December 14, 2008 - "Re-Gifting Joy"

Crescent Hill Baptist Church
Louisville, Kentucky
Advent III
December 14, 2008
W. Gregory Pope

Series: Re-Gifting God’s Gifts
RE-GIFTING JOY

Isaiah 61:1-4, 8-11; Psalm 126 or Luke 1:47-55
1 Thessalonians 5:16-24; John 1:6-8, 19-28

When Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman get together on film I have to see it. (My oldest daughter thinks Jack Nicholson is just too creepy. And as far as I know, she hasn’t even seen “The Shining.”)

Nicholson and Freeman recently teamed up in “The Bucket List” as two guys who meet in the hospital and learn about the same time that they are both terminally ill. Nicholson is a spoiled wealthy old man miserable with his existence. Freeman is a middle class auto mechanic who can answer every question on the game show Jeopardy.

Having just gotten the news of his illness, Freeman spends the night writing a “bucket list,” things he wants to do before he “kicks the bucket.” Have you ever thought about what would be on your bucket list? Perhaps Freeman’s list could help you. He includes such things as:

Witness something truly majestic
Help a complete stranger for a common good
Laugh till I cry
Drive a Shelby Mustang
Get a tattoo
Visit Stonehenge
Go skydiving
See the pyramids

Not intended for anyone else’s eyes, Nicholson finds the list crumpled on the floor and reads it, then convinces Freeman to travel with him and do the very things on that list.

More than half-way through fulfilling the list, sitting on a mountain viewing the pyramids, Freeman tells Nicholson about a philosophy that says: When you get to heaven’s gates, there are two questions to be asked of you:

First, Have you found your joy?
And second, Has your life brought joy to someone else?

It was this scene and these two questions that led me toward our Advent theme this year of Re-Gifting God’s Gifts - receiving from God and sharing with others the gifts of hope, peace, joy, and love.

Today, the gift of joy.

As we look at our scripture lessons for this week we hear Paul’s call to “rejoice always.” I don’t know about you, but I’ve not mastered that one yet.

The psalmist sings a song celebrating the day when Israel returned from exile. Mindful of the great things God had done for them, their mouths were filled with laughter and shouts of joy were upon their tongues. And prayers that those who have sown tears will reap great joy.

The prophet Isaiah gave those returning from exile a reason for joy and a way to share joy. He was writing of God’s servant Israel. A few centuries later Jesus picked up Isaiah’s message for Israel as his own mission. Recorded in Luke’s Gospel is the moment where Jesus stands in the synagogue and reads the beginning words from Isaiah 61.

Isaiah describes a quality of life here and now on earth that reflects God’s desire for human community: good news, healing, freedom, release, justice, comfort, and joy. Jesus called it the kingdom of God.

And so the Christ of Bethlehem, full of the Spirit of God and inspired by Isaiah’s vision, comes with joy:

bringing good news to the oppressed - the rich and powerful oppressors of our world who make millions on the backs of poor laborers and Burmese military powers who drive people by force from their land will be brought to justice.

He comes binding up the brokenhearted (61:1) - your heart and mine broken by the world and by our own sin. Christ is coming to heal us.

He comes proclaiming freedom to captives and release to prisoners (61:1). Whether bound by the prison chains of our own making, or prisoners held in exile from their land, or imprisoned illegally by unjust governments, Christ is coming to bring freedom and release. Though faithful Christians have often found themselves behind bars for living their faith, there has always been a freedom even in prison that their captors could not take away. Christ is coming to free us from our prisons.

And he comes proclaiming the year of Jubilee (61:2). This was an event described in the book of Leviticus to occur every 50 years. A time when debts are wiped away, slaves are freed, fields are allowed to rest for a year, and land is returned to its original owners. This is so that property is not just owned by the few and so that the masses will not remain oppressed in debt and slavery. It is so that wealth is not passed along to those who do not work, and so that families do not remain in cycles of poverty. It is a call to social and economic justice, when the restoration of equality becomes the new order of the day. This is the world-changing word of justice Jesus comes preaching.

Jesus also comes to comfort those who mourn (61:2-3), replacing the ashes of our lives with garlands of beauty, bringing gladness where is sadness, strengthening the faint spirit, filling our mouth with praise. Yes, your tears of sorrow will turn one day return to songs of praise.

Jesus comes to repair ruined cities (61:4) - our own city where poverty and homelessness and hopelessness walk the streets, and war-torn cities across the world where joy has been crushed by the stench of death and destruction. Christ comes to heal ruined nations, ours and others, that have forgotten their way in the world.

But first we have to mourn. To know joy we first have to mourn the oppressive and violent condition of our hearts and lives, community and world. And welcome the Christ who is coming to restore and make new.

Isaiah says we receive joy by being clothed with the garment of salvation and covered in the robe of righteousness, receiving the bridegroom’s garland and the bride’s jewels (61:10). This is the joy of a wedding. When lives are brought together and the celebration of love is in the air. This is the joy Jesus comes to bring.

And as followers of Jesus, his mission becomes our own. It is a message and mission of joy that we are to receive and then share with the world as witnesses to the light of God’s love.

In Paul’s letter to the Thessalonians he writes, “Do not despise the words of the prophet.” These words of the prophets Isaiah and Jesus we must be careful not to despise or ignore.

This is the gospel of joy that we receive and then share. God’s work in our world is a partnership, a covenant between God and God’s people, where we continue the work of Christ in the world through the power of the Holy Spirit, realizing that God’s special concern is for the lowest and the weakest.

Joy does not come by insulating ourselves from the pain of the world. As a missional community, we turn our attention toward the oppressed, the brokenhearted, the captives, the prisoners, and the mournful. Joy comes by entering what Miguel Unamuno calls “the common weeping” of the world, and in the power of the Holy Spirit we continue the mission of Jesus:

working on behalf of the oppressed,
tending to the brokenhearted,

proclaiming release on behalf of those held captive unjustly in prisons around the world, and helping free those held captive in a prison of their own making,
comforting those who mourn: the grieving, the refugee, the lonely, the unemployed,
helping rebuild ruined cities and nations with the materials of hope and peace, joy and love, through the giving of ourselves and our resources.

There are so many people in our world oppressed, brokenhearted, captive, or imprisoned in some way, wondering when God’s transformation will come. Advent is a time of waiting and preparation for God to transform the world through Jesus Christ.

God sent Christ to light up our world with joy. And Christ sends us to share joy by bearing witness to the light of the world.

Where have you found joy? I had a moment of surprising joy during our first summer in Louisville when Louie and June Bailey took Cindy and me to the Smith-Berry Winery for a night of bluegrass music and good farm-fresh eating. If I had had a bucket list it would have been one item shorter after that night having met Wendell Berry who for 15 years has been one of my favorite writers. He is one of the wisest and most courageous voices in our world today, a prophet whose words we need not despise, and one whose beautiful fiction brings great delight.

That night I also met Wendell’s grand-daughter, Emily, who is a student here at the Highland Latin School. She was handing out tickets for door prizes. I asked her if she was going to make sure I won. Undeterred by my request, she boldly asked me what she would get in return. Nonchalantly I said, “$100.00.” And wouldn’t you know it - for the first time in my life I won a door prize - four very nice Smith-Berry wine glasses! Joy!

For the past three years I have seen Emily in the hallways numerous times. And each time she says with a great big smile, “You owe me $100.00.” And I say unconvincingly to her, “It’s coming.”

Well, having received a small gift of joy three years ago, I would like to announce that today I am re-gifting with this check of $100.00 to Emily’s favorite charity or cause in the hopes of bringing joy to her and to the people her charity might help.

What about you? Where have you found joy? and
How has your life brought joy to someone else?

Nobel Prize winner George Bernard Shaw wrote a poem entitled “True Joy of Life.”

This is the true joy of life.
The being used for a purpose
Recognized by yourself as a mighty one.
The being a force of nature
Instead of a feverish, selfish
Little clod of ailments and grievances

Complaining that the world will not
Devote itself to making you happy.
I am of the opinion that my life
belongs to the whole community
And as long as I live,
It is my privilege to do for it
Whatever I can.
I want to be thoroughly
Used up when I die,
For the harder I work the more I live.
I rejoice in life for its own sake.
Life is no brief candle to me.
It is a sort of splendid torch
Which I’ve got hold of
For the moment
And I want to make it burn
As brightly as possible before
Handing it on to future generations.

If you are this day in search of joy, I invite you to join this Advent journey toward Bethlehem and experience the God who has come near to us in the Christ Child. People all around him are rejoicing. His mother Mary rejoices that she has found favor with God. Angels are sharing good news of great joy for all people, including you. And shepherds are glorifying and praising God for what they have seen and heard. Christmas joy can be yours.

If you have known God’s joy, consider for a moment: Who brought the news of joy to you? What have you seen and heard and experienced that brought joy to you that you can share with others?

True joy, everlasting joy, a joy much deeper than happiness, is found in a relationship with the God who gave us life and loved us so much he came to live among us in Jesus Christ, teaching us God’s way and God’s truth, whose words and deeds are full of life. And he calls us all to live in God’s grace and forgiveness, and to give ourselves for the sake of the world, to live a life burning as a “splendid torch” with God’s fire of justice and joy.

Every year at Christmas we see the transformation of homes, churches and places of business with bright lights and Christmas pageantry. But what other than hanging of the green and the singing of Christmas carols are we, God’s people, doing in the world to bring the good news of great joy of God’s transformation? What will we do this year to bring joy to someone perhaps we don’t even know: the oppressed, the brokenhearted, the imprisoned, those in mourning? Where will we bring joy to this frightened, anxious, violent city and nation of ours?

I invite you in the silence to sit on the mountain, as did Nicholson and Freeman, and ask yourself: Have you found your joy? And if so, offer a prayer of thanks. And then ask God how your life can bring joy to someone else. Perhaps we can “rejoice always” after all. If joy is not something we’re receiving at the moment, it can be something we are re-gifting. Let us prayerfully reflect in the silence.