The Edge States of Joy

sermon by Carrie Eikler
Nehemiah 8:1-10
Ephiphany 3

“Joy is rarer, more difficult, and more beautiful than sadness.  Once you make this all-important discovery, you must embrace joy as a moral obligation.”

These words were written by the French Nobel laureate André Gide. 

…embrace joy as a moral obligation.  Meaning, you must, absolutely must, choose joy. 

Last week, beauty.  This week, joy.  Again. like beauty, joy maybe a hard thing to think about with temperatures dipping down into the single digits, water pipes freezing, cars slip-sliding around, school on two-hour delays, or whatever frustration encountered you this week.

And yet, joy is what the scribe Ezra emphatically speaks to the Israelites about. 

I can just picture the crowd gathered.  They were gathering to hear the word of God.
Anticipation sizzled. 

It’s not hard to picture crowds gathering to hear a word from their leaders, as we watched the inauguration of President Obama for a second term this week.  Like the Israelites, the American people gather around Capitol building, or television sets, or live-streaming on the internet to hear a word of guidance, of hope, of encouragement.  We gathered to hear a word that things will be different, better, not like before.

The Israelites, thousands of years before inauguration day 2013 were in the process of their own inauguration.  The Hebrews had endured three waves of exile from their homeland into Babylon.  They lived in captivity for approximately 50 years.  In the book of Ezra, the Persian King Cyrus was stirred by the Lord and allowed the Israelites to return to their home.  The books of Ezra and Nehemiah, which actually were written as one book, tell of the return of the exiles, and their rebuilding of the temple in Jerusalem.

So the focus of the Israelites in this story is getting it all back together--to take the pieces of their religious and communal identity that was ripped apart and try to patch it back together as a people back in their homeland.  They were rebuilding not only their temple, but their community, and in a sense, their faith.  And the one thing that they have always turned to—the one thing that could not be taken away—was the word of the Lord, their teaching, the Torah.

As these people refashion themselves, we see in Ezra and Nehemiah an increased devotion to the word.  Our scripture today portrays this in a very evocative way: there is a reverence, a gravity to the book being taken up to Ezra;

anticipation as the people tune their ears to the reading,

the scribes and holy men are gathered round almost oozing with piety and knowledge;
 Ezra blesses them from above-for it says he stood above them to read—
all the people stood up, maybe not just out of reverence but maybe stretching to come more physically close to the word of the Lord…

and then they just couldn’t help it they shout out Amen!  Amen! 
and then down to the ground to worship even more.  And then…they are moved to tears.

“For all the people wept when they heard the words of the law.”  What was read, it doesn’t say.  Why they cried, we don’t know. 

 
Maybe it was because the warnings in the Torah were too much to bear—too much to take on. 

Or maybe because they were simply overcome by the moment: the Torah, back in Jerusalem. 

Or maybe because they missed their loved ones, for in refashioning this perfect remnant in Jerusalem, it decided that all non-Israelite spouses and their children would be banished from the community. 

...That reason alone is enough to make me cry.

So no, we don’t know exactly why they weep.  But it is true, at least in my experience, that no matter what age we live in, God’s word--especially when read in community-- God’s word will convict you of something.  It will open your eyes to sinfulness, and treachery of heart, and how we fall short of the glory of God, and exasperation from what seems to be required.

But I’m sure I don’t have to remind you, good, compassionate people that scripture convicts us.  For some of you, perhaps it convicts you more than it comforts you. 

You are the ones who read Jesus’ amazing words and say Yes!  That is what we must do! and then feel overwhelmed when you move from the Bible to the evening news and feel so far away from being able to do anything. 

You are the ones who watch the inauguration and are perhaps rightfully swept along by the hope and excitement and even poetry of the moment with all those thousands of people celebrating American exceptionalism…but then feel wrenched back with questions such as “but what about drones that keep killing innocent people?” and “but what about guns in our schools?” and “but what about climate change” but, but, but.

The more we face the realities of this world—and we can do this so much more easily today than even 20 years ago—we feel despair.  Does our requirement to love our neighbor, to feed the needy, care for the orphans grow the more we see and know the need of the world?  Because we know more, does it mean we must do more What is our moral obligation now that we know?

And now, yes, we understand that weeping of the Israelites.  We are convicted of our own sinfulness in actions, our inattention, our greedy consumption,

and in our spirits—if not physically--we bow down and weep.

And then, enter scripture’s “counter-intuitive, counter-cultural, and subversive piece of advice:  do not yield to the spirit of despair.  Do not default to gloom and doom.  Instead, choose the radical option of genuine joy.” [i] 

With their heads hanging to the ground, Ezra tells them not to weep. 

Go and eat—not just any food, but rich, fat foods.

 Go and drink—not just any drink, sweet sweet drink. 

And when they are done, they are told to send the remainder to those who have nothing. 

They are told to share the joy, because because the God of the Torah--the God of Today--reveals our sins, but is also the source of our hope.    

I want to embrace joy.  I want that rich food and that sweet drink, but sometimes—much of the time-this type of decadent joy feels... irresponsible.  I feel convicted.  Followed by weeping.

It’s true there is a problem and a promise with joy, isn’t there?

My experience in struggling with joy, and perhaps your experience too, was described by Joan Halifax, a Zen Buddhist abbot and medical anthropologist.  She was talking to the NPR radio personality Krista Tippett.The two were talking about what Halifax calls “edge states” particularly the edge states people are called to when giving care to others in traumatic situations, or situations of decline and death, but really, for anyone who suffers from what some call “compassion fatigue.”

  These edge states, as the words suggest, bring us to the edge of our comfort.  These edge states challenge our identity and yet, Halifax say,s is a place of great opportunity.  The host reflects that :

“Compassionate people are overwhelmed now with the deluge of terrible news.  The pictures are too present and too vivid, the news cycle is too relentless.  I see pictures of children in faraway places that wreck me for a day.  So the question that’s in this room and I think is out there In the world and in this country right now is how do we find the courage?  How do we heal enough?  How do we be present to that and not be overwhelmed by it?”

To which Halifax responds : Well, I think this is one of the reasons why I [identify this sort of thing] as edge states.  [When we are bombarded with these images from the media] we enter into what we would call a state of moral distress and futility.  And the moral distress is…where we see that something else needs to happen….And yet we can’t do anything about it and we enter into a state either of moral outrage or we go into states of avoidance  [because we] don’t want to deal with it or we just go into…withdrawal, a kind of numbness.”

They then went on to talk about how the great virtues have near enemies.  How a near enemy to compassion is sorrow, and it’s sorrow that wrecks us when we are convicted by what we see in the world but feel unable to touch, to heal.

So maybe what Ezra is doing is touching our edge states.  Maybe Ezra is recognizing that in our compassion and desire to hear God and do God’s work and be God’s people,  we have the tendency to touch compassion’s corresponding enemies: sorrow, anxiety, uselessness.

Or at least, he is telling us the God can show us joy, if we accept the invitation--not releasing us from obligation, but at least knowing we can’t help our neighbors on an empty stomach. 

Or an empty spirit.

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So here is what I have learned this week, as I have done my own soul work with joy.  Joy  is not the same as happiness. 

Joy is it not about the enhancement of your circumstances. 

 Being joyful does not mean you have to be cheerful, though I’m sure being cheerful is a natural outflow. 

Joy is not something you can earn or buy, or feel you deserve.

I have learned that I cannot easily give you a definition of joy. 

But I believe I have touched joy…

This week I believe I touched joy when I watched of video on youtube of a group of young people break out singing the Beatle’s “Here comes the sun” in a Madrid unemployment office.  And I believe I touched joy when I saw those people waiting in line beam bright smiles.

This week I believe I touched joy when I got tangled in my boys’ forgiving embrace after I had the adult equivalent of a temper tantrum, and we all laughed through our tears. 

This week I believe I touched joy when I found myself praying for God’s mercy and feeling that I had it...all along.

So it seems like joy is not something you can possess, but something you have to be open to, and let it possess you.

It seems like joy is what we will find at the feast,

but perhaps more so,

 joy is what will lift us up and

show us the feast to be had.

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And there is a feast.  A table provided for us.  Is it any wonder that among the last things Jesus did with his disciples was to have a feast.  Perhaps a simple one, but a feast nonetheless.  Because he poured out his joy and hopes and love on this group whom he was entrusting his work to.

Today you are invited to lift your heads up from your sorrow, guilt, and anxiety, and come to this simple but abundant feast.  Let the joy of the Lord guide you, allow the joy of the Lord fill you, and may the joy of the Lord send you to be bread for others.

[Holy Communion]

 

 

 

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[i] “The Journey with Jesus: Notes to Myself”

With You I Am Well Pleased!

sermon by Torin Eikler
Isaiah 43:1-7   Luke 3:15-17, 21-22

You may not realize it, but the scripture Nick just read – and its counterparts in the other three gospels - have caused quite a bit of conflict in the Christian Church.  It seems innocuous enough – Jesus getting baptized.  It ought to be a source of celebration and joy, if anything, since it is the reason that believers have been baptizing one another for millennia.  Yet, across the years it has been at the heart of many a theological argument and quite a few church splits.  It has even been the catalyst for the creation of at least two denominations that I know of … (and I think you might know which two I’m thinking of.)

The question that has stirred up all of this hubbub is why.  Why did Jesus get baptized in the first place?

As far as I know, there is only one answer for that in the scripture, and that is found in Matthew.  The story as he tells it has John objecting on the grounds that he is unworthy to baptize Jesus.  And Jesus responds, “Let it be so now; for it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness.”

That’s an answer that is about as clear as the mud stirred up in the waters of the river Jordan all those years ago.  It seems to imply one of two possibilities: Jesus was baptized simply to check off one more fulfilled prophesy or Jesus really needed John’s baptism – a baptism for the forgiveness of sins.

Neither one of those options is very compelling to me … though … if I am honest, I would prefer the second.  It might mean that we have to give up the image of Jesus as being without sin, but that's not so hard … at least for me.  It makes him seem more human … fallible, and I can actually relate to that better than I can to the perfect Jesus.  It gives me hope that I might be able to follow in his path more fully if he was as susceptible to temptation and failure as all the rest of us … if he had to pass through some of that fire and water that Isaiah was talking about.

The other interpretation – the one where Jesus is just checking off a to-do list – leaves me feeling empty.  Empty because it strips baptism of the power that I have found in it.  Empty because it portrays both Jesus and God as concerned with little more than fulfilling prophesy as if we needed more proof than Jesus life and teachings to accept him as the Messiah.  Empty because it challenges much of my understanding of who Jesus was and what he was about.  …  Empty.

 

But leaving behind the question of righteousness which, honestly, no one but Matthew and the community he wrote may ever really understand, this story also rests at the heart of the discussion of Jesus’ divinity.  As someone brought up in Sunday school in the past couple of weeks, Jesus never claimed divinity.  He never claimed to be the son of God.  And there is no other place in the gospels where the case is made so clearly as when the voice from the heavens says, “This is my beloved son.”  (or, in this case, “You are my beloved son.”)  So, whether God intended this to be a statement of Jesus’ divine heritage or the gospel authors added this as a way to compel belief in those who would read their writing, this is the scripture has engendered a lot of discussion among Christians, and it stands at the heart of our doctrine of the Trinity.

Many other discussions – theological discussions – that revolve around these scriptures, and they are endlessly fascinating … at least to me.  But there is another possibility that comes to mind if we leave theology behind in favor of a less esoteric and more human perspective … a perspective that we can all understand.

 

What if Jesus just needed some reassurance?

I say, “just,” but take a moment to think about it with me….  After a spectacular birth and a childhood that included an escape to and return from Egypt as well as at least one very notable visit to the Temple, perhaps Jesus had reached the point in his own spiritual growth where he was acutely aware of his special relationship to God.  Perhaps some of his motivation, then, was that he felt the need to identify himself with all the people he hoped to lead into a deeper fellowship with God.  And perhaps, in part, he needed to find reassurance … reassurance that he had understood his role in the grand mission correctly … reassurance that he was not … would not be alone in the midst of his trials.

Imagine how it must have felt to hear the words recorded by Luke.  I don’t mean “You are my beloved son.”  I’m thinking of “With you I am well pleased.”  I think that would have been just what Jesus needed to hear.  It would have relieved all of his doubts.  Had he learned enough?  Was he good enough?  Was he worthy of the mission God had given him?  Could he do what was asked of him?  … All of his questions answered with those words ….

I expect that would have made Jesus feel pretty good to hear God say, “With you I am well pleased” … to know that everything that you had already done was more than sufficient.  It was good.  To know that God accepted you as you were … wanted you to be just like you were … was with you just as you were … and would be there for you wherever you went and whatever you did.  It’s hard to imagine what that would have felt like … what a difference that might have made.

 

This morning I’d like us to try.  I want to invite you on a journey of imagination. I wish to take you back, back to your beginnings, your earliest memories, have you image how your world might have been different had you heard these words: "With you I am well pleased."

We all have a first memory - that first moment that we can remember as a child. Those memories are fixed in us as the moment when we first realized our separateness from the others. That first memory may be one of delight, of pure joy, or it may evoke sadness or anger, bewilderment or - the list is really endless….  Imagine, if you can, that in the midst of this situation, this memory, the first words spoken by the other are these: "With you I am well pleased".

Then imagine, or remember, your first day of school - that first moment away from a parent when you immersed into a world of other children, one or two adults, and the structure of learning. Imagine yourself hearing from that teacher, as the first words out of his or her mouth – “with you I am well pleased.”

Imagine your first time at an afterschool program like brownies, cub scouts, or some other place where children gather to form bonds and learn to work in groups towards a common goal. Imagine that the adult leaders pull you all together and says, "With you I am well pleased."

Imagine you have just arrived to try out or audition for the school team, choir, band, or some other extracurricular activity, and the first words from the coach or conductor to everyone, regardless of whether or not they will be choose is: "With you I am well pleased."

Imagine the first day you held a child of your own with all the worries and doubts that come with new parenthood, and as you look into those clear, squinting eyes, you hear a voice from heaven say, “With you I am well pleased.”

 

Take the relief and the pride and the hope that filled you in any one of those moments and multiply it by 10 … 100 … maybe even 1000 times, and you might get close to how it would have felt for Jesus.  Called to save the world … stepping into the river Jordan to be washed clean as he took his first steps down the road to the cross, he received a powerful gift.  It must have been an experience unlike any other, and we’ll never know how much of a difference it made in Jesus life. 

But we can know the difference it makes in our lives….

This week, a colleague of mine shared a story on email.  She told us about a service that she had been part of some years ago – a baptismal renewal service, and as she reflected on that service, she said, “That day that I dipped my hand into the baptismal water years ago … was the very day when I first heard that I was a beloved child of God ... and I was 40 years old. That day of baptismal renewal within our church was a life-changing day for me.”

My deepest hope is that most of you heard or felt those words on the day of your baptism or your confirmation, but I know that those days are often so full of distractions and anxiety that it is hard to hear the love of God speaking to us.  So, I’d like to invite you all to participate in an anointing this morning if you are so led.  If you have been baptized, I encourage you to think of this as a renewal of those vows.  If you haven’t made that commitment yet, you are welcome to come forward to receive the gift of a renewal of your spirit….

Shining Your Light

sermon by Torin Eikler
Isaiah 60:1-6     Matthew 2:1-12

This is always a fun Sunday.  Even though it’s the last of the twelve days of Christmas and the holiday is officially over according to the Church’s calendar, the celebration isn’t over yet because we are moving into the season of Epiphany.  Epiphany … the lifting of the veil between God and the world … the manifestation of God’s mercy shining forth in the light of Christ.  In some countries this is the day when children put shoes outside their door for the kings to fill with gifts.

That’s what makes it fun, the kings.  Every year, we hear their story on this Sunday, and all the extra bits that we have learned from tradition fill in the story.  Three wise men come from the east, following a miraculous star to the stable in Bethlehem in order to offer their majestic gifts to the Christ child.  Never mind that there is no indication that there were only three of them or that they were from the east or even that they arrived in Bethlehem in time to see the baby.  In fact, there is some evidence that they arrived a good deal after the birth.  But that doesn’t get in the way … not really.  The “kings” still came.  They still offered their gifts and their homage.  We still get to imagine their story and celebrate for one more Sunday.

And one of the most intriguing retellings of the story that I have run across is in “Amahl and the Night Visitors” by Gian-Carlo Menotti.  Instead of describing the arrival at the stable, Menotti tells a tale that might have happened on the journey when the kings stopped to spend the night in an unsuspecting home along the way. 

In the story, Amahl was the crippled son of a poor widow.  The two of them eked out a living somehow, and while they often suffered from a lack of food, Amahl did not suffer from a lack of imagination, often inventing incredible stories. 

One night as he sits outside their shack, he hears his mother calling him to bed.  "Coming...," he answered, as he continued to gaze at the stars above him.  Again, his mother called, and again, Amahl replied, "coming..." but otherwise he seems not to have heard.  Then his mother stormed out of the house, and pried him away from his star-gazing.

Once they were inside, Amahl’s mother asked, “What was keeping you outside?”  Amahl replied excitedly, "Oh Mother! You should go out and see! There's never been such a sky.  Damp clouds have shined it, and soft winds have swept it, as if to make it ready for a king's ball. All its lanterns are lit, all its torches are burning, and its dark floor is shining like crystal. Hanging over our roof, there is a star as large as a window; and the star has a tail, and it moves across the sky like a chariot on fire."

"Oh Amahl!” responded his mother, “When will you stop telling lies? All day long you wander about in a dream. Here we are with nothing to eat - not a stick of wood on the fire, not a drop of oil in the jug, and all you do is to worry your mother with fairy tales. Oh Amahl... have you forgotten your promise never never to lie to your mother again?"

"Mother, I'm not lying,” said Amahl.  “Please believe me. Come outside and let me show you. See for yourself."

“Amahl!” burst his mother.  “Stop bothering me!  Why should I believe you?  You come with a new one every day! … [Just] kiss me goodnight, [and we’ll go to bed.]”[1]

The two of them laid down for the night and had just fallen asleep when there was a knock at the door.  At the sound of the knock, Amahl’s mother awoke with a start by didn’t move from her bed on the bench.  “Amahl,” she said drowsily, “go and see who’s knocking at the door.”

            “Yes, mother.”  He went to the door and opened it a crack, his heart thudding in his chest.  He closed the door quickly and rushed to his mother.

            Amahl was shaking with excitement.  “Mother-” he stopped.  he hardly dared tell her what he had seen.  “Outside the door there is -” he swallowed and went on with an effort – “there is a king with a crown.”

            [Assuming this was another of his fanciful tales, Amahl’s mother] went with determination toward the door and Amahl limped close behind her.  As the door swung open and she saw the three kings standing there in all their splendor, she caught her breath.  She bowed to them in utter amazement.

            The three kings introduced themselves.  Two of them – Melchior and Balthazar – were regal and resplendent in their robes.  The third – Kaspar – was … less so.  Kaspar’s robes were rich, but they didn’t fit him very well, and his crown was askew on his head as if he had just slapped it on any old way.  His shoes didn’t match either – one was gold and the other was purple.  Amahl whispered triumphantly to his mother, “What did I tell you?”

 

As the evening progresses, Amahl gets to know Kaspar a bit better.  Drawn in by his strange appearance and his inviting personality, Amahl begins to ask questions about why the kings are traveling much to his mother’s chagrin.  And Kaspar is happy to answer.

He tells of how he and the others read the prophesy of a great king’s coming in the stars and prepared to make a pilgrimage when that king arrived.  He tells of the appearance of the fiery star that Amahl himself had noticed earlier and of how the three men set off to follow wherever it led.  He tells a bit about their journey through strange lands ….  And he eventually tells Amahl about the treasures that they have brought along as gifts to honor the king.  In his case, the gift is gold.

Amahl’s mother listens to the story as she is preparing the beds and serving some tea.  As the night wears on, she wrestles with temptation.  While everyone is sleeping, she decides to take some of the gold for herself and her son.  In the process, though, she is discovered by a pageboy who is sleeping near the treasure.

Everyone wakes up at the boy’s shout, and once the confusion has quieted down, Amahl offers to send his crutch along with the kings in compensation for the affront.  It’s all that he has to offer … his most precious possession to honor the great king.  But, as he picks up the crutch to take it over to Kaspar, he discovers that his leg has been miraculously healed.

As everyone celebrates this sign of the new king’s blessing in response to Amahl’s selflessness, Kaspar forgives Amahl’s mother and offers her some of the gold.  She refuses and asks, instead, that Amahl be allowed to travel with the kings and offer his gift himself.  The request is granted, and the story ends with the sun rising on the kings and the young boy heading out to follow the star.

 

There are several things that I like about that story.  First, it is an opera in one act, and the music is both fun and accessible to adults and children alike.  Also, I’m always attracted to imaginative stories that fill in gaps in the scriptural record.  They can open up whole worlds of thought and wonder.  And, there’s the excellent example of why it’s not so good to make things up too much … especially if you are talking to your parents.  Always good to have another boy-who-cried-wolf story on hand when your children are tempted to pull your leg once too often. 

But the thing that I like most about Amahl and the Night Visitors is that it gets at one of the deeper meanings of the story of the kings in a way that the scripture in Matthew doesn’t make quite so clear.

Matthew told this story, in part, to remind his audience of the prophesies of Isaiah.  A light coming to the chosen people … the nations of the world following the light  … gold and frankincense brought as gifts (along with camels and sheep … always sheep).  Those are the building blocks for the story of the kings.  But, we have tended to idealize and romanticize the story in so many ways that we have neglected its more obvious meaning.

The intent, here, is to help us understand that the prophecies being fulfilled by Jesus' birth were about foreign nations coming to Jerusalem to worship Israel's God.  It’s a kind of religious universalism that is prominent in many parts of the OT, especially in the writings of Isaiah.  God’s mercy floods the world … the whole world.  And in this day and age, when religious traditions seem to clash with one another and even with themselves instead of coming together around the worship of God, that is a message that needs to be shared.

That’s what at the heart of the story about the kings … both in Matthew and in Amahl.  In the opera, the light of God’s coming in Christ brought the kings to the door of  a poor shack in search of hospitality … and they found that small mercy there.  Amahl’s mother received the gift when she was forgiven for trying to steal the gold intended for the Christ child.  Even the page boy who was so intent on protecting the kings’ treasures discovered that mercy is more important than gold.  And Amahl … Amahl received the most obvious gift.  He was blessed with the healing of his leg and the opportunity to go and visit the child who made it possible.

And it goes further still.  Matthew makes it clear that the kings did not go about their business quietly.  As they traveled they passed through cities and palaces, asking questions and telling the story of their hope.  After seeing the Christ child, they avoided Herod, but still they didn’t go quietly.  They shined the light of the glory they had seen … the mercy they had found into the lives of those they encountered along the way.

 

God’s mercy floods the world.  Its light shines on carpenters and virgins.  It shines on shepherds and kings.  It comes to Jews and Gentiles.  It comes to us as it comes to all people.  All that is required of us is that we receive the gift that is offered and that we pass it on.

Sometimes that’s hard.  Sometimes we feel too nervous about what people will think, or we don’t want to share with certain people we may not like much.  But, that’s how mercy works.  It is passed on from person to person even when … maybe especially when it seems impossible.  That’s how the light of grace is spread throughout the world.

And … behold, the star of God’s grace has risen.  Let us follow to the manger as did those wise men of old.  Let us bow in awe at the merciful light that it sheds … take that light into our hearts and nurture it so that it shine within us … so that it flows out from us.  Let us become messengers of that great grace and mercy and shine it’s light into a world that suffers in the midst of great darkness.

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[1] “Amahl and the Night Visitors” Gian-Carlo Menotti, 1951, adapted.