“Guard Your Joy”
A Sermon Preached by
The Rev. Karen Hill
January 24, 2010
When we meet the people of Israel in this morning’s reading, they are coming out of a very difficult time. Israel was defeated by both the Assyrians and the Babylonians. All of the best and the brightest of the people were taken into exile, where they lost their Jewish identity. They had no temple, no land and no king. All that was left to them was the Law, the first five books of the Hebrew Bible. It was a terrible time in Israel’s history.
Now, the people have a new ruler – the Persians, who have defeated the Babylonians. In a surprising twist, the Persian king takes pity on the Jewish captives and allows a group of them to return to Israel, under the leadership of the priest, Ezra, and under that of Nehemiah, the governor of Judah. They begin to re-build the city of Jerusalem and the temple.
Our story begins here, as the people gather together to celebrate the feast of Tabernacles, the Jewish New Year.
This is our Old Testament lectionary reading for the day from Nehemiah 8. Listen for God’s word to you.
“81all the people gathered together into the square before the Water Gate. They told the scribe Ezra to bring the book of the law of Moses, which the Lord had given to Israel.
2Accordingly, the priest Ezra brought the law before the assembly, both men and women and all who could hear with understanding. This was on the first day of the seventh month. 3He read from it facing the square before the Water Gate from early morning until midday, in the presence of the men and the women and those who could understand; and the ears of all the people were attentive to the book of the law.
5And Ezra opened the book in the sight of all the people, for he was standing above all the people; and when he opened it, all the people stood up. 6Then Ezra blessed the Lord, the great God, and all the people answered, ‘Amen, Amen’, lifting up their hands. Then they bowed their heads and worshipped the Lord with their faces to the ground. 8So they read from the book, from the law of God, with interpretation. They gave the sense, so that the people understood the reading.
9 And Nehemiah, who was the governor, and Ezra the priest and scribe, and the Levites who taught the people, said to all the people, ‘This day is holy to the Lord your God; do not mourn or weep.’ For all the people wept when they heard the words of the law. 10Then he said to them, ‘Go your way, eat the fat and drink sweet wine and send portions of them to those for whom nothing is prepared, for this day is holy to our Lord; and do not be grieved, for the joy of the Lord is your strength.’
This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.
Let us pray. We give you thanks, O God, for the beauty and the life that is in your word. May we receive with joy all that you have for us today. Amen.
When I was a little girl, I loved the “Little House on the Prairie” books by Laura Ingalls Wilder. Are any of you fans of the books or the TV series? I loved Laura’s stories of life on the frontier and wished that I could ride in a covered wagon and live in a log cabin, except on Sundays. Sundays did not sound fun at all.
The Ingalls family spent all day Sunday inside, sitting still. In “Little House in the Big Woods”, the first book in the series, Laura gets in trouble on a Sunday afternoon, because she rebels and plays with her dog. Rather than punishing her, Pa, Laura’s father, tells her a story about her grandfather’s boyhood Sundays.
When Laura’s grandfather was a little boy, they followed even stricter rules about the Sabbath. It began on Saturday evening after dinner. On Sunday morning, they walked to church, because hitching up the horses was work, and work was forbidden (which actually sounds kind of nice!) At church, they spent two hours listening to a sermon, and then returned home to a cold Sunday dinner, prepared the day before, because cooking was also forbidden. After dinner, they sat in the parlor, reading scripture and praying. Laura’s grandfather and his two brothers had to study their catechism all day long.
One snowy Sunday, the three boys couldn’t stand it anymore. They had worked all week long building a new sled. Unfortunately, they finished it just as the Sabbath began on Saturday evening, so they did not get to try it out. That Sunday afternoon, as they sat quietly and tried to study, all they could think about was that sled and how much fun they were missing.
Eventually, their father fell asleep over his Bible, and the three boys snuck out, grabbed the sled and climbed up the big hill next to their house. Their intention was to make one run, just to see how well the sled worked. They meant to do this in total silence, so that they could sneak back into the house without their parents ever finding out what they’d done.
Of course, that’s not what happened. As they flew past the house, a large pig stepped out right in front of the sled. They scooped up the pig, which landed in the lap of the youngest brother, Laura’s grandfather. The frightened pig began to squeal as loud as it could. They rode down the long hill with the pig screaming the whole way.
As they trudged back up the hill, they saw their father, no longer asleep, standing on the porch waiting for them. They slunk back in the house and silently began to study their catechism. Their father did not say a word until the Sabbath was over; then he marched the three boys out to the woodshed and “tanned their hides,” as was customary in those days.
This is one of my favorite stories in the “Little House” series. Maybe I loved this story so much, because as a child, sometimes Sundays were also hard for me. Growing up in a Baptist church, we heard a lot of very long sermons and sat through Sunday morning, Sunday evening and Wednesday night services every week.
Usually, my sisters and I liked church, but sometimes it was too much. Inevitably, something silly would happen and one of us would start to giggle, which would set off the other two. It was impossible to stop, because as soon as one of us would quit, another would begin and there we’d go. Out of self-defense, our mother developed “The Look” - a deadly glare that told us that we had better stop immediately or suffer the consequences. That usually shut us up real quick. I still love to laugh during church, which I think most of you do, too. I do not enjoy worship that is overly solemn or deadly serious.
That’s why this passage from Nehemiah caught my attention. It’s a sad time in Israel’s history; the end of a very long and hard time. All the people have left is their scripture. They want to hear it read aloud, and as they hear it, they begin to cry. The priests tell them three times, “Do not be grieved. Do not weep or mourn. Do not be grieved, for the joy of the Lord is your strength.”
It’s that last little bit about joy that caught my attention. Worship that does not allow room for joy and for laughter is missing something important theologically and spiritually. It’s amazing how often we stifle our joy and twist our worship and our relationship with God into something that is too heavy.
Now, I don’t mean any of us should stop up our tears – they are healthy and natural. We are often moved to tears in life and in worship. Sometimes we have good reason to cry, but worship without joy and without laughter is deadly. Wouldn’t you agree?
Maybe the people in this passage had cried long enough. They had years of suffering and were finally back home. Maybe it was time to let the sorrow go and to begin to celebrate all that was good. The priests tell them, the joy of the Lord is your strength. I wonder what that means? What does it mean for us individually and for us as a community of faith to look to the joy of the Lord for our strength?
Defining joy is hard – it’s much easier to describe what joy is not. For me, joy is not thoughtless or false; it is not hiding behind a happy face. Joy does not pretend that bad things do not happen; it does not turn a blind eye to evil or to pain or to suffering. Sometimes joy comes in spite of those things or even in the midst of those things, because joy is deep and it is real.
You all know this, but I’ll say it anyway, joy is not necessarily the same thing as happiness. Frederich Buechner writes, “Happiness turns up more or less where you’d expect it to – a good marriage, a rewarding job, a pleasant vacation. Joy, on the other hand, is as notoriously unpredictable as the one who bequeaths it.”
Joy is a gift of God; it is a sign of God’s presence. God is there, right there in the midst of our joy. If you think about what brings you joy, doesn’t that make sense?
In Galatians, joy is listed as a fruit of the Spirit - a sign of our life with God. The Westminster Catechism says that the chief end of humans is to glorify God and to enjoy God forever. We are meant to live and worship in joy.
This morning we ordain and install our deacons and elders – the spiritual leaders of this congregation. It’s a sacred thing to accept this call and to take on leadership within the body of Christ. It is a joyful day, the day we ordain you. But it is also a great risk to accept this call, for you do not know where God will take you. The church is a very human place; you will see us at our best and sometimes, at our worst. As an elder, you will be asked to make difficult, maybe even painful decisions. As a deacon, you will be asked to walk with people through times of pain and illness, through times of loss and great sorrow.
Leadership in the church can be daunting. In times like that, our hope rests in God’s presence with us. I hope you will remember what the priests told the people, “The joy of the Lord is your strength.”
There is a prayer in the Book of Common Worship – a pray for Compline, which is the night service just before bed. The prayer goes like this:
“Tend the sick, Lord Christ; give rest to the weary, bless the dying,
soothe the suffering, pity the afflicted, shield the joyous; and all for your love’s sake.
Amen.”
In this prayer for the sick and the suffering, it asks Jesus to “shield the joyous,” which seems so out of place. Why ask God to shield the joyous?
I’ve thought about this a lot. What I’ve finally come to is that joy is precious. We need to guard it, protect it, nurture it, and hang on to it. Other things can steal our joy. Sometimes life is painful and so hard that we cannot feel joy. That’s why it is so important to savor our joy and to remember it.
I think that is why the priests kept urging the people to quit weeping and to celebrate. That joy which comes from our loving God, truly is our strength. Amen.
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