not the fate of the lost, but the refining of the blessed.  We all have our chaff, our dross, our waste. We all have our winnowing.  Our self-centeredness.  And it is the fire of Christ that will burn it away.   So our complaints and fears and resentments are not a sign for despair; not do they make us unfit for Advent. No, they qualify is as prime candidates for God’s joy.  (Jacob Meyers @ http://www.workingpreacher.org/)

Once upon a time I read that “the only exit from Dante’s Purgatorio was a wall of fire.  And once the pain was burned away by love, the other side was Paradise, sheer joy.”  (Meyers, ibid)  We can rejoice in the Lord – always – and in all ways if we but have ears to hear the good news in our generation.