REJOICE, GIVE THANKS AND SING!

A Sermon for Sunday, October 12, 2008

(refrain from Hymn # 556, The Hymnal 1982)

Rejoice! Rejoice! Rejoice, give thanks and sing! (whole step down)

I don't know about you, but these days, I need some joy in my life. One day last week I had a hard time getting out of bed. I'm not just talking about the resistance of my aging body. I'm talking about the resistance of my soul. I thought, I just can't face one more day of bad news - political candidates sniping at each other, never-ending wars, the stock market in free-fall. . .

Considering all that's going on in our world these days, I suspect some of you might be experiencing resistance to getting up and getting on with life. Stress is a given, but you may even have some feelings of depression. Whether it is clinical, situational or seasonal, depression does happen. When it does, whenever we or someone we know and love feels down and out, there is help, and there is hope. We clergy and your care teams here at All Saints' can be part of your help and hope (also: National Alliance on Mental Illness www.nami.org.)

For five years I lived in the snow belt. In the winters especially, people struggled to find hope, let alone joy. One local joke went like this: "In our part of the world, there are only two seasons - winter and road-repair season." The city I lived in was the most light-deprived I've ever known. The economy had long been depressed. Apparently that city was a regular stop on the old vaudeville circuit, because, as folks there told it, "if they laugh at jokes in this dreary place, they'll laugh anywhere!" There, joy seemed rare, indeed.

Why else didn't I want to get up that day? Having had time to reflect a bit, an image has come to mind. There was a short-lived TV show called "Men Behaving Badly." I realized that, when I'm a bit depressed, a bit grumpy, I tend to behave badly. Buddhist nun Pema Chodron says those difficult emotions help wake us up…if we maintain a joyful mind (Always Maintain a Joyful Mind, p. 43).

Speaking of men behaving badly, what about Aaron? He and the Israelites couldn't wait any longer. They wanted Moses to come down from his mountaintop experience with God RIGHT NOW. When Moses didn't cooperate, Aaron became a functional atheist - professing faith in God, yet acting as if divinity could be captured in a calf, a big false god made out of some little false gods called earrings. Aaron was worshiping the wrong god, a god made with human hands. We would call that idolatry.
Then there's Matthew, writing a different version of the wedding story from Luke's. Luke's version is also about guests making all kinds of excuses as to why they can't accept an invitation to a wedding feast. But Matthew takes those guests and turns them into murderers - just like those tenants in the vineyard in Matthew's previous story from Jesus, a story we heard last week.

Matthew also turns the host of the wedding feast into a king who destroys those murdering guests, burns their city, appears to strong-arm other guests to come, and then, astonishingly, confronts a new character - a man who arrives for the feast wearing the wrong party clothes. This speechless guest, apparently an innocent man, gets tied up and bounced into outer darkness. Is this a story about a Godly king of love? Is that the kind of ruler Jesus really is? Or is this just Matthew behaving badly, worshiping the right God this time, but, like Aaron, for a different wrong reason: vengeance? Where, might we ask, is the joy?

Rejoice! Rejoice! Rejoice, give thanks and sing!

In contrast to those two biblical men behaving badly, there is Paul, who is known for and even owns up to some pretty bad behavior. But he is not behaving badly, it seems, when writing to the church at Philippi. Listen again to those words - not of human idolatry or vengeance but of God's peace, Paul's joy:

…my brothers and sisters, whom I love and long for, my joy and crown, stand firm in the Lord in this way, my beloved….Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near. Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus (4:1, 4-7, NRSV).

Another man of the Bible, a modern-day pastor named Eugene Peterson, has a fresh way of communicating God's Good News in what he calls The Message. He begins his version of our Philippians passage: My dear, dear friends! I love you so much. I do want the very best for you. You make me feel such joy, fill me with such pride (4:1). This version helps me hear how Paul loved the Philippians! But how could Paul, a man imprisoned for a capital crime, have so much joy?

Even ancient Paul and modern Eugene must have had times of not wanting to get out of bed, feeling depressed, angry enough to want someone tied up and tossed out. But they share a larger perspective, as friends in Christ. They invite us to join them in friendship. Eugene puts Paul's words this way: Don't fret or worry. Instead of worrying, pray. Let petitions and praises shape your worries into prayers, letting God know your concerns. Before you know it, a sense of God's wholeness, everything coming together for good, will come and settle you down. It's wonderful what happens when Christ displaces worry at the center of your life (4:6-7).

It is from this settled-down place of wholeness, peace and prayer that the imprisoned Paul can say to his friends, Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice (4:4, NRSV). Eugene's fresh take on Paul is: Celebrate God, all day, every day. I mean, revel in (God)! Yes, it's about revelry - a noisy, joyful celebration. Not the kind of idolatrous revelry in the story of the Golden Calf. Not even, I would suggest, the kind of vengeful revelry in Matthew's version of the story of the wedding feast. No, this is the joyful revelry found in a truly heavenly feast - like the one we share when we celebrate the Eucharist. My friends, a priest is not the only celebrant at the Eucharist. I preside as a representative of Christ at the table of our Lord, but we are all celebrants. We are all called to celebrate - to rejoice with one another, to give thanks with one another, to sing with one another. Even if we only speak the word "REJOICE!" it is still our song.

In the Academy Award-winning movie Babette's Feast, two daughters live in a religious community on the dreary, desolate coast of Denmark. Their father, a strict, dour clergyman, preaches salvation through self-denial. The daughters sacrifice their youthful passions to a duty-bound, puritanical faith - afraid, as one daughter sadly sings, "of my own joy." Many years after their father's death, Babette, a French civil war refugee and chef, mysteriously arrives. Penniless, she is welcomed by the sisters into their community. As they prepare to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the founding father's birth, Babette proposes something preposterous: a real French dinner, bought with money she has won.

Before dinner, the guests behave badly. They turn up their noses at the unfamiliar delicacies; they refuse to smile, even to show courtesy to Babette; they determine ahead of time that they WILL NOT, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, have a good time. But, after dinner, they all join hands, singing like never before. The joy on their faces, the joy in their exchanges, the joy welling up from their hearts - their joy in Christ is deep, profound, palpable. It is the surprising joy of discovering and sharing true friendship in Christ. We are reminded that we cannot experience Gospel joy without living it.

Nancy Delatush, who with her husband George, joined All Saints' this year, has a story to share about some joy in her life. Let's listen to part of her story of her joy in Christ…. Rejoice! Rejoice! Rejoice, give thanks and sing!

The Rev. Thomas A. Momberg
All Saints' Episcopal Church, Frederick, MD
October 12, 2008