Joy is not just a woman's name (sermon from Feb 10, 2019)

Reading:  Psalm 100 and Philippians 4:4-9 

A generation or two ago, the Coca-Cola company said they would like to teach the world to sing.  And for a while we did enjoy singing their song.  Thousands of years before that, the people of Israel said much the same thing.  Psalm 100 is an invitation to all the world to join them in joyful worship of God, because they know how good it is to do that, and to bring all aspects and experiences of our life to God in prayer.  If only all the world would learn to be joyfully thankful to God, what might this world be like?

The second reading is from Paul’s letter to the Christian community in Philippi.  Things are not all rosy.  Paul is in jail and the Philippian church is suffering a few upsets.  But in the end, Paul’s advice is simple:  “Rejoice.  Rejoice in the Lord.”

Praise the Lord! the Psalmist says.  It’s not something we say here a lot.  At least not all together.  And not out loud in worship. 

Rejoice! Paul says.  Choose joy as your way of being.  Let joy flow freely from your deepest heart.  That’s not my usual way of being.  When someone asks me how I’m doing, these days I usually say, “Pretty well.”  It’s an improvement over what I used to say: “Not bad!”  But people have commented it’s still a whole lot more guarded and hesitant than “Great! Wonderful!  Awesome!” or what Muriel Coker used to say in all honest humility and with the most grateful of smiles, “Just perfect!”

“Rejoice in the Lord always; again, I will say rejoice!”  Paul advises the Christians in Philippi. 

“Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth,” the psalmist tells us, suggesting that we of all people should be able to teach the world to sing – and not about Coca Cola, but about God and God’s goodness, the really real thing that makes life and earth and all we know, good.

And we know about joy.  In our own way, we feel it and share it here.  If we didn’t, and if it wasn’t important to us, the Council and the others who worked in stages over the past year to discern our new mission statement, would not have named Joy as one of our four Core Values – one of four things that really describe who we are, what’s most important to us in our life together, and what helps us to know if something fits and is right for us, or not.

Joy.

When the young people sing in worship, they are the Joy Choir.  And they really are.  Joy is on their faces, in their voices.  It’s in the message of their songs, and in their confident presence.  And it’s in our hearts – joy is nurtured and maybe even resurrected within us, when we see and hear them.

And the senior choir has the same effect.  The choir has a good time together; there is joy in their gathering.  There is joy in their anthems as well, that they communicate to us.  Like last week’s offering of “Sing to the North” that left all of us just that little more inspired and uplifted that we needed and longed to be.  It happens every time they sing, “Shine, Jesus, Shine.”  And I’m sure you all have other favourites that just really touch your heart and give you joy that you just don’t get anywhere else.

A few weeks ago someone came to worship just all out of sorts.  It had not been a good morning.  One thing after another had gone wrong.  Arguments, hurt feelings and strained relationships seemed to be the order of the day.  I asked what might make it better – what might help to be able to settle in worship and know God’s goodness.  And the answer was immediate and simple: “Music.”  And the music did not disappoint. 

Music apparently speaks to the brain in particularly wonderful and healing ways.  Whether it’s sung, played or just listened to, music bypasses at least two parts of our brain that often give us so much trouble.  It bypasses the rational part of our brain that deals with logic and analysis and makes us overly anxious the past and the future.  It also doesn’t activate the threat-awareness part of our brain that triggers fear, panic and fight-or-flight –  before even knowing if the threat is real or not. 

Music instead goes straight to the emotion centre and helps release a little dopamine into the system.  It makes us feel good.  It triggers positive emotions and good memories.  It helps us pay attention to just the present moment.  It activates learning and insight.  It helps us be open to what really is at the heart of all that is – to God, to our own truest self, to the spirit of God alive in others as well.

And it’s not just music that helps us feel this way, and experience this kind of peacefully energizing joy in our life together as church.

Do you remember how it felt the Sunday we welcomed the Assad family in a worship service here?  How good – how joyful we felt, to see them sitting over there in a side pew near the front, and then standing here on the platform – Israa at the mike saying thank you in better English than she thought, Louia standing beside her, and their (at that time) two children – Zain as quiet as ever, and Sham resplendent and beaming in her Snow White dress.  If hearts can smile, our hearts were smiling ventricle to ventricle that day.

And if hearts can shout aloud in joy, our hearts shouted the day a year or more before, when in our worship of God we were able to share the news of their safe arrival at the airport in Toronto, after their mountain-walk escape from Syria and weeks of hiding in Lebanon. 

              Praise the Lord! (it says in Psalm 146)

Do not put your trust in princes;

Happy are those whose help is the Lord their God,

who made heaven and earth, and keeps faith forever;
who executes justice for the oppressed;
          who …sets the prisoners free;

The Lord watches over the strangers;
          he upholds the orphan and the widow,
          and the way of the wicked he brings to ruin.

The day we heard of the Assad's arrival, and on other days along that journey we felt part of something bigger than ourselves.  Part of something ultimately good.  Part of something that enlarged us, enlarged our own hearts and lives, made us somehow bigger and better people as well.

And isn’t that what joy is?  The feeling of being bigger, larger, better, more holy, more truly human, more loving and more beloved than we feel a lot of the time in our routine, mundane, workaday lives?

It’s a feeling you might have at the end of a spaghetti supper after all the guests have left, the last dishes are being washed and dried and put away, and you sit around the table talking about the day, all that was done, the people that were served, the joy that was shared around the tables and at the dessert counter and in happy conversation by all who came to eat, to connect, and to belong.  It’s a joy that lingers to be savoured as the long day gently draws to a close.

And it’s not just happy times that engender joy.  I feel it sometimes at the end of a hard and difficult conversation with someone.  Maybe it’s about some hard thing or a crisis in their life.  Some challenge or fear they are feeling.  Maybe even some disagreement and conflict we feel between us.  And it’s fearful – a little scary, to start.  But as we talk and give ourselves openly and honestly to the conversation, it’s as though a third presence begins to walk with us, speaking to each one of us in turn with words of hope, words of challenge and change, a little bit of light, a good next step.  And with that … there is joy.  Joy in the Lord who does not forsake us, who walks with us in good and healing ways no matter what, who helps us grow into bigger, better, more purposeful and meaningful, more truly human versions of ourselves.

It makes sense that Joy is named as the fourth of our four Core Values.  First, Together as Family.  Second, Grace-Based Love, or Loving as We Know We Are Loved.  Third, Service to the Community, Service Outside the Box.  And fourth, the fruit of it all, Joy that we share and grow into.

It’s a wonderful and holy progression.  And it’s not just a straight line that we walk from 1 to 4 and then are finished.  It’s more a circle, with Joy as that which leads us back to our togetherness as family in a deeper way than before, encouraging us as well to deeper ways of loving one another and of serving the community beyond us outside the box.

So what do we do with this?

Marie Kondo, of Netflix Tidying-Up fame and one of the current industry gurus of decluttering and organizing our excess of stuff, tells us to take everything out of our closets and drawers, for a while hold each thing we have in our hand, and let our heart tell us if this thing still brings us joy, or not.  If it does – if it brings us joy, then keep it; find a place for it.  And if it doesn’t, get rid of it; it no longer belongs.

I wonder what you think of maybe emptying out our closets and drawers here at church, pulling out everything we do and everything we are, holding each thing for a while in our hand, and letting our heart tell us if it still brings us joy or not.  Does this program or activity or this thing we do, still help us be together as family, still help us love one another in grace, still help us serve the community around us in ways that they need, and help us grow in joy?  If so, we keep it.  And anything that doesn’t we consciously, intentionally choose to get rid of.  It no longer belongs.

Rejoice in the Lord always (Paul says) … and whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about and do these things – the things that serve God’s purpose for you, that enlarge your life and increase your joy and the joy of others around you, and the God of peace will be with you.