Rev. Debbie Cato
Zephaniah 3:14-20;
Philippians 4:4-7
Fairfield Community
Church
December 12, 2009
Third Sunday of Advent
Open us, Holy One, to your Word and your Way.
Clear our minds of holiday distractions and busy tasks. Fill our hearts with
the humility we need to hear and receive the message you intend for us today.
Amen.
Rejoice Always
As we linger on this journey of anticipation that
is Advent, the prophets continue to yield important insights into the meaning
of the season, and the character and fulfillment of God’s promises.
So far this Advent we have heard from Jeremiah and Malachi, and now Zephaniah. The prophet is as much the voice of Advent as is the evangelist – John the Baptist. Prophets say what no one wants to hear, what no one wants to believe. Prophets point in directions no one wants to look. They hear God when everybody else has decided God is silent. They see God where nobody else would guess that God is present. They feel God. Prophets feel God’s compassion for us, God’s anger with us, God’s joy in us. They dream God’s dreams and utter wake-up calls; they hope God’s hopes and announce a new future; they will God’s will and live it against all odds.[1]
Zephaniah’s song calls people to lament and repent. Jerusalem is idolatrous and complacent; the nations are corrupt. God is indignant. But there is an abrupt shift – “Sing Aloud!” “Rejoice and exult!” God’s promised salvation interrupts a tirade of judgment with a song of joy.
Zephaniah knows the future and he wants us to get up and rejoice! The future will be different from the present and even different from the future that had been foreseen. There will be no disaster, no reproach, no shame, no fear. Why do we listen to the prophets at Advent? Because centuries before the birth of Jesus Christ they were messengers of essential good news: “Do not fear… The LORD, your God is in your midst.”[2] “He will rejoice over you with gladness, he will renew you in his love.”
“He will rejoice over you with gladness, he will renew you in his love.” Beautiful words. Don’t they give you peace and comfort to know that God rejoices over you? That he renews you in his love?
Paul, in his letter to church in Philippi, encourages them to “Rejoice in the Lord always.”
The truth is, rejoicing isn’t easy, especially in these days and times. If Paul’s exhortation to rejoice no matter what strikes a sour note for some of us, given all that is happening right now, I understand. I’m getting to know you and this community, and I know the heaviness that many of you carry on your hearts. I know how bad the harvests were this year. How the drought, how climate change, is impacting the farmers. How many of you have loved ones facing serious illnesses. How many of you have lost loved ones this year.
The experience of joyful peace is not always easily found amid the great anxieties and expectations that the season can produce. Even this time of year can produce tremendous anxiety. Pressure to be able to buy things when your budget may not allow. Pressure to be with family when there are conflicts. Pressure on how to spend your time. Too much stuff to do. For many, this is a time when you are facing a holiday for the first time without a beloved loved one. Loneliness during this time of year is overwhelming.
I wonder if our spiritual ancestors — Zephaniah and Paul — might have something to teach us in this regard. These writers don’t approach joy from a place of denial or superficiality. Zephaniah writes in the context of terrible spiritual and political corruption, perpetrated by the very leaders who are supposed to care for the poor and the oppressed of Judah. His exhortation to joy sits right alongside his call to repentance and lament, and his confidence that God will sit in righteous judgment against those who exploit and oppress the weak.[3]
For a
lot of years, life for my girls and I was pretty rough. A couple of years were particularly tough and
at times I honestly didn’t know if we would get through it. It was really hard to see any good when I was
surrounded by so much that was bad.
During this time, a friend gave me a book written by Rev. Dr. Dale
Turner, who pastored a large congregational church in Seattle. He also did a lot of public speaking and
wrote a lot of books. The book she gave
me was called, “Grateful Living.”
Grateful Living. This book changed
my attitude forever.
Rev.
Turner quoted Martin Luther who said that gratitude is the basic Christian
attitude. Rev. Turner admits that life
is hard and sometimes it seems impossible to find something to be thankful
about. But his contention is that you
are surrounded by blessings every single day.
Some are big and obvious. And
some are small and harder to notice. We
have to be intentional about recognizing them.
He teaches that if you make a practice of recognizing the blessings in
your life, it changes how you live. And…
here’s the key – a feeling of gratitude grows in you and you begin living out
of gratitude, rather than living out of worry or resentment. It’s sort of like being optimistic instead
of pessimistic.
In his book, Rev. Turner recommends keeping a “blessing journal.” A notebook in which each night before you go to bed, you think of 3 blessings from that day, and you write them down. The blessings can be as small as – I’m thankful this day is over. I’m thankful for the hot cup of coffee I had this morning.
Well,
I decided to try it. So, I kept a
journal on my nightstand and every night I would list 3 things that I was
thankful for that day. Honestly, some
days I had to dig pretty deep to find something to write. Other days, the list was easy.
You
know Rev. Turner was right. The longer I
kept up this habit, the more I started to look at life differently. I began to realize that no matter how bad my
day was, no matter how overwhelming the negative was, there was always
something good. I started to see and
appreciate the good things – the small things - that reminded me of God’s
presence in my life, rather than just the negative stuff that was causing so
much angst. A genuine feeling of
gratitude grew in me, and I realized all the things I truly had to be thankful
for. It helped me to live
gratefully. It helped me to feel joy in
the midst of some really tough times.
Paul
says that this is how we are to live as God’s people. He says, “Rejoice in the Lord always.” Rejoice in the Lord always. (pause)
Now the kind of joy that Paul refers to is not some superficial cheerfulness but a deep joy in what God has done in Christ and is continuing to do through the saints. The fact that this joy is “in the Lord” reminds us not only that it comes from the God, but also that it is shared by those who live in him. Paul is not thinking of something that is merely an emotional experience but rather he is speaking of a deep and lasting joy that comes through a deepening relationship with Christ.
Paul is not talking about feeling good. Feeling happy. He is talking about cultivating the inner
life of the soul. In Paul's view, peace and joy are not emotions we can conjure
up within ourselves. They come from God, and the only way we can receive them
is through consistent spiritual practice: prayer, supplication, gentleness, and
contemplation.
In other words, joy requires us to sidestep sentimentality and
cynicism. It requires that we hold onto two realities at once: the reality of
the world's brokenness in one hand, and the reality of God's love in the other.
Joy is what happens when we live every day in the belief that God can and will
bridge the gap between the world we long for and the world we see before our
eyes. It is a posture, an orientation, a practice. A willingness to sit gently
but persistently in the tension of the "not yet," trusting that God's
peace will guard our hearts and minds in that in-between place for as long as
it takes.[5]
We can rejoice because we trust in a God who sees rightly, honestly, and deeply. We can rejoice because God our judge sees us as we truly are, in our beauty, our brokenness, our earnestness and our evil. God our judge loves us enough to deliver us from ourselves, and loves the world enough to redeem it so that all can thrive. This is cause for celebration![6]
Because our judge is pure love, we don’t have
to fear the day of judgment that’s coming — we can rejoice in the promise
of creation made new and whole. We can "risk delight." We
can be honest in our longings. We can admit, even in the worst of times,
that “there will be music despite everything.”
“Rejoice in the Lord, always; again, I will
say, Rejoice! Amen.
[1] Feasting in the Word. Year C, Volume 1. Third Sunday of Advent. Pastoral Perspective. Page 52.
Deborah Block.
[2] Ibid
[3] https://www.journeywithjesus.net Rejoice
Always? By Debie Thomas. Posted 05 December 2021.
[4] https://www.journeywithjesus.net Rejoice Always? By Debie Thomas. Posted 05 December 2021.
[5] Ibid
[6] Ibid
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