Rev.. Nick Cheek
John 15:9-17 and Philipians 4:1-9
One of our kids’ favorite tunes growing up was Pharrell Williams ‘ infectious song, “Happy” – You all remember that song, right? Because I’m happy, clap along if you feel like a room without a roof. Because I’m happy, clap along if you feel like happiness is the truth. Because I’m happy, clap along if you know what happiness is to you. Because I’m happy, clap along if you feel like that’s what you wanna do. I used to lead family dance parties with that song… just after finishing up dinner… (talk about it… not so much anymore… our kids are teenagers now… so they don’t think their dad is cool anymore)… Have you ever tried to not clap along… it’s impossible, right? In his song, he says…he’s happy and ain’t nothing going to bring me down. Whenever we danced to that song, you couldn’t help but smile… and enjoy yourself. I think that’s why the song became so popular. Every one of us longs for that kind of carefree happiness. There’s something contagious about it. It reminds us that laughter is good for the soul, and that life is meant to be celebrated. We all want to be the kind of people who clap along through life. But I have to wonder if Pharrell’s statement rings true all the time.. Are we always happy… are we always clapping? The song only lasts three minutes… Life lasts a lot longer. If we’re honest today… we can recognize that happiness is often circumstantial… It’s what we feel when life cooperates… when your coffee’s just right, or you get an unexpected bonus at work. Your kid gets a good grade… your taxes aren’t as high as you thought. What happens, though, when life throws you a curveball? What happens when your happiness gets knocked off its feet, and you stop clapping? How do you rejoice, as the Apostle Paul suggests, when your plans fall apart, your relationships are strained, you’re dealing with loss, heartache, deep struggle… or when life is just plain hard? Sooner or later, we all discover that happiness alone isn’t enough. It’s a wonderful gift; but can it sustain us through all the twists and turns we face along our journeys? When Pherrell’s song ends… Paul’s letter begins.
Rejoice in the lord, he says… again I say rejoice. The Lord is near. Today, Paul points us toward Joy…Joy is something deeper than happiness. Joy is a spiritual assurance rooted in God’s promises. And, Paul argues, it can be present even in the midst of life’s storms. Paul had every reason not to be happy in his life. His missionary journeys were harsh… his enemies beat him with rods and stoned him – three times he was shipwrecked. He was in danger from bandits, in danger at sea; he went without sleep, without adequate food and shelter… and he was often in prison. Paul’s exhortation to rejoice is not a call to ignore the challenges of life but, rather, to anchor ourselves in the truth we share… that God is always near… and God’s steadfast love is present no matter what we are going through. Yes… life is hard. But God is good. Yes… life can bring us down, but God’s love and grace can lift us up. Yes… life is often complicated; it’s messy, it’s wearisome, but even in the middle of it, God quiets our anxious hearts and grants a peace that we cannot comprehend.
Friends, can I confess something to you? I struggle with Joy. At times I DO let the circumstances in my life, and in the world… weigh heavy on me. At times the feelings I have about the world around us bring me down, and I forget to look for Joy. Now, for my wife, Joy just comes easier. That’s one reason I married her. She is a bright light. She exudes Joy, and it’s contagious – people of all ages are drawn to her because of it. I admire her… She makes me want to be a more joyful person. This past week, her youth group attended the Montreat youth conference, and I tagged along. Around 1000 young people from all over the nation attended. They worshiped together, learned and grew, played games, and enjoyed God’s creation. It is definitely a mountaintop experience in more ways than one. Watching these young people make connections, smile, laugh, and remember together that they are God’s beloved was inspiring. It brought back my youth pastor days… of no sleep, endless coffee, and meaningful, curious theological conversations that spanned late into the night. While being in that space… you can’t help but recognize the unmistakable feeling of JOY throughout the week. One of the pieces of the Youth Conference is daily small groups where youth and adult advisors meet to discuss the topic of the day and open up about their lives and relationship with God. During our Tuesday small group, an adult advisor shared a story about loss and joy. His name is Carl. He said, “Thirteen years ago today, my wife and I experienced the worst day of our lives. We received a call late in the night that our twenty-two-year-old son had run off a country road while driving home from work. They rushed him to the hospital, but they were unable to save him. Our son loved this place. He loved Montreat. He attended as a teen and also chaperoned as a young adult. Carl continued, “As it so happened… his church’s youth group was here for this very conference when the accident occurred. The youth were shocked… and saddened because they all knew him well. The next morning, before sunrise, they hiked to the top of Lookout Mountain, each of them carrying with them a stone with our son’s name or a memory written on it. As the sun came up, they arranged the stones into the shape of a cross and prayed for our family. In the weeks that followed, those students were constantly at our house. They cried with us. They laughed with us. They told stories that reminded us of who our son was. Their presence carried us through some of our darkest days.” Carl went on to explain that the experience eventually led him to become a youth advisor. He has returned to Montreat every year since, finding deep joy in knowing that Christ is with his son, Christ is with him, and Christ is present in the young people he now has the privilege of loving and encouraging. Each year, he says, he sees a little of his son reflected in them. Toward the end of the week, I learned that on Senior Sunday at Carl’s church, nearly every graduating senior mentions him in their homily. They speak of his joy, his steadfast presence, his mentorship, and the remarkable care and love he has shown them over the years.
Christian Wiman, in his book “Joy”, describes Joy as “a flash of eternity that illuminates time.” He explains that joy is not about remaining attuned to God’s presence in the midst of the struggles of life. “Joy,” he says, is light breaking into our darkness…. Wiman believes we often miss joy breaking in, because we are usually looking in the wrong direction. We assume that if God is going to break into the pain of our world, He must do it through the extraordinary, the miraculous, or the sudden removal of our pain. But Wiman suggests that instead of pulling us out of our lives, God meets us inside of them. The joy that breaks through the darkness isn’t miraculous or coming from some otherworldly space; it is already right here, it is woven into the ordinary fabric of the day you are currently living. A sunset. A child’s laughter. Communion. Music. A friend’s embrace. Prayer. A loved one sitting beside you in silence. The kindness of a stranger. A text that arrives at just the right moment. This is Joy, interrupting our lives, and reminding us that God is near. This is precisely why Paul can write to the Philippians, from a prison cell, calling us to rejoice…. “Brothers and sisters,” Paul writes, “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[a] these things.” Paul teaches us to be attentive to the holy… breaking in among us. Yes…The prison walls are real, but the joy and grace of God have no walls.
The entire undertone of Paul’s letter to the Philippians is one of encouragement. He writes to the church, to you and me… in order to remind them that Joy is part of our shared experience together. True joy is a spiritual current that draws us out of ourselves and connects us to one another. That’s why Christ gave us the Church: to be a beloved community where we continually show each other that God is close at hand. When one of us cannot rejoice, someone else carries the light for us. When one of us grows weary, another offers strength and comfort. Joy is something God’s people cultivate together as we bear witness to Christ’s presence in each other and the world around us.
Poet, writer, and black feminist theologian Toi Derricotte offers a profound spiritual insight into what it means to stay joyful in a hard world. She writes, “I think about how much energy goes into trying to extinguish the light in people, trying to make them believe that the darkness is all there is. But joy is stubborn. It’s like a seed that finds a crack in the concrete and grows anyway. You can’t conquer a spirit that insists on finding something to praise, something to be glad for, even in the ruins. For a long time, I thought joy was something you earned after you fixed everything—after you healed all your wounds, solved all your problems, and made the world right. But I came to realize that joy doesn’t wait for you to be whole. Joy is part of what makes you whole. It arrives right in the middle of the mess, offering you a breath of air so you can keep going.”
Friends… every day brings new worries, fresh disappointments, and reminders that our world is not as it should be. That is the world we live in. But imagine what would happen if each morning, you and I… we walked out our front doors and greeted the day with something unexpected… with something that the day wasn’t ready for. What if we greeted it with joy? Imagine looking at yourself in the mirror after a sleepless night and saying to yourself, “Rejoice, for the lord is near!” What if we opened up our doors to a dark and cloudy day and shouted: “Rejoice, for the lord is near.” What if, no matter what challenges and hardships lay ahead for us, we confidently announced to them all, “Rejoice, for the lord is near!” What if, in the midst of violence, anger and hostility towards others, we stood up boldly and proclaimed the good news… “Rejoice for the Lord is near!” That might just give us a reason to dance, and clap and sing.
In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.