Joy

Jeangagnon, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

6 Easter

9 May 2021

One of the items that hit my inbox this week was an antidote for what was ailing me. No, I am not suffering from a serious illness and don’t feel death is immanent. But I am suffering from my share of the Covid blues and of a profound sense of despair around what I see happening in this state, the nation, and the world. I am feeling a particular hopelessness surrounding our state legislature and governor and a sense of gloom when I look at the popularity of authoritarian politicians who turn their backs against most everything that I believe to be the province of good governance. That, in fact, is stating my position politely and mildly. My inner and uncensored thoughts are not for polite company.

Back to the email. The author, someone who often does not censor her thoughts, is Nadia Bolz-Weber. What struck me, since I am aware she is politically left of even me, is that the essay was very upbeat. It was a word I really needed to hear.

After all, the lectionary readings today are full of love. I have been studying them and staring at them all week. All you need is love!! Love is the answer. Of course most songs that speak of love are in the secular realm and speak romantic and sexual love of one person for another. Well and good, but in the heart of Jesus and the heart of God, friendship and love are defined in terms differently from what the culture of that day and of our day would be inclined to say. Jesus is about to be tortured and killed in an act of state sponsored terrorism and the dude knows this, yet talks all about remaining or abiding in his love. He opens up and shares everything with them so they will understand what God is and what it should mean to be a human being and a God fearer, someone in relationship with God. Not until after his death and resurrection do those disciples fully get it. Not until after they have endured the greatest loss the world has ever known do they grasp the full significance of what he taught and who he was.

The pain goes deep. Right now the pain is deep within me to the point I have trouble sleeping some nights. I feel like I am on the Titanic and I since I know the story I know what will inevitably happen.

Joy is a hard thing to find. At the moment I am fixated on the disasters unfolding in India and Brazil, disasters that were avoidable. Right now someone who was instrumental in encouraging me in my journey to ordained ministry is dying of pancreatic cancer. All around me people are adhering to the false narratives of far right-wing extremism and it seems all voices of moderation are being excised form the Republican party. I find it quite frightening that Liz Cheney and Mitt Romney being expelled from a party that believes there was no insurrection or attempt to overthrow our government.

That is the state of my mind; but then Jesus comes calmly and serenely to remind me that the final word is with God and that joy comes when we abide in God’s love and resist evil. Joy comes when you see a close cousin give birth to new life; when the rosy breasted grosbeaks return to the feeder and the chickens come running for their daily corn, when you taste cold ice cream on a hot day. Joy also comes when you resist: resist the temptation to give in to despair and resist evil wherever you find it because that is what we are hard wired to do as Christians.

Joy comes when we can see each other face to face and come and worship. When a funeral is held, it ends in a party!! Think about it; we hold a rite of Christian burial and we mourn and grieve, but then we gather for food and celebrate the life lost and each other. Think of this last year as a long funeral; now we remember those we have lost, and what we have lost, as we celebrate the times to come. This is what it means to be human and to be Christian.

Joy is the effervescence of the Holy Spirit bubbling up out of the caverns of suffering saying to the forces that try and keep us in the tomb that no – love is stronger. Nadia Bolz-Weber

I love the idea: the Holy Spirit bubbling up out of the depths of suffering. Last week she whisked Phillip all over Palestine; this week she throws Peter in a tizzy, along with all his close followers, when she opens the door of God’s love to all of humanity. Everyone; no exceptions. You are all welcome at the table. What is to keep you from being baptized? Nada.

I believe people who preach American exceptionalism are really worshipping another god and a very small one at that. Power and profit are their gods and hatred is their weapon. Much harm will come from them, as it has from people like them throughout history; but we can remain in joy and love. One writer said of the Beatle’s song that some embraced love as the answer; cynics said love was a vapid emotion that would only distract people from combating evil.

Each of us much choose a path, serve somebody as Bob Dylan said. I needed to be reminded that Jesus called me his friend, not business associate or casual acquaintance, but a close and intimate friend. What a friend we have in Jesus. If I accept his friendship, it does come with a huge cost. I have never had a close intimate friendship that did not come with a cost. If there is no cost, it is a very shallow and indeed cheap friendship. With Jesus the friendship brings us a deep and abiding joy that nothing, absolutely nothing, can separate us from the love of God; that joy, true joy, supersedes anything that the dark forces of the world can throw my way. Nations come and go and people seem to put a lot of stock in them, but the heart of the matter is our relationship with Jesus, within the Trinity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Creator, Sanctifier, Redeemer. Remember how Jesus keeps telling us about the Big Banquet? I don’t think he meant that after death we get all we want to eat; I think he was talking about the kingdom of God which is here and now if we let it.

Next week I am throwing a party and inviting friends I have not seen or barely seen since Covid began. I will eat and converse and laugh with them. Some are agnostic and some are Christian, but our hope is the same. Jesus keep filling me with the audacity of love and of hope and joy.

Amen