Sunday, December 15, 2024 – Advent 3
First Congregational Church of Cheshire
© the Rev. Dr. James Campbell
Philippians 4:4-7
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.
Hold on to your hats. I’m about to say something that you may not like. (Maybe you think that most Sundays!) Are you ready? I’m one of those people who’s not especially fond of Christmas, at least as we know it. I once expressed something like that when I was still on Facebook, to which a former parishioner replied, “And you a Minister! Shame on you!”
I guess she could never imagine a Minister saying such a thing. Maybe you can’t either. Maybe you imagine that for people like me and Pastor Alison that this is the most wonderful time of the year! Well, it’s a time of the year, but wonderful is not the first word that comes to mind. And it’s not because I’m extra busy at this time of the year. Every pastor signed up for that. And it’s not because of all those unspoken expectations at this time of the year. And it’s certainly not because I don’t love Jesus and long to welcome him again into our weary world.
I think what bothers me is the expectation about how I am supposed to feel at this so-called “most wonderful time of the year.” You know what I’m talking about. There is this tremendous peer pressure to be happy! We’re all supposed to make merry! We’re supposed to cast aside every worry and pretend as if we all live in a Hallmark movie. And, at first glance, the Scripture lesson of the day seems to back up that happy worldview! In his letter to the Philippians, Saint Paul wrote: “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice.”
This third Sunday of Advent is also known as Gaudete Sunday. Gaudete is a Latin word meaning “Rejoice!” And on this Sunday, we do rejoice. We lay aside the penitential purple tones and instead we go pink. It’s a pink candle and pink stoles and pink attitudes. Think pink! It’s like the color itself shouts at us: “Be happy!” “Be cheerful!” “Be positive!” To which I am tempted to reply, “Bah humbug!”
Now it’s not that I don’t like to be happy or cheerful or positive. I do. But I also suspect that we have mistaken something profound, like joy, for something cheap, that is often helped along by eggnog. Furthermore, sometimes these cheap seasonal imitations get turned into battering rams against folks whose lives are difficult and challenging and painful; who suffer from loss or depression or loneliness, while the whole world screams at them: “Be merry!”
The book of Philippians is sometimes referred to as the Epistle of Joy because it has more references to joy than any other book of the Bible. Be that as it may, this Epistle of Joy was written to a congregation without a lot of reasons to be happy. They were engaged in turmoil and in-fighting and parking lot gossip. And Paul wrote this Epistle of Joy from prison, where he was awaiting trial and likely execution. It was bleak time. So, I think, we can reasonably conclude that the command to rejoice is not about seasonal merriment or how others think we are supposed to feel. In fact, it’s not about a feeling at all. It’s far deeper than that. It’s about a way of life. I’s about a practice. It is about the cultivation of the life of your soul.
The cultivation of the life of the soul. Do we even talk about that in church anymore? Do we even teach folks how to do that in church anymore. Or have we become content with information dumps and the related idea that faith primarily resides in the mind, as if what we think is somehow the sum total of our practice.
But I think that is a big mistake. I don’t think God really cares that much about the nuances of our theology; the finer points of what we believe about the Trinity or predestination or Holy Communion. It’s not that theology is unimportant, but faith is as faith does, not what faith thinks. And according to Paul, what faith does is to cultivate the interior life, so that it bears fruit in the world. Plainly put, what Paul is calling for in this passage is a consistent life of prayer and supplication and contemplation. These things have anchored the Christian life since the beginning. How many times do we read in the Gospels that our Lord Jesus went off all by himself to pray, often early in the morning, to be quiet, and care for his soul?
But I fear that in the place of prayer and quiet and contemplation, most Christians, of all stripes, have substituted non-stop news and social media distractions and shopping frenzies and forced merriment - and then slapped the name of Jesus on it like that makes it OK. And then we wonder about the poverty of our souls, the emptiness we feel, the longings that have no resolution.
I say this not as a judgment, but as a confession. I too have known the poverty of my soul. I too have taken in the empty calories of corporate babble about everything, as if it were the Holy Gospel. And then I wonder why I’m anxious and depressed and fearful. I wonder why I am angry when gentleness is supposed to be my language. I wonder why God feels so far away, even though Paul assures us that the Lord is near. And rejoicing always? You’ve got to be kidding.
But there’s something to be said about the school of hard knocks. My own foundations have been shaken pretty hard lately. Some old illusions invincibility have been shattered. I say this, not for the sake of pity, but for the sake of solidarity. We are all in this human thing together. And part of that shaking of the foundations was the stark realization that all those things I thought I could count on, I suddenly could not.
At first, I just felt naked and vulnerable and afraid and angry. But then I thought, “Jmaes, you know what to do.”
And this is what I did. I stopped grabbing my phone upon waking to see what had happened in the world since I went to sleep. In fact, I decided that a steady diet of bad news was poisoning my soul. And I don’t read my email first thing in the morning either. In fact, I don’t connect at all. Instead, I do this: early in the morning, before the rest of the house is awake, I go into the living room and I sit. And I watch the daylight come. And I breathe. And I try to be conscious of the fact that I am alive. And I stay in the now as much as I can. And I pray. I pray for all of you. I pray for my family. I pray for the people of the world. I pray for Creation. I pray for myself. It’s just me and the Lord and good cup of Brazilian coffee.
And somehow, this simply practice has moved around the furniture of my mind… and made room for joy - not happiness or merriment, but a sense of blessedness that comes from knowing that the Lord is near. And this nearness, this joy does not depend upon the state of the world or what is happening in my family or with my health. In fact, it has nothing to do with all of those things that I cannot control – which is, actually, everything.
Does that joy last all day? No. But it’s last long enough to give me strength and courage for the day ahead. It last long enough to reorient me for the challenges ahead.
Friends, at this most wonderful time of the year, don’t forget your souls. Feed yourself with goodness. Learn stillness. Talk to God. Make room for joy.
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