Joyful Joyful We Adore Thee

Scripture Psalm 146:5-10 (NRSV) 

5 Happy are those whose help is the God of Jacob, 
    whose hope is in the Lord their God,

6 who made heaven and earth,
    the sea, and all that is in them;
who keeps faith forever;

7 who executes justice for the oppressed;
    who gives food to the hungry.

The Lord sets the prisoners free;

8     the Lord opens the eyes of the blind.
The Lord lifts up those who are bowed down;
    the Lord loves the righteous.

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

10 The Lord will reign forever,
    your God, O Zion, for all generations.
Praise the Lord!

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If you were here last night you heard the story of the birth of Heaven’s Child sung and directed and accompanied with such power and passion and love that, sitting where I was, it was a wave of sound and emotion rolling over me, like feeling an ocean wave breaking.   If you were not here, I am sad for you, but it was recorded and should be on YouTube in the next few days.  As the narrator, I couldn’t help but notice that in the spoken parts the author made a point of mentioning, even stressing, the hardships experienced by the people Jesus was born into.  The narration spoke of the dinginess of the shepherds’ lives, the oppression under which they lived, their abject poverty.  And into the middle of the dreary brown sameness that described their lives, the Creator, the Composer of life’s music, dropped joy.  The angels proclaimed, the shepherds clamored, the aged prophet became as a young man, the newborn sang the beautiful newborn song - I am here, I am safe, I am alive.   Last night’s cantata was an amazing experience, and I am so grateful to have been a part of it.  

In 1991 the Nobel Committee awarded the Peace Prize to Aung San Suu Kyi of Myanmar (which uses to be named Burma) for her non-violent struggle for democracy and human rights.  Now one of the leaders of her nation, she appeared before the United Nations this week to reject claims of that her nation had engaged in ethnic cleansing.   The previous day testimony had been heard about  the forcible expulsion of more than three quarters of a million Rohingya Muslims from Myanmar since August 2017, which was accompanied by mass executions, arson and rape, and described by those witnesses as ethnic cleansing.  They told of veils ripped off girls before their rapes, babies thrown to their deaths, hundreds of villages turned into kindling.  The Nobel Laureate, holder of the Peace Prize, said the military was simply engaging in clearing a locality of insurgents and terrorists.  And that the UN had no right to interfere in this internal struggle.  Her political party, the National League for Democracy, said the stories of genocide were fake news.  

The Psalmist who speaks with such joy about God also asks “How can we sing songs of Zion in a foreign land?”   That is a valid question.  How can we speak of Joy in a world where events like these are happening?  Or when we know how many people cannot get the medical care they need in this, the richest country in the world.  Or that the number of homeless, unsheltered persons in Fresno County increased by 17% since last year. Or when the FBI tells us that the number of hate crimes reported in our country has gone up again this year.  How can Joy enter our lives when we know all of these things?  And there are those who would ask us how we can possibly believe in an all powerful God in the face of so much suffering.

Happy are those whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the Lord their God, who made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, who keeps faith forever,  who executes justice for the oppressed; who gives food to the hungry.  

Those shepherds, whose view of life was dismal at best, believed in that God, the creator of all, the one who repeatedly sent someone to help Israel overcome her problems.  Their lives might be filled with dreary drudgery, but they had faith that God would help. Their help had always been in the Lord, and they believed God would make a way to liberate them from the oppression under which they lived - because that was the repeated experience of their ancestors, from the time of Moses onward.  And so their hearts were open to possibilities.   They were able to hear the angels, see the Child, and return to their lives, where nothing had really changed - they were still poor, they were still hungry, they were still stuck in day to day sameness, they were still living in oppression under Rome.  But that night their lives were changed forever. That night Joy entered their hearts.  They had seen the Lord, and for the rest of their lives, they would repeat the story of this night to everyone.  They had found Joy in the midst of darkness and that Joy illuminated their lives from that day forward.

The Lord sets the prisoners free; opens the eyes of the blind, lifts up those who are bowed down;  watches over the strangers; upholds the orphan and the widow.  

Into a world of darkness and despair, God sent Heaven’s Child.  Not to the wealthy, or those whose lives were comfortable and secure.  But to the vulnerable, the tired, the ones who were bowed down under the weight of grinding poverty, living on the fringes of society.    

We are not quite those people.  We are not, most of us, living in that kind of poverty and daily uncertainty.  But we do know despair sometimes.  We know the feeling of helplessness in the face of the anger and divisiveness that is so prevalent in our world today.  We may wonder why so many seem to be completely self absorbed and unaware of the troubles others around them are facing.  The Psalmist says the Lord loves the righteous and will bring the ways of the wicked to ruin, and we might wonder when that is going to happen - because we’re not seeing it.  We may feel discouraged.  

You know, the shepherds in the field that night saw the same things that we see.  They didn’t see change in their world or their particular situations immediately, or indeed, ever.  The change that came when the savior came into the world was that they opened their hearts to the Child.  They let Joy come into their lives.  They rejoiced that they were the ones the angels woke that night, and that they believed enough to go and find that newborn child.  They shared that experience with everyone, for the rest of their lives.  And maybe what they shared made a difference in other lives. Maybe they were able to bring a little hope and light into the lives of others like them.  

A Facebook meme that goes around now then says, “I asked God, “Why do you allow all this suffering? When will you give food to the hungry and bring justice to the oppressed, and lift up the bowed down?”  And God said to me, “Funny.  I was going to ask you the same question.” 

If we would bring Joy and Peace into the world, we must first let Joy and Peace into our own hearts. If we would end the suffering, we must allow our Joy over the coming of the Christ into our world to overcome any discouragement we might feel.  If we would be the righteous people whom God loves, we will share our Joy with everyone we meet, the way the shepherds did so many years ago. 

The shepherds worshipped God and rejoiced with the angels. They saw the Child and they found Joy.  The old prophet in the Temple saw his hopes come to life in that Child, and the Joy that brought made him praise the Lord out loud.   We, too, have seen the Child.  We have seen the Hope he brings into the world.  We have felt the Peace of his presence.  So let us rejoice, knowing our God will reign forever, and sing of our joyful adoration of Heaven’s Child, our Lord and Savior. 

Please stand and join me in singing “Joyful Joyful We Adore Thee.”

Coming Soon

Matthew 3:1-12    (NRSV) 

3 In those days John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness of Judea, proclaiming, 2 “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” 3 This is the one of whom the prophet Isaiah spoke when he said,

“The voice of one crying out in the wilderness:
‘Prepare the way of the Lord,
    make his paths straight.’”

4 Now John wore clothing of camel’s hair with a leather belt around his waist, and his food was locusts and wild honey. 5 Then the people of Jerusalem and all Judea were going out to him, and all the region along the Jordan, 6 and they were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.

7 But when he saw many Pharisees and Sadducees coming for baptism, he said to them, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? 8 Bear fruit worthy of repentance. 9 Do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our ancestor’; for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham. 10 Even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.

11 “I baptize you with water for repentance, but one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to carry his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. 12 His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and will gather his wheat into the granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”

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It is Peace Sunday.   At least, in our tradition the 2nd Sunday of Advent is called Peace Sunday.  In some others it is Faith Sunday.  Considering the number of Christian traditions and denominations, it probably shouldn’t come as a surprise that there are a number of different understandings and traditions around what these four Sundays should be called, what we should emphasize on that day, and how they should be observed.  I am grateful that our observance of Advent is not like the Eastern Orthodox, who abstain from meat, dairy, fish, wine, and oil from November 15 until December 24.  And of course, some Christian traditions do not observe Advent at all because it is not mandated by or even mentioned in the Bible.  These differences in culture and tradition help explain why the Gospel reading chosen by the Revised Common Lectionary Committee to be read on this day is somewhat less than peaceful - John the Baptizer calling out the Pharisees and Sadducees, and any who are arrogant in the belief that they are the Chosen People of God, sons of Abraham, and that therefore they have nothing to worry about.  John speaks a different truth, trying to get their attention.  

When the order of the books of the Bible was determined - about 400 years after Christ - it was decided to place the book of the prophet Malachi as the last book of the Old Testament, right before Matthew’s description of the birth of Jesus.  God says through Malachi, ”See, I am sending my messenger to prepare the way before me, and the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple.”  and,   “Lo, I will send you the prophet Elijah before the great and terrible day of the Lord comes. 6 He will turn the hearts of parents to their children and the hearts of children to their parents, so that I will not come and strike the land with a curse.”  Matthew’s description of John the Baptizer can easily be seen as a fulfillment of prophecy, God’s messenger, Elijah returned.   So when John saw the Pharisees and the Sadducees coming to be baptized, and thundered, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?”, we only have to look back a few pages to Malachi to find the answer.   God speaks a warning to Israel, 

“Look, the day is coming,  burning like an oven.

All the arrogant ones and all those doing evil will become straw.

    The coming day will burn them,

says the Lord of heavenly forces,

        leaving them neither root nor branch.

But the sun of righteousness will rise on those revering my name;

        healing will be in its wings

            so that you will go forth and jump about like calves in the stall.”

Malachi speaks of the coming messenger as one who will purify the people, refining them like silver or gold are refined, in fire, so that all the impurities are removed.  John speaks similarly, of people treated like grain on the threshing floor, where the wheat is separated from the chaff and saved, while the chaff, that part of the grain that isn’t good to eat, is burned away by the fire of the Holy Spirit.   

Both of these prophets - Malachi and John - speak of need for repentance. Not just by those who are sinful in the eyes of the world, you know, the tax collectors and so on, but even and maybe especially, those who consider themselves religious people and therefore better than other people, like the Pharisee in Luke 18, who prayed ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people: thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even like this tax collector.”   Or like the woman who turned to her husband after saying goodbye to her guest with whom she had been happily gossiping about everyone for an hour or so, and said to him, “I know she is a good Christian woman, but I believe I am closer to God than she is.” Her husband replied, “I don’t think either of you are crowding him none.”  

Both John and Malaki make it clear that they are speaking to and about those who believe their position, their obvious religiosity, make them immune to punishment. Malachi says, “He is surely coming . . . but who can endure his coming?  He will purify the Levites, the ministers of God, refining them like gold or silver.” John gets even more direct, saying “Do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our ancestor’; for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham.”    And we know this is true, because Christian consider ourselves to be the adopted children of Abraham.  As Paul said to the Romans, “not all of Abraham’s children are his true descendants;  . . .This means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as descendants.”  (Romans 9:6, 8) We are the children of the promise. 

Malachi counsels the people to “Remember the teaching of my servant Moses, the statutes and ordinances that I commanded him at Horeb for all Israel.”  John calls the people to repentance.  He knows the Messiah is coming and he knows that it is not enough to give lip service to God.  It is not enough to be obedient to the 631 laws if the heart is filled with arrogance and judgement, and lacking in love for the other.   I heard the other day that some legislator has proposed a law that would make it a federal offense to feed the homeless.  If that were to become the law of the land, would we obey it?   Because I think that sometimes obeying the law is a greater sin than breaking it.  There already are laws against feeding the homeless in many cities around the country, and they are being disobeyed regularly by Christians who would rather follow Christ’s commands than humanity’s laws.  Because the higher law is to love our neighbors as we love ourselves. 

Although we typically do not think of Advent as a time of repentance, there’s a reason this passage was selected for this particular Sunday instead of one of the stories leading up to the birth of Jesus.  The coming of the Christ, this gift from God, requires that we have space in our hearts to welcome the Child.  John and Malachi thunder at us, urging us to change our ways, to remove the impurities from our hearts, to give up all of those things which can separate us from the love of God.  

At this time of the year some of those things can be hard to give up.   We might not even think of them as sinful.  Gift giving is a good thing - unless it makes us behave in ways that are unhealthy.  If we are so focused on giving people gifts that we spend the rent money (which I have done), or max our credit cards (which I have done), or are so focused on shopping that we stop paying attention to our families and our jobs, this is not good or healthy.  If we are giving for the wrong reasons - because they gave us a gift last year and we think we need to give something of equal or higher value back - because we are worried about what people will think of us if we don’t - because we think giving gifts will buy their affection - this is not good.  And then of course there are all the holiday parties and foods. We over eat.  We eat things that are bad for us. Some may drink too much.  And afterwards we face health consequences, not to mention the annual New Year’s diet.   Again, not good or healthy.   All of these things cause stress and anxiety, and rob our hearts of peace.  

Advent is a time to repent, let go of these things - of greed, gluttony, fear of judgement, overspending, people pleasing.  Advent is the time to cast out all of those things so that we may receive the peace of the Lord.  It is time to prepare a place, to make room for our long expected Savior, for the Christ Child is coming soon.