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Tag Archives: Joy
The Unknown
On Tuesday, here in Columbia, South Carolina, we began to batten down the proverbial hatches for Leon, the Snowpocalypse. Most children were out of school (though the weather didn’t start till after school time, Atlanta’s is a cautionary tale), the roads were treated, the university and the government were closed.
Among those of us who gathered at work, diverse attitudes abounded. I was soon struck by the variety of responses to the same news, and realized that a bit of what we were experiencing was how each of us–where ever the impending ice-meggedon found us emotionally that morning–dealt with change and uncertainty. Of course, no sleep the night before, or a big deadline, or experience driving in snowy weather surely affected our outlooks as well, I was struck that the way we respond to small things may inform the way we respond to large uncertainties in life as well (then again, a death in the family and a possible snow day are rather different things).
There were those who greeted the possibility as a gift–an unexpected opportunity for something different, an adventure, a change of pace, a tool to knock us out of the “norm” and into whatever the day or the weather might have in store for us.
A few others of us looked at the sunshine, the empty, dry roads, and slivered our eyes, “Is there really weather coming?” we asked the skies. The existence of the storm was doubtful, its effect unproven. These folk were unimpressed-till-snowed-in; crossing the bridge if it happened to materialize out of the sunny skies, pragmatically focusing on the task at hand till then.
Though there weren’t any in our offices yesterday, I suspect (judging from the empty OJ, milk, and bread shelves at supermarkets) that another significant group was gripped with fear of the unknown. Would it come? Would it not-come? What would happen? The anxiety of an uncertain future was debilitating, and so they busied themselves laying in supplies.
For a Christian, there are bits of truth in each of these life-attitudes. We need not fear or be anxious about the future, but we ought to be wise as serpents, shrewd in our decisions and prepared for unexpected events (thinking of the virgins and their oil lamps). Of course, we ought not run about as a chicken sans-head; being so preoccupied with the unknowable possibilities of the future as to forget the task we’ve been set to here and now isn’t for the best interest of our earthly companions or for the glory of God’s kingdom. Finally, life is indeed a joyful adventure, though hopefully we can remember that when the weather (or a day) is unremarkable as well.
Changing Seasons; New Year’s Challenge
As the days of Advent dwindled this year, I saw myself grasping–begging it not to go. There’s something sweet about the way nights have been dark and quiet with hot tea, a fire in the ‘place, and a craft project in hand. It almost feels like we’ve been building a ship, lovingly sanding the boards, carefully melding them together, adding sail and rudder and varnish. Now, though, the dry dock about to be filled and the supports are ready to give way, and it’s time to test all the preparation we’ve made. We’re going into the fray, the incarnation is coming; just when waiting and preparing got really comfortable, the adventure begins.
I think I sort of forgot about the adventure, the incarnation–I preferred to ponder the waiting. There’s not much you can do when you’re waiting, you just keep your head down, say your prayers, do your work. When the water rushes in, you suddenly have to swim, to put to the test all the pondering, learning, and preparing you’d done.
Many autumn days (long before Advent began) felt like this, too. There was too much that threatened to push in and change things–to make me into a new kind of person; exhausting me out of bad habits and shoving me into good ones. I resist. I cling to tv shows and drag my feet to yoga class. I lie in bed in the early morning, willing myself back to sleep, though my journal, and books, and coffeemaker all lie ready to be used. Just keep your head down, do your work, say your prayers, don’t look around.
Christmas is here, and even now (especially those of us in clericals), we begin to look forward to Epiphany, which pushes in on us with great, blinding, demanding light. Epiphany’s a little like New Year’s–it says to us, “Here’s an enormous, dizzying, life-changing gift… What’re you going to do with it?” As W.H. Auden said in the poem I read in church last Sunday,
…Once again
As in previous years we have seen the actual Vision and failed
To do more than entertain it as an agreeable
Possibility, once again we have sent Him away,
Begging though to remain His disobedient servant,
The promising child who cannot keep His word for long.
For a month in 2013, I had no job, no contract to promise a job, no illusion of my independence from God (my husband is a Ph.D. student, no real income there, either). It was the most peaceful, joyful month of my entire life. I knew in the deepest way possible that God was truly our only hope and foundation–my paycheck, my functioning as a parish priest, my local support network (largely), had all been asked of me if we were to continue following God’s call. So we prayed, and we plunged.
We’re called to live in a way that our lives look insane if our triune God does not exist.
A Sermon for Christmas Day
“The hills are alive with the sound of music!”
Perhaps that’s not the song you came to church to hear today, but that’s what we just sang in the psalm together. “Let the hills ring out with joy before the Lord.”
What is joy? When do we experience joy in our daily lives? Novelist Zadie Smith argues in a recent essay in the New York Review of Books that though we humans often experience pleasure—perhaps over a great tumbler of whiskey or a dog’s sweet companionship, joy is a much more rare and complicated emotion that is necessarily overwhelming and entangled with fear. It is the sort of thing that we could not bear to experience often, but when we do, we laugh and cry and can’t catch our breath and whether or not the event or its results are sustained, our lives are forever different for having experienced it.
What a miracle happened on Christmas! As we glimpse the enormity of this moment—just as when the shepherds saw the whole sky filled with bright angels—we burst forth with shouts of joy. In this moment, a joyful song we’ve sung before doesn’t fit—we need a whole new way of communicating to try to express this new age of God’s rule. This marvelous thing so unlike anything that’s happened before, we need a new song, a fresh account of God’s deliverance. Even the past looks different now that we know that God is here, in this place. Now.
There’s little else we can do with our joy but to sing, even the hills and seas are alive with the Promise that God fulfilled in becoming human on Christmas Day. After centuries of oppression, exile, and dispersion, The Promise has come to fruition. God has come to earth, he’s come into the middle of the mass of humanity and become human himself. God has made himself as close to us as he possibly can. It’s like how doctors treat pre-mature babies in the hospital—they’re administered skin-to-skin contact from their parents as if it was medicine. Resting on their father’s chest, or feeling their mother’s hands on their back, is as powerful as any manufactured pharmaceutical we have devised. God’s touch, his own hand and arm, as the psalm tells us, brought forth this miracle for our sake. God came in Jesus to heal us.
God has made good on his Promise now—today—Christmas. We are so precious to God that, given the choice to exist in peace and quiet and perfection for eternity, which, after Christmas morning with little kids, might sound pretty good, or to exist with and among humanity, he chose us. God has chosen never to be except to be in relationship with us.
Joy isn’t the only thing we feel today, nor is it the only thing that Mary, Joseph, the shepherds and others at Jesus’ birth felt. Just as they had questions about what life would mean and look like in light of this new reality, we do too. God’s companionship is the only answer to all the questions. Why can’t a brother and sister acknowledge the brokenness between them and reconcile on Christmas? Why can’t parents and grandparents set aside their pride and stubbornness and entrust their son and grandson to God’s capable hands? Why are children shot and spouses beaten and people starving? Our only answer to evil is that despite its presence in the world, God’s presence is with us too, and God’s love is more powerful than brokenness and death and destruction. The Promise God made to Abraham and to his descendants, the Israelites, is the same promise we can now claim as humans, because Jesus came as a human to save all people. God gave us Jesus out of his love, and Jesus is the touch that allows us to survive. He is the image of the invisible God. Jesus is God-with-us.
This truth, this joy that is revealed to us in Christ’s birth, this is the steadfast love that God is showing us. God has remembered his mercy and truth toward the house of Israel, he’s fulfilled his promise this morning. We sing a new song because a new thing has happened—something incomparable to all other experiences we’ve ever had. God reaches out and touches us.
To offer back to God our joy and thanksgiving at this marvelous gift, we gather together our harps, our trumpets, our organs, and pianos, and violins, and flutes. But even with these and with our own voices, the effort is paltry in comparison to the new thing God has done. Let us gather up the noise of the whole world—the roaring sea with its clapping waves and the ringing music of the mountains—all oriented to shout praise to God for this great gift he has given to humanity and to all creation.
Joy to the world!
Christmas Day – Joy to the World! – The Church of St. Michael & St. George
“The hills are alive with the sound of music!”
Perhaps that’s not the song you came to church to hear today, but that’s what we just sang in the psalm together. “Let the hills ring out with joy before the Lord.”
What is joy? When do we experience joy in our daily lives? Novelist Zadie Smith argues in a recent essay in the New York Review of Books that though we humans often experience pleasure—perhaps over a great tumbler of whiskey or a dog’s sweet companionship, joy is a much more rare and complicated emotion that is necessarily overwhelming and entangled with fear. It is the sort of thing that we could not bear to experience often, but when we do, we laugh and cry and can’t catch our breath and whether or not the event or its results are sustained, our lives are forever different for having experienced it.
What a miracle happened on Christmas! As we glimpse the enormity of this moment—just as when the shepherds saw the whole sky filled with bright angels—we burst forth with shouts of joy. In this moment, a joyful song we’ve sung before doesn’t fit—we need a whole new way of communicating to try to express this new age of God’s rule. This marvelous thing so unlike anything that’s happened before, we need a new song, a fresh account of God’s deliverance. Even the past looks different now that we know that God is here, in this place. Now.
There’s little else we can do with our joy but to sing, even the hills and seas are alive with the Promise that God fulfilled in becoming human on Christmas Day. After centuries of oppression, exile, and dispersion, The Promise has come to fruition. God has come to earth, he’s come into the middle of the mass of humanity and become human himself. God has made himself as close to us as he possibly can. It’s like how doctors treat pre-mature babies in the hospital—they’re administered skin-to-skin contact from their parents as if it was medicine. Resting on their father’s chest, or feeling their mother’s hands on their back, is as powerful as any manufactured pharmaceutical we have devised. God’s touch, his own hand and arm, as the psalm tells us, brought forth this miracle for our sake. God came in Jesus to heal us.
God has made good on his Promise now—today—Christmas. We are so precious to God that, given the choice to exist in peace and quiet and perfection for eternity, which, after Christmas morning with little kids, might sound pretty good, or to exist with and among humanity, he chose us. God has chosen never to be except to be in relationship with us.
Joy isn’t the only thing we feel today, nor is it the only thing that Mary, Joseph, the shepherds and others at Jesus’ birth felt. Just as they had questions about what life would mean and look like in light of this new reality, we do too. God’s companionship is the only answer to all the questions. Why can’t a brother and sister acknowledge the brokenness between them and reconcile on Christmas? Why can’t parents and grandparents set aside their pride and stubbornness and entrust their son and grandson to God’s capable hands? Why are children shot and spouses beaten and people starving? Our only answer to evil is that despite its presence in the world, God’s presence is with us too, and God’s love is more powerful than brokenness and death and destruction. The Promise God made to Abraham and to his descendants, the Israelites, is the same promise we can now claim as humans, because Jesus came as a human to save all people. God gave us Jesus out of his love, and Jesus is the touch that allows us to survive. He is the image of the invisible God. Jesus is God-with-us.
This truth, this joy that is revealed to us in Christ’s birth, this is the steadfast love that God is showing us. God has remembered his mercy and truth toward the house of Israel, he’s fulfilled his promise this morning. We sing a new song because a new thing has happened—something incomparable to all other experiences we’ve ever had. God reaches out and touches us.
To offer back to God our joy and thanksgiving at this marvelous gift, we gather together our harps, our trumpets, our organs, and pianos, and violins, and flutes. But even with these and with our own voices, the effort is paltry in comparison to the new thing God has done. Let us gather up the noise of the whole world—the roaring sea with its clapping waves and the ringing music of the mountains—all oriented to shout praise to God for this great gift he has given to humanity and to all creation.
Joy to the world!
hope of things not seen 