Joy for Who?
Gate Pa – Year C 3rd Sunday in Advent, 2021
Readings:
Psalm Isaiah 12:2-6 (God Is My Salvation)
First Reading:
Zephaniah
3:14-20
Second Reading: Philippians 4:4-7
Gospel:
Luke
3:7-18
What I want
to say:
How might we open ourselves to
receive the gift of joy this Christmas?
The Dalai Lama, Desmond Tutu and
Douglas Abrams, in “The Book of Joy - Lasting Happiness in a Changing World”
offer these three ways of being joyful; the ability to reframe a situation
positively; the ability to experience gratitude; and the voice to be kind or
generous.
John the Baptist invites us to go further
– to offer the gift of hope, peace, joy and love this Christmas to others.
How might we practically live
generously and compassionately this Christmas?
What I want
to happen:
The Sermon
1. Introduction:
Last week I talked about Advent as a time of
preparation, and not just for Christmas. In part it is about Christmas, but it
is about so much more
-
About encountering
the Christ of history, meet in the Christmas story and whole story of the life
and ministry Jesus, shows us the reign of God.
-
And encountering the
Christ of mystery – met in the Spirit of the crucified and risen Christ
bringing in reign of God now in this place. We learn where to look for this
reign by looking at Christ of history
-
And finally looking
to the Christ of majesty – when God’s reign will fully come, when creation is renewed
and humanity is restored
So as I have said, in Advent, Christmas is
important but it is not the point. Advent is about so much more.
As you all know, in Advent we are offered these
four themes through which to explore all this. And today the theme is the gift
of Joy. Which is a great theme on day like today, a day of joy with the carols
on the lawn tonight
Joy feels like something we could all do a lot
more of this year.
2.
What is Joy?
What is Joy?
I offered some thoughts in the pew sheet for
Franciscan rule.
Joy is a gift.
But as I have said before, there are things we
can do to help us receive this gift of joy. In “The Book of Joy - Lasting
Happiness in a Changing World” the Dalai Lama, Desmond Tutu and Douglas Abrams,
talk about 3 ways to nurture joy
-
reframe a
situation positively
-
experience
gratitude
-
be kind or
generous.
These three ways of nurturing joy or opening us
up to joy keep coming up in the spiritual traditions of Judaism, Buddhism and
Christianity, and I suspect in many other faith traditions as well.
These are ways we might pay attention to joy, ways
we water and nurture the divine gift of joy.
And as we as a society work our way through what
covid is doing to us, and how people are responding to being vaccinated or not,
and how to work with all that, I think we need to hold on to all of these.
-
To look for ways reframe
situations positively
-
To be open to experience
gratitude in difficult situations
-
And to try to be kind
or generous at all times – which is not always easy.
I will certainly try to hold on to these.
3. Not all about me
I do wonder though, as I say all that, if there is
more to this joy thing. Or even what I usually think and say about hope, peace
and love as well. I note that when I think about those things I tend to start with
something like, “what brings me joy?” Or “what do I hope for?” I start with me.
And I feel a little anxious about that because over
on the side is John the Baptiser staring
me down and preaching, “You
brood of vipers”, or as todays translation puts it “You
children of snakes!” which just isn’t as punchy.
In the end all these themes are not really about
me and what brings me joy.
Focussing on the Christmas story can leave me
all joyful. And that is all good.
But thinking about the whole story of Jesus’
life and ministry so that I can hear the invitation to join the Christ of
mystery in bringing in the reign of God as a foretaste of when the Christ of
majesty restores humanity
and renews creation invites me to, well, go bigger. To repent of my littleness.
To, in a little way, have my mind blown. Because that is not about me and what
brings me joy or hope, peace or love. It is about so much more.
When
I do that, I see that this is not even about us and what
brings us joy. It is about how to live in God’s hope, peace, joy and love in
ways that bring, peace, hope, love and joy to this world, God’s creation.
4. John
Which is what John
is all about with his brood of vipers and baptism of repentance.
In the podcast I listen
to, this week they talked about what John’s baptism of repentance was about and
how it differed from Christian baptism. And Matt Skinner, one of the scholars
involved, talked about how in many instances the washing ceremonies are not so
much something to do to reverse being unclean, a sinner, but an act of
preparation. So a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins is an act
of preparing to have our sins forgiven by God. Not because we are baptised. But
because God loves us first and has already forgiven them. It is preparing to
have our minds blown by God’s compassion and generosity so that our hearts and
lives might be changed.
It was about allowing
God to refine us and remove like chaff all that prevents us living God’s joy in
this world.
It was about letting
go of how we had seen the world, and entering a new community who lived in the world
very differently-
Which is what Advent
is all about
Which is what
Christmas is all about
Seeing that we are
indeed a brood of vipers, and knowing God loves us and forgives us anyway, and
invites us into the story of changing the world. And maybe in that we will find
true joy.
5. Christmas
For John all of this
was very practical.
So I wasn’t to
finish with a question.
How has that and how
will that shape how we practically prepare for this Christmas?
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