(or any time joy is highlighted by the day’s lection)
Ken Sehested
Processional. “Ode to Joy” (“Ode an die Freude”). —from Ludwig van Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, flashmob performance, orchestra and choir, in a Sabadell, Spain public plaza
Invocation. “Among the tales of sorrow and of ruin that come down to us from the darkness of these days there are yet some in which amid weeping there is joy and under the shadow of death light that endures.” —J.R.R. Tolkien
Call to worship. “Then young women will dance and be glad, young men and old as well. I will turn their mourning into gladness; I will give them comfort and joy instead of sorrow.” —Jeremiah 31:13
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I recently had occasion to correspond with a friend in the Republic of Georgia. Few here in the US know much about the country, on Russia’s southern border, snuggled between the Black and Caspian Sea in Caucasia. Formerly a satellite republic of the Soviet Union, declaring its independence in 1991, two of the country’s provinces have since been occupied by the Russia army since 2008 (years before Russia invaded Ukraine).
In my note, I offered an Advent benediction, wishing him “tidings of comfort and joy.”
He responded, “Unfortunately, our Advent season will not be filled with ‘tidings of joy and comfort,’ nor will Christmas, as we find ourselves engaged in an unequal struggle against the tyranny of power. Please keep us in your prayers.”
Media here rarely if ever reports the thousands of protestors nightly filling the streets for the past weeks in the Georgian capital Tbilisi, in opposition to the new prime minister (whose election is disputed), who announced the government would cease discussions of joining the European Union and instead move closer to alignment with Moscow.
Why discuss geopolitics in an article about joy?
Glad you asked.
Luke’s nativity tales squarely places Jesus’ birth in a geopolitical context: “In the fifteenth year of the reign of Emperor Tiberius, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod was ruler of Galilee, and his brother Philip ruler of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias ruler of Abilene, during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness” (3:1-2).
Faith is mere sentiment and vacuous rhetoric if it fails to question the way things are—and is a living parable testifying to a future whose conclusion is beyond every existing premise.
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Hymn of praise. “This joy . . . this strength . . . this love . . . this peace that I have / the world didn’t give it to me / and the world can’t take it away.” —Resistance Revival Chorus, “This Joy”
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Joy is commonly associated with happiness, glee, cheeriness. And don’t we all relish these brushes with delight? (My eldest daughter’s pecan sandies are my annual Christmas season treat. When I was young, it was my Mama’s fudge.)
“What is joy when it’s not promiscuously tied to happiness, Hallmark, or hedonism?” Rose Marie Berger asked in an essay. Or elsewhere, as N.T. Wright complained, “Made for joy, we settle for pleasure.”
Consider three things about joy.
- If joy is subsumed as pleasure, and happiness as secure bounty, the rich would have cornered the market. My experience is just the opposite: the most truly joyful people and communities I know are those whose pleasures are nominal, whose security is frequently at risk. Joy is available to those whose hands are empty of things that can be purchased or produced (or stolen).
- The capacity to risk much in devotion to the Beloved Community does not come from moral heroism. Beauty, not duty, is what sustains our efforts in the face of adversity. By beauty, I mean a beatific vision, a foreshadowed glimpse of what the psalmist mentions, “I believe that I shall see the goodness of God in the land of the living (27:13); of the day when wolf and lamb will lie together peacefully (Isaiah 11:6); when swords will be forged into plowshares (Micah 4:3); when outcasts are gathered (Zephaniah 3:19); when the hungry have plenty to eat and the land itself rejoices (Joel 2:19-26); when all tears will be dried and death comes undone (Isaiah 25:8, Revelation 21:4).
As Richard Foster insisted, “Joy, not grit, is the hallmark of holy obedience.” Likewise, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin asserted, “Joy is the most infallible sign of the presence of God.” Joy creates and sustains the capacity to face the squall of sorrow’s assault without being crushed by it.
- Joy is the acknowledgment that our struggles and sorrows are seen by God; that history, in the end, conspires but fails in its purpose to give us over to the invisibility of fate and certain destruction. And we humans participate in that godly work when we accompany those in desperate straits.
Our congregation is partnered with one in the small village of Oliva, Cuba. For months a group has been planning a January visit. Not as patrons (or any of the many forms of colonizing impulses) but as friends. But given what we know of the dire conditions there—severe shortages of food, electricity, gasoline, even potable water—we asked if we should reconsider, lest we be a burden. “No,” was the emphatic response from the pastor. “We need the encouragement you bring with your presence.” No doubt our takeaway will be, in the lines of that old hymn, “And the joy we share as we tarry there / None other has ever known.”
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Hymn of resolve. “I’ve got the joy, joy, joy, joy, down in my heart.” —“Joy,” Latifah Phillips, in a moderated and minor keyed praise song, adds a new refrain, and splices “It Is Well With My Soul” as a coda
Word. “It’s the Joy, my friends. Our Holy Practice. That Practice of the Holy in a crazy world that doesn’t realize its own holiness.” –Marc Mullinax in a “faith story” during a Circle of Mercy Congregation service
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I responded to my Georgian friend, saying “Be assured of our vigilant intercessions; and we ask for yours, on our behalf, as well.” And continued, saying “The fruit of the poet’s ‘tidings’ is not cheeriness, but blossoms as enduring resolve to not grow weary in the face of duress and persistent threat. It is joy’s provision that keeps the heart alive, the resolve vigorous, when everywhere there is spiritual famine.” And the accompanying social disruption thereby caused.
Joy Sunday in Advent is smack dab in the middle between the season’s first Sunday and Christmas Day. It serves as a reprieve from the gravity of a dangerous birth, pagan dignitaries and field hands visits, the desperate migration of a campesino family, amid the outbreak of political intrigue and terrorism. But more than a reprieve—joy is the hinge upon which gnarled and contentious history swings: afflicted, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed (2 Corinthians 8-9). Joy calls our attention to the holiness that still persists, and enlarges our horizon to the approach of an unclouded day, when all shall reside “under their own vine and fig tree, and none shall be afraid” (Micah 4:4).
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Benediction. “Maybe more than anything else, to be a saint is to know joy. Not happiness that comes and goes with the moments that occasion it, but joy that is always there like an underground spring no matter how dark and terrible the night. To be a saint is to be a little out of one’s mind, which is a very good thing to be a little out of from time to time. It is to live a life that is always giving itself away and yet is always full.” —Frederick Buechner
Recessional. “After all / after all / after everything I’ve seen / thank God I still have joy. / Through the storm / And the rain / Through heartaches and pain / Thank God I still, still, still have joy.” —“I Still Have Joy,” Reverend Freakchild
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