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”