The Irreverent Reverend

Joy is a powerful force in human life. It is unrelated to happiness, though we tend to forget this at times.  I have nothing against happiness; in fact I am a big fan. The problem is that, as Frederick Beuchner notes, happiness is so fickle. Happiness is often dependent on external circumstances.  When these circumstances change our happiness often changes too.

On the other hand, joy is of stronger stuff.  It is not dependent on the external circumstances of life. It is rooted deep within, where we find the Divine who lives in us all. Deep within we also find our most authentic selves. We discover our true identity as beloved children of God and our true place in the world as the unique and unrepeatable human beings we are.

This self-awareness and deep connection to self and to the Divine is the root of joy. This is the foundation, and all true joy is built on this.

We know that the things we can put our hands on will not bring us joy, though they may bring us temporary moments of happiness. For example, I would be happy if someone decided to give me a new BMW this Christmas. I know, however, that it would not bring me joy.

Joy comes when the authentic in me reaches the authentic in you and we form a relationship that is beyond superficial.  It is the meaning of the word “Namaste.” It means that the holy in me greets the holy in you.

Joy comes when we know in our bones that whatever situation we find ourselves in will not finally define us, because our true identity is given to us by the Holy One. We may lose our money, lose our jobs, lose our health, lose our stature in the community, but we will never lose our stature as God’s beloved. As James Wellman wrote, “Joy is best sown on broken ground.”

Joy is deepened when what we desire for ourselves becomes our deepest desire for the people of the world.  Joy can never exist in the vacuum of our own little world. When we dream God’s dream for the world, it is filled with joy that is beyond happiness.

The joy of this season is in receiving a fuller glimpse of God through the One who comes to make God known. We are invited to go deeper in our lives to discover the holy within so we might recognize the holy around us.

May the true joy of this season be yours…and may it continue to hold you into the days that are to come.

One of the things about doing the same thing for forty years is that people who are just beginning their careers look about twelve.

I am pretty much over my doctor looking like the female equivalent of Doogie Houser. I had forgotten that the pastor who cares for my Connecticut family looks only slightly older than an altar boy, until he showed up at the hospital waiting room as my aunt, cousin and I twiddled our thumbs, read, worried and paced during the long hours of my uncle’s surgery.

He quietly pulled up a chair and settled into our reminiscing about the first Easter egg hunt held at our house when all the children of my generation were between 4 and 7. It is the stuff of family legend.

The conversation meandered through the weather, current events and the price of gas. It usually came back to some story that defined the funky group of people that make up my family.

It is the kind of conversation people have about the past when they are afraid there might not be a future, and the present is a little too much to take in big doses.  This young pastor sipped his coffee and smiled, listened and gathered the stories of my family into his keeping.

When he was ready to leave, he asked us to pray together.  We huddled close in the din of the waiting room where other families were telling their stories and he prayed, “The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it…your light shines in this place and we thank you.”

I’m not sure what he said after that.  His words exploded with the assurance that while we were stumbling around the darkness of that moment in a place none of us wanted to be, there was a presence holding us and helping us.

His words were a gift that transformed the moment…a reminder that no matter what happened it was going to be okay, because even if we didn’t know what the future held we knew who held not only the future but also that present moment.

It was the reminder I needed that “…light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it.” (From John 1)

This verse suggests a role for us that we might otherwise overlook.  In our waiting, in our preparation, in our Advent presence, we are witnesses to the light.

Much of this season is marked by hopes for something bigger and better, something more than what we have, or at least something different.  For some of us it is a yearning for what used to be and is no more. For others of us it is an ache for what never was.  We all share a restless search for meaning and purpose in the midst of our days.  And like them we often seek it in places that will disappoint us: gifts under the tree, impossible wishes for what will never be and more.

The promise of the season is joy, and it is always bigger than the stuff of the moment. It’s not some cheesy BS that is synonymous with happiness. My favorite Christian apologist Frederick Beuchner writes, “Happiness turns up more or less where you’d expect it to…a good marriage, a rewarding job, a pleasant vacation.  It’s a wonderful thing. The problem is that it’s pretty fickle.” Much of the disappointment of this season comes when happiness disappoints us and we are left with what is and not what we wish for.

Joy is of much stronger stuff. It is not about what is happening in the moment, but who holds the moment.

The joy we so desperately crave is not found in what we create, in what we get or even in what we give, but in what we are promised.

Life is always bigger than this present moment. Our shared human existence has meaning and possibilities beyond our present experiences.

The moment may, in fact, be a train wreck.  But the light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not, and will not, overcome it.

To show compassion for an individual

without showing concern for the structures

of society that make him an object of compassion

is to be sentimental rather than loving.

William Sloane Coffin

Never forget that justice is what love

looks like in public.

Cornel West

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Love divine all loves excelling,

joy of heaven to earth come down.

Fix in us thy humble dwelling,

all thy faithful mercies crown.

Jesus, thou art all compassion,

pure , unbounded love thou art.

Visit us with thy salvation,

enter every trembling heart.

Breathe, O breathe

thy loving spirit

into every troubled breast.

Let us all in thee inherit

let us find the promised rest.

Take away our love of sinning,

Alpha and Omega be.

End of faith as its beginning,

set our hearts at liberty.

Come almighty to deliver,

let us all thy life receive.

Suddenly return and never

never more thy temples leave.

Thee we would be always blessing

serve Thee as thy hosts above.

Pray and praise thee

without ceasing.

Glory in thy perfect love.

Finish then thy new creation.

Pure and spotless let us be.

Let us see thy great salvation

perfectly restored in thee.

Changed from glory into glory

til in heaven we take our place.

Til we cast our crowns before thee,

lost in wonder, love and praise.

Til we cast our crowns before thee,

lost in wonder, love and praise.

Of God’s love we can say two things:

It is poured out universally for everyone from the Pope

to the loneliest wino on the planet;

and secondly,

God’s love doesn’t seek value,

It creates value.

It is not because we have value

that we are loved,

but because we are loved

that we have value.

Our value is a gift

not an achievement.

William Sloane Coffin

In ancient Hebrew times love was an action not dependent on feelings. It doesn’t mean that people didn’t fall in love in biblical times. It does mean that where the word love appears in Scripture it probably doesn’t mean romantic love.

There are many words for love in Hebrew. They range in meaning from the love of parent for a child, the loyalty of family bonds, devotional love, a deliberate choice of affection and kindness, love that is expressed in compassion, the physical act of making love and love as a celebration of joy.

Greek, the language of the New Testament, also has multiple words for love. The meanings include erotic love, familial love, friendship love and the self-giving love that mirrors God’s love for us.

The reason any of this matters is that when we speak of God, we usually speak of God as love. So, it’s important to have some idea of what we mean by the word. In Scripture it usually means unselfish, self-giving action that is not dependent on feeling.

Action that is not dependent on how we feel is hard. It’s the root of loving our enemies. Heck, we have a hard enough time loving the people we are supposed to love. At its best, biblical love desires for everyone else what we have for ourselves. There is a generosity to biblical love that mirrors God’s generosity toward us.

Many of us are familiar with words from 1 Corinthians 13. We hear them all the time at weddings: “Love is patient and kind, love is not envious or boastful or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth.”

These words were originally intended for the gathered community of faith. They are words about how we are to be with each other in daily living. It is not a marriage text; it is a guide for living each and every day.

Advent celebrates the coming of God’s most complete example of love into the world. We can learn a lot about love by looking at how Jesus lived in the world. He was always at the margins with the unclean and the broken, with the outcast and the downtrodden. His love in action was about remaking the world.

Welcoming Jesus in this season is an invitation to sign on for the same work in the world.

If we desire a society of peace,

then we cannot achieve such a society through violence.

If we desire a society

without discrimination,

then we must not discriminate against anyone

in the process of building this society.

If we desire a society that is democratic,

then democracy must become a means as well as an end.

Bayard Rustin

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Peace is the bread we break.

Love is the river rolling.

Life is a chance we take when we make this earth our home,

gonna make this earth our home.

Feel the cool breeze blowing through the smoke and the heat,

hear the gentle voices and the marching feet

singing draw back the fire

pull the missiles down

and we’ll call this earth our home.

Peace is the bread we break.

Love is the river rolling.

Life is a chance we take when we make this earth our home.

Gonna make this earth our home.

We have known the atom,

the power and pain,

seen people fall beneath the killing rain.

If the mind still reasons and the soul remains

it shall never be again.

Peace is the bread we break.

Love is the river rolling.

Life is a chance we take when we make this earth our home.

Gonna make this earth our home.

Peace grows from a tiny seed,

As the acorn grows into the tallest tree.

Many years ago I heard a soldier say,

when people want peace, better get out of the way.

Peace is the bread we break.

Love is the river rolling.

Life is a chance we take when we make this earth our home.

Gonna make this earth our home.