Choosing Joy...1Thessalonians 5:16-24

Words of Joy, as the third part of our Advent Luncheon series, December 7, 2011.

In conversation with a friend this past Monday, we reflected together on the many challenges facing ministers and the church as we seek to faithfully live out our callings in a world that is constantly changing and presenting us with paths to choose.  It left me thinking about those choices and how God leads us as the church through them in order to faithfully live out the Gospel.  For me, these choices come down to two fundamentally shifting paradigms.  We can either choose despair, or we can choose joy.  What does it mean and how does it change us when we choose joy?

                In Paul’s first letter to the Thessalonians, he is encouraging them to do the same, in a world much like ours, where despair is rampant and can so easily shape decisions.  In the verse just before where we picked up our reading, Paul writes:  See that none of you repays evil for evil, but always seek to do good to one another and to all.  And then he says, “Rejoice always.”  So if we hold our lives and all our decisions in the light of joy, how does that shape how we make them? 

                To live in joy and rejoice in all that is does not mean to deny sorrow, hide grief or extinguish pain.  However, it does call us to live in the moment with these feelings, in the knowledge that even these feelings hold possibility.  For from Mary’s situation, which I’m sure included much fear and even grief, came a message of light and joy and changed the direction of her life and ours, forever.  These feelings hold possibility for us when we live beside each other and comfort each other as we share in our humanity.  In acknowledging that God is at the centre of this humanity, joy bubbles to the surface and surrounds us wherever we go.  The world is still tough, as it was for the early church, but we choose to live in God’s joy that cannot be extinguished by the despair of the world.  So in all of the feelings of this season, allow them to be true, encourage them to be real…do not hide who you are, in the knowledge that God’s joy will surround you.  Live in the moment and choose joy.  Amen.  

Some words for Peace: Isaiah 9:1-7

Words of Peace given to the River John Community, as part of our Ecumenical Advent Luncheon Series (given in 2010)

Today calls us to dream about Peace...as Isaiah's people dreamed about peace. Peace is one of those attributes of God that seems, in so many ways, unattainable, something to which we cannot measure. But can we? Isaiah names the many places in which his people were in great darkness. But he also presents them with the places into which a great light will burst. Isaiah is teaching that peace is not merely the absence of war or violence, but is a feeling, an action, that is buried deep within, an action that is contagious, a feeling, that when spread, can have great result.

This time of year presents us with an interesting challenge. It is so easy to think of ourselves as the people without light, as the people who are doing everything wrong, as the people who are in so much trouble that we cannot see our way out. But then God calls us to something different. God has called us this day to dream about not only what we can be, but to focus on what we are. Yes, there are lots of places in our lives for improvement, but there is also lots in our lives and community that we are doing right, that is full of peace, that is full of God's light. As we prepare this day for the coming of Emmanuel into our midst, the child who is the Great Light, we are also called to see ourselves in a different light—the light that reminds us that we, here in this community, can work for peace and do work for peace—those who know deep peace. We are called to live out that peace, and do that by the ways we reach out to others, by the ways in which we celebrate each others strengths, by the ways we live intentionally toward our environment.

This scripture is our confidence. Confidence that this community is blessed and will continue to be blessed by God's peace. If we continue to live in ways that are true and honest, acknowledging God's zeal, the light of peace as contained in the Christ Child will spread into the darkness with passion and furry. Isaiah deeply believed this...but the question for us this day is, How can we celebrate the places where light dwells, while believing that the gift of peace will continue to burst into the dark corners of our lives? Do we believe in God's zeal? May God's peace continue to be with you this day. Amen.