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Back to Sermon ArchivesJuly 19,
2009
Rev. Judith Bither
Fruit of the Spirit: Joy
According to Paul’s letter to the
Galatians, The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness,
goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Last Sunday we focused
on the first fruit, love, and I suggested that all the others really
amplify the first. It’s not an accident that Paul placed love at the top of the
list. Love of God and neighbor are central tenants of the Christian faith.
Next,
Paul lifts up joy. Cindy was a very wise single mother in my last church
and she often came to talk with my about her two grammar school
children. In one such conversation she asked for my suggestion about how to help
her kids understand the difference between joy and happiness. I actually
chuckled, and asked her how many adults she knew who understood the difference?
The difference is our lesson for this morning. The Fruit of the Spirit is joy.
Happiness comes from the root word hap,
which means chance. Think of our word happenstance. Happiness is circumstantial.
It has to do with life going the way we want it to go and the feelings we
experience when that happens.
It would be like spending Christmas
with all your favorite relatives: everyone really likes their gifts, the sun is
shining (or there’s fresh snow, whichever appeals to you), and several people
worked together to cook a delicious dinner of all your favorite foods. No one
complains, argues or drinks too much.
Happiness. It’s a feeling based on circumstances and we need to celebrate those
occasions when they occur!
But
there are so many other moments
when life doesn’t happen according to my desires or plans. What then?
What can we expect to experience when life turns upside down, when we get
nothing we want and everything we don’t want?
Ah, that’s the opportunity for joy! Whereas happiness is circumstantial,
joy is not.
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Joy is fuller than
happiness.
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The Hebrew Bible
describes joy as a quality of life as well as an emotion. The
spontaneous songs of worship we find in the Psalms illustrate this kind
of joy.
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Joy is something deep
that celebrates God’s character in spite of circumstances.
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Joy shall come even
in the wilderness,
the Psalmist declares. Garments of joy replace sackcloth of mourning.
In the New Testament joy is often expressed as ecstasy, a feeling of
amazement, an uninhibited response to God’s grace and presence in our lives.
Think of the tidings of great joy that were brought to the shepherds by the
angels at Jesus’ birth. Joy is connected to hope, to love and to a
perspective that sees beyond the immediate to the eventual.
When all the roots are uncovered and
all the meanings are defined, the Bible offers an overall definition of this
elusive quality. The fruit of joy is confidence in God—confidence in God’s grace
despite circumstances, despite what happens. Joy is the conviction that God is
in control and all I have to do is surrender, to let go.
So joy
comes on a Christmas morning spent with grumpy relatives who complain about
their gifts and children who whine about the dinner. It boldly turns its gaze to
the reason behind the celebration and, remembering this, inhales deeply with
confidence. I can’t control how anyone else responds or acts. I’m only
responsible for myself and I can choose joy!
But Paul
was writing about something much deeper and more important than grumpy family on
Christmas. He was writing about joy from a prison cell, while being
ship-wrecked, beaten and tortured. Because of his witness, those who knew him
were also able to live in this joy-filled way: count it all joy, James wrote
some years later.
It’s
generally believed that James was a brother of Jesus. His letter falls under
what we call the wisdom literature and is less a letter than a sharing of wisdom
on how to live “the Jesus Way”, as they called it then. The Letter of James is
part of our legacy of how to live a joy-filled life. A subtitle might be “A Book
When Everything Is Going Wrong.” That’s basically what the letter of James is
about. It’s an epistle written to people in the Christian church who were facing
persecution and suffering. The letter tells them to live triumphantly—anyway.
James begins his letter to those facing persecution this way: Count it all joy,
brothers and sisters. Count it all joy when you meet various trials, for you
know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness.
Count it
all joy. That’s exactly what the first Christians did, with the Book of James in
one hand and the gospel of our Lord in the other. Their families were destroyed,
they lost their jobs and their health, but they went on singing hymns of
thanksgiving to their deaths. Oh, for a faith like that…
One of
the hallmarks of Christian joy is that it can be experienced in the midst of
immense sorrow and loss. Here we find one of the greatest differences between
Christian joy and the happiness the world promises. When James wrote to those
who were enduring such suffering, he wrote to encourage them. His letter was in
complete contrast to the values of that day where most people looked for
happiness and joy in the pleasures of the flesh: gluttony, greed, drunkenness
and sexual practices that devalued the other.
Paul,
James and other early Christians survived by encouraging others to remain
faithful even while being persecuted. How were they encouragers for one another?
By their
words, actions and prayers. They spoke kindly to one another and about one
another. They believed Jesus when he said to go the extra mile. And they prayed
for one another each and everyday.
Last
week when we focused on love we said that it’s not always easy. Sometimes it’s
really hard. Jesus never promised easy. The same is true for joy. We can’t just
choose to be joy-filled—it has to be pursued and worked on. I know this
intimately as I struggled with depression for about a dozen years. I remember so
vividly when an Episcopal priest friend asked me where I found joy and I had no
answer. I couldn’t name anything in my life where I found joy. I had to humble
myself and learn the hard way of talk-therapy, journaling, daily disciplines and
anti-depressants. So please hear that I understand that joy is more than a
simple choice or that you are a failure as a Christian if you don’t feel joyful
all the time! Each and every fruit of the Spirit must be prayed for and lived
out fully to be received.
There are, of course, other obstacles for Christians to a life of joy:
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Fear
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Anger
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Self-indulgence
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Striving for control
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Bitterness
Being joyful is only one possible response to the events and
people in our lives. Some will choose bitterness. I read of a man who was
interviewed on his 90th birthday. He told the reporter: I never
had a happy day in my life. We can think of friends or family who have been
betrayed by a spouse, child, co-worker, sibling—and they claim they will never
love again. The hurt is that deep. They choose bitterness and anger.
We can
understand bitterness, because at some point in our lives we have each been
wounded by a loved one or been betrayed by a friend. We understand bitterness.
We can
also each think of people who have faced great pain, rejection or suffering in
life—and have responded with joy. Some of these people are my heroes in former
congregations and doubtless there are some sitting here today. As Christians we
are called to pray: Thank you, God, for everything that has gone before, because
it has brought me to this place and moment. Everything. For every person, every
event, every situation has made me the person I am. I choose to learn from each
one to make myself more like Christ.
We
cultivate the fruit of joy by coming together as a community of faith for
worship in the spirit of rejoicing. We cultivate the fruit of joy by nurturing
contentment—that is, by understanding the difference between happiness and joy.
And we cultivate joy by:
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giving ourselves to
others in the spirit of Jesus;
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by surrounding
ourselves by people who lift us up;
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by praying for those
who tear us down.
May the fruit of the Spirit
that is joy be yours in some way this day. Let us go forth in joy and be led out
in love.
For
Jesus’ sake! Amen
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