Practicing Joy All the Time

The Sunday Sermon:  May 15, 2022 – 5th Sunday of Easter

Scripture:  Philippians 4:4-7


Practicing Joy All the Time

So .. .we have “Joy, Joy, Joy …” already.  Joy in God’s creation.  Joy in God’s mercy.  And joy in, and for, one another.  Joy, joy, joy … and this morning we have … Joy!  So altogether, when this morning together is through, we will have “joy, joy, joy, joy” … where?  (Down in our hearts!  Yes, among other places … ) But we’ll wait to celebrate that in song until our closing hymn.  Though I hope you’ll be singing it constantly in your mind until then.  First, however … our fourth “call to joy” in our latest exploration of how we may follow Jesus more closely and experience God more fully in our lives of faith.

Pray with me …

For our fourth Sunday of joy we turn to what is often referred to as “the epistle of joy” – Paul’s letter to the church in Philippi, otherwise knows as Philippians.  Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts, Romans, first and Second Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians and then … Philippians.

About three-quarters of the way through our Christian New Testament we find a letter that is almost certainly authentically “Pauline”, written to one of the communities he founded, but hasn’t visited for a while.  He hasn’t been to Philippi recently for a very good reason. In fact, he writes the letter we have in our bible from a roman Prison.  But by all accounts, Paul loves this community.  And even imprisoned as he is, he tells this group of early Christians they give him “joy, joy, joy, joy”,  Words for joy or rejoicing appear more than a dozen times in this letter, weaving a colorful thread through this, relatively short writing.

If you’ve been a part of our earlier hour in the weeks past, our Sunday school hour – and I wish you all were, we’d meet in here if we had to, to accommodate the large numbers (wouldn’t that be cool?).  Anyway, if you’ve been a part of the Sunday school hour, you are extra familiar with our scripture reading for this morning.  We opened each class by reading these verses together.  This morning in worship, however, we add one more verse.

Listen for the Word of God from the epistle of Joy – the opening verses of the last chapter of the Letter to the Philippians.  Read Philippians 4:1, 4-7.  The Word of the Lord.  Thanks be to God.

The Word of the Lord, indeed!  Joy!  Rejoice!

I told you a few weeks ago that it had been a tough week finding a sermon message that spoke of the Joy we are called to express in God’s mercy.  Well this week has been a much easier sermon writing week as I’ve listened for the message that proclaims how we are to practice Joy always.  And I need to share something with you before we get into the deep and profound exegetical sermon message the Spirit has led me to this week.

Our Session has been continuing the work of this congregation in exploring the Seven Marks of a Vital Congregation that we launched back in February.  Many of you, most of you actually, stayed for lunch on a Sunday in March to hear about this initiative and our hopes in the months ahead this year.  Well, your Session has been, and will be, looking more intently at the “seven marks” during our monthly meetings through 2022.  We’re gathering thirty minutes earlier than we have for decades and sharing a meal together during our first hour together while we explore what in the world these “marks” mean, and how we can make them all a conscious, vital, and faithful part of our congregation.  We’ve just gotten started, exploring the first mark – Lifelong Christian Formation (what are we doing to encourage and enable all of us to more deeply understand the life that our Christian faith offers us) – exploring that more deeply in April.  And this month, just last Monday as a matter of fact, we took a look at the second mark of a vital congregation, Intentional Authentic Evangelism.  How do we as individuals and as a community share the Good News we have?

We realized very quickly, in the opening devotional and through the hour we devoted to this conversation that first and foremost, we needed to get a clear“er” idea of what the Good News at Pewee Valley Presbyterian Church “is”.  Salvation through the sacrificial Love of Jesus of Nazareth, to be sure.  But as Presbyterians (and as Pewee Valley Presbyterians!), we seek constantly to understand salvation in this life and not just after death.  We seek constantly to understand how our own sacrificial Love, and not just Jesus’ love, saves us and others.  And, we seek constantly to understand how we, like Jesus, are God’s anointed, as well!  Christians … “little Christs.”

So … our “Good News” at Pewee Valley Presbyterian Church goes beyond our personal salvation and someone else’s finished work.  While we receive it through the birth, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the Good News of great joy that is for “all the people” is not be limited by the special Revelation of God that Christianity experiences in Jesus.  God – whoever, wherever, however God is – is bigger than any one human religious order or doctrinal proclamation.  So, while we are secure in our own salvation, we continue to ask, How do we encourage and enable ourselves to intentionally and authentically share it?

Now, lest you think I’ve forgotten the topic of this sermon message in the provocative theology and Christology I just shared, here’s why that conversation has been so on my mind for this sermon.  Joy is at the heart of our Gospel.  However we explain our Good News, to one another and to others, it’s what that Good News does to us – does for us – that is it’s heart.  The Good News causes us to “be joyous people”.  It causes us to rejoice in that which was lost being found – a sheep, a coin, a child.  It causes us to rejoice when we, who get lost, are found.  And it asks others to rejoice with us.  Joy is at the heart of our Gospel Good News.  Joy is at the heart of the Christian life. Unaffected, child-like (not childish) rejoicing in the Lord is a hallmark of Christian life.  We should practice it at all times and we should be sharing it – intentionally and authentically.

Joy … our Joy.

Here’s the problem.  Like sacrificial Love in American society today, and anything other than the exclusive claims to God in many (or most) Christian societies today, the Joy that Paul writes to and expresses for the community in Philippi is profoundly counter-cultural.  We think of Joy as a private “overflow” of good feelings in response to happy circumstances.  Joy, we think, is a goal, a “right” even – “life, liberty and the pursuit of … joy, or happiness.”  But for Paul, and for us, Joy is not an end to itself.  It is a part of reaching whatever ends we are seeking.  Joy is not a “right” we deserve, but a discipline we decide on.  Joy is not an option, it is a requirement.  And Joy, as we’ve learned again so well last week, is not individual.  It is shared.

One of the hardest things for us to get our heads around is the fact – not the suggestion, but the fact – that Christian Joy does not depend on our circumstances.  (Get ready for this, now.  I’m going to bombard you with Joy-notes.)

Faithful experience and expressions of Joy do not happen only when we are happy, when times are good, and when everyone is doing well.  Rather, Joy (capital “J” – I’ve got another one!), Joy trusts in the presence of God at all times, in promises fulfilled and in questions left unanswered; in abundant mercy and in sharing with one another; in the present and in the future.  It’s not an escape form the pain of life, or a goal to be sought, peppered throughout life, but not sustained.  Joy is with us always.  Joy is a reconsideration and a reinvestment in life from a different, liberating – salvific – perspective.  (Wow …)

“Instead of worrying about anything,” Paul tells the Philippians, “bring everything to God” – to the source of Life, and Love, and relationship, and Peace, and Hope, and Joy.  The “anythings” and “everythings” of life include the sources of our endless worry and concern and sadness.  The joy that Paul encourages and models is not a “numb acceptance” of the hardships of life.  He is in prison as he writes this letter of Joy.  The community in Philippi is experiencing a few hiccups, otherwise this writing would probably not have survived.  Christian Joy does not deny the hardships of life.  It holds those hardships, cushions those concerns, and washes away those worries in the profoundly counter-cultural Love of Christ and presence of God.  That’s the Good News.

I’m sure we can make our Good News more difficult.  In fact, we do.  And that probably makes it more difficult to share.  But even if we don’t end with it, maybe we can begin simply with “Joy,” reframe the I bring you Good News of Great Joy shared in one of the most memorable proclamations of the angels in our gospel to I bring you   Good News that is Great Joy and begin there.

Practicing Joy at all times, intentionally and authentically, using words if we have to, should be, one of the most profound ways we share who we are and get others to wonder how they might “be joyous,” too.

If we are not alive to the Joy that our faith in a God of Life and a Christ of Love gives us, and if we are not practicing that Joy at all times, then we may miss it altogether and we’ll never be able to fully share it.  But when we are alive and practicing and sharing … the peace of God which passes all understanding guards our hearts and our minds and we are able to “be” Joy to the world – all the time.

May it be so.  Amen.

Reverend Joel Weible, Pastor

Pewee Valley Presbyterian Church / May 15, 2022