It's all about Joy and the Good News! - A sermon for Sunday 9 December 2018

A sermon for Sunday 9 December 2018

In the name of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.

I have a confession to make. It’s this, okay, here we go, it’s that, when I think of Advent, my first instinct isn’t about waiting and reflection, but it’s about tinsel, bright lights on Christmas trees and remembering how I felt when I was little and the joy of looking forward to getting lots of presents.

So I think of a joyful time full of happy memories, full of colour.

I do try the reflecting part a bit more these days but while the idea of a voice crying in the wilderness is very poetic, lonely and dramatic, (and my apologies if you’ve not seen it) but it’s a bit like Jud Painter in Poldark standing on a cliff, looking out to sea, crying out to Prudie, “'tin't right, 'tin't fair, 'tin't fit, 'tin't proper, …won't last, …won't work.”

Not to dissimilar to John, except his version was more, “Repent, be forgiven your sins!” Not particularly full of hope and joy!

So this prophetic voice sets the scene, the messenger waiting for a messiah, but today, we need some joy more than ever, so that’s where I’m going, and Paul, another messenger, in his letter to the Philippians, is joyful. He offers a prayer of thanksgiving, full of hope, compassion, love and joy.

The word joy resonated because it’s been part of my ordination training this year, and this probably sounds odd, as I may not seem very joyful, but that, it turns out, is the point!

So, this summer, I did a formation workshop to explore joy, to challenge me in a potentially uncomfortable way. The workshop was in London, at “the” RADA, as we call it, where I began to learn about being a clown.

I didn’t learn a routine, or about makeup or slapstick, but did learn about entering the clown state, about breaking the fourth wall and about being spontaneous and improvising. I learnt how to engage with an audience and how humour, laughter and joy can be anywhere. There wasn’t a scary clown in sight!

I have to say that it was the most fun I’d had for years, it was joyful, I learnt I could make people laugh (hopefully), be joyful and bring joy to others.

I’d never really thought about joy before all this and I’ve realised joy isn’t the same as saying, ‘I want to be happy,’ and I’ve also realised recently, that for me, a constant state of happiness doesn’t really work, variety is important so instead, I think I’m really seeking peace and contentment, but with times of happiness and moments of joy. Getting the balance right is always difficult though.

So how do we bring joy? - well some people like a joke…

Recently, a Bishop was visiting a church school and the children had been prepared very carefully. The Bishop, beginning, said, what’s grey and fluffy and has a bushy tail? One keen lad’s arm shot into the air, he said, I know the answers Jesus, but it sounds like a squirrel to me…

Anyway, Paul also talks about Joy. He opens his letter with a prayer of thanksgiving, which in Greek is eucharisto. A reminder that the Eucharistic Prayer is also prayer of thanksgiving, for the meal Jesus gave us. To give thanks, brings joy, for both the giver and receiver so we can take joy in remembering Jesus when we take part in the last supper.

When writing his letter to Philippi, Paul was in prison in Rome in about 62 AD, 10 years after his first visit. He knew this community well and knowing that they were praying for him and that they were sharing in the light and truth of the gospel, gave him great comfort and prayerful joy in the darkness of his suffering.

But what does it mean to share in the gospel, as the people of Philippi were? Well, when Paul, or we, talk about the Gospel, which means, the Good News, we are talking about Jesus.

So we know the answer to the gospel is Jesus, and not a squirrel, but what’s the question?

Well, when we share in the Gospel, it is to strive towards all that it means to live in the good news of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. Some emphasise each of these differently, and that’s okay.

Whether it’s Jesus’ life and teaching which saves us, his death on the cross or the resurrection, the rising from the tomb. To me, it’s all of these and more. More, because Jesus also gave us a new commandment, “to love God with all our hearts, mind, soul, and strength and to love our neighbours as ourselves.”

 

And this love is precisely what we see in Jesus. Of course, we do well to remember that this love is not a romanticised or trivial love, but takes up the demands of (Romans 12:9-21) loving one’s enemy (Matthew 5:44) and of forgiveness (Matthew 6:14-15). It’s not a one-way relationship though, learning to know and accept Jesus’ love for each one of us, is a joyful challenge.

And let’s remember the challenge Jesus gives us for day-to-day life, for the kingdom on earth today. Jesus said, “If anyone would come after me, they must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me” (Luke 9:23).

This means to put others first, to love the world, as messed up as it is, to love all our neighbours, the stranger, the alien in the land, the orphan and the widow, all of them, and remember, the Gospel comes before the law, simply meaning, that a law made by people has no power compared to the Gospel.

We know its good news if it’s from Jesus. This Gospel comes from a heart overflowing with love and compassion, into our hearts, bringing knowledge and insight. From this, Paul trusts they will determine what the right message is, the message will be different for different people, and will be received differently on a different day, in the same way Paul’s letters are different, depending who he is writing to and when they are reading it.

Some would say the message Paul sends doesn’t change and they are right, but the world changes, that is how it was created by God, to grow and evolve, so today’s hearers sometimes need to seek the differences between Paul’s time and ours.

This letter was written to a community with a great love for the Gospel of Jesus, they took great peace and great joy in their bonds of fellowship and of sharing.

This friendly audience of Paul’s was like an oasis in the wilderness, a wilderness of Roman occupation, like John the Baptist’s cry in the wilderness, and sometimes, we need to step out, to be bold and proclaim the Gospel to a world which doesn’t always want to hear us.

But we do this from a bedrock of community, of church, so that when we pray for each other, and when we share a meal at this table, and when we worship together, waiting to remember Jesus being born, we can take great joy from, being bound together and united in a Gospel of joy, of compassion, friendship and love in Jesus Christ our Lord.

Amen

Luke (3.1-6)

In the fifteenth year of the reign of Emperor Tiberius, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod was ruler of Galilee, and his brother Philip ruler of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias ruler of Abilene, ²during the high-priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness. ³He went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, ⁴as it is written in the book of the words of the prophet Isaiah,

‘The voice of one crying out in the wilderness:

“Prepare the way of the Lord,

   make his paths straight. 

⁵ Every valley shall be filled,

   and every mountain and hill shall be made low,

and the crooked shall be made straight,

   and the rough ways made smooth; 

⁶ and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.”’

Philippians 1.3-11

I thank my God every time I remember you, ⁴constantly praying with joy in every one of my prayers for all of you, ⁵because of your sharing in the gospel from the first day until now. ⁶I am confident of this, that the one who began a good work among you will bring it to completion by the day of Jesus Christ. ⁷It is right for me to think this way about all of you, because you hold me in your heart, for all of you share in God’s grace with me, both in my imprisonment and in the defence and confirmation of the gospel. ⁸For God is my witness, how I long for all of you with the compassion of Christ Jesus. ⁹And this is my prayer, that your love may overflow more and more with knowledge and full insight ¹⁰to help you to determine what is best, so that on the day of Christ you may be pure and blameless, ¹¹having produced the harvest of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ for the glory and praise of God.