The Importance of Joy
The First Congregational Church
United Church of Christ
Columbus, Ohio
August 28, 1994
Memory Verse: "Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice." (Philippians 4:4)
Today's Texts: Exodus 16: 1-12 and Philippians 4:10-20
Opening Prayer: O God, we praise you for your goodness and love. We give you glory for providing such a grand and marvelous place as this to gather and worship in. Truly this is the day that you have made, and we fully intend to rejoice and be glad in it. Speak to our spirits now, that we might be blessed with a certain lightness of being that can only come from resting our hearts in thee. Amen.
In 1978 Dr. M. Scott Peck published his first book, The Road Less Traveled. Today it continues to reach an ever-growing audience, with sales of more than five million copies, and translation into more than twenty languages. It has made publishing history with a record ten years on The New York Times best-seller list, and has been cited in national readership surveys as one of the most influential books ever written.
Fifteen years later, Dr. Peck writes that the book's "popularity surprised me, because I wasn't saying anything new. I was repeating things that Carl Jung and William James and others had said long before me. (The difference was that) people had not listened before. Now they were ready to pay attention. People had changed." (Further Along the Road Less Traveled: The Unending Journey Toward Spiritual Growth, Simon & Schuster, 1993).
People had changed alright. By the end of the '70s our nation was reeling after two decades of shocks. From 1960 to 1980 only one United States' president, Jimmy Carter, served a standard term of office. Kennedy had lasted only 3 years, Johnson served 5, Nixon 6, and Ford 2. The stalemate over the wars on poverty and in Vietnam, the spiraling arms race and threat of nuclear annihilation, and the taking of hostages by Iran at the American Embassy in Teheran combined with countless other chinks in the armor to leave this country humiliated, demoralized, and adrift.
It is little wonder, then, that people were ready for a new voice. When a book came along that told us, in no uncertain terms, "Life is difficult," it hit an immediate and resonant chord. "Tell me about it!" was the reply of millions. Whether high-rollers or low-rollers, successful business people or homeless street people, homemakers or chief executives, parents or children, everyone could identify with this simple yet profound truth.
"Life is difficult," Peck wrote in 1978. "This is a great truth, one of the greatest truths. It is a great truth because once we truly see this truth, we transcend it. Once we truly know that life is difficult--once we truly understand and accept it--then life is no longer difficult. Because once it is accepted, the fact that life is difficult no longer matters."
"Most do not fully see this truth that life is difficult. Instead they moan more or less incessantly, noisily or subtly, about the enormity of their problems, their burdens, and their difficulties as if life were generally easy, as if life should be easy. They voice their belief, noisly or subtly, that their difficulties represent a unique kind of affliction that should not be and that has somehow been especially visited upon them, or else upon their families, their tribe, their class, their nation, their race, or even their species, and not upon others. I know about this moaning," he writes, "because I have done my share."
"Life is a series of problems. Do we want to moan about them or do we want to solve them?" (The Road Less Traveled, Simon and Schuster, 1978). That is the question. And in 1994 it is as much, if not more, the question as it was in 1978. Go into any major bookstore today and you will find entire sections devoted to stress. It has become a subsection of the publishing industry. The statistics are overwhelming.
Stress in our country has now reached epidemic proportions. The American Academy of Family Physicians estimates that two-thirds of all visits to the family doctor are stress related. Eighty percent of health-care costs go toward work-related stress maladies. Stress is a major contributor to six of the leading causes of death in this country, with the incidence among women rapidly rising to match or even exceed that among men.
The estimated cost of stress to American employers is somewhere between $100 and $200 billion a year. Fifty-two percent of American executives die of illnesses caused or aggravated by stress. Last year in the American workplace 750 people were murdered, half of them by co-workers. The three best-selling prescription drugs in the United States are Tagamet, which is for ulcers, Endaural, which is for high-blood pressure, and Valium--well who has to ask what Valium is for.
"My own view," says John Morreall, "is that stress gets worse every year and we better learn quickly how to control it or we will go the way of Japan. Japan is often touted as an industrial and business giant. The down side of Japan's success is something called 'Kiroshi.' Kiroshi means death from overwork and stress. 10,000 people a year die from Kiroshi in Japan." (The Many Values of Humor, Chautauqua, 1994).
Morreall sees no other way out from under the crushing weight of life's difficulties than to laugh. "Laughter is good for your heart and lungs," he observes. "When you are laughing you take in six times more oxygen than when you are simply talking. One researcher estimates that 20 seconds of belly laughs are as good for your heart as a 3-minute workout on the rowing machine. There is also a relaxation response that goes with laughter. While you're laughing your blood-pressure and your heart rate go up, temporarily, but when you stop laughing they come down, not to normal but below normal, and they stay below normal for up to 45 minutes. A third benefit of humor is pain reduction. People who laugh a lot have a higher tolerance for pain."
"Laughter strengthens the body's natural immune system, which in the age of AIDS we have all learned to better understand, honor, and respect. For example, the upper respiratory tract is lined with something called immunoglobulin. Immunoglobulin fights off cold infections. People who laugh a lot have high levels of immunoglobulin. People who are stressed out all the time have low or suppressed levels of immunoglobulin. In other words, people who laugh a lot get fewer colds."
Laughter also fills you with a sense of control, while stress and brokenness and pain leave you feeling passive and victimized. Whereas stress is something that happens to you, rejoicing is something that's up to you. It is an active emotion. You can rejoice whenever and wherever you want. You can tell yourself a joke. You can remember a good time. You can praise God for the fact that you can still praise God.
Father Lawrence Martin Jehnko was held as a hostage in the Middle East for about three years. When he was released he wrote down some of his memories and especially important in his memories was how humor helped him overcome the stress. For example, Jehnko said, "every night our captors would ask us what they could get for us. They rarely fulfilled even our simplest request. So soon, we all started to respond in unison, 'A taxi!'"
The night Jehnko was released one of his captors came up to him, put a five pound note in his hand, and said, "Here's your five pounds for a taxi, now go home." Even the captors in this situation could appreciate the humor. Jehnko and his colleagues also kept their sanity and lowered the stress level by naming their meals. Their favorite meal they called, "Hint of Chicken." That meant, said Jehnko, "that the chicken had quite recently walked through our rice."
Increasingly society is finding ways to encourage and embrace laughter. A number of companies now have humor rooms, including Eastman-Kodak, Price-Waterhouse, and Hewlett-Packard. These are rooms where people go, for 10 or 15 minutes, and there are funny video and audio tapes, they even have games and disguises, and people loosen up. These companies are not in business to amuse people, clearly, they are in business to make money, but they have discovered that people who are looser and more playful are better at their job. (John Morreall, The Many Values of Humor, Chautauqua, 1994).
The point here is simple, albeit profound: life is difficult. That's the way it is. It is filled with problems. The question is: Do you want to whine and moan and complain about it or do you want move on? It's not a new question.
1,300 years before the common era, the ancient Hebrews had their own time of moaning. You may remember how their moaning started under the cruel yoke of Egyptian slavery. Indeed, it was their moaning that moved God to compassion. "I have observed the misery of my people who are in Egypt," God told Moses from the buring bush, "I know their sufferings and I have seen their oppression. I have heard their cries on account of their taskmasters, and have decided to deliver them from the Egyptians. " (Exodus 3:7-12).
From that point on Moses was a man with a mission, rising up to confront the king of Egypt with those famous words, "Let my people go." It was a battle being waged on two fronts at the same time, and it could have been lost just as easily with the Hebrews as with the Egyptians. Indeed, scripture tells us that when Moses approached the Israelites with God's offer of freedom, they would not listen to him. (Exodus 6:1-9). Because of their broken spirit they had no hope that God could deliver them from bondage. And so began the plagues, one after another, as much to persuade the people to leave as to browbeat the king into letting them go.
What a stubborn and intransigent people! People who would rather moan their way through slavery than move their way through freedom. People who would rather whine about how terrible things are than boast about how wonderful God is. People who would rather wait for ten vicious and horrible plagues than act upon the vision of a new, more promising future. Unfortunately, we can all probably think of people who fit that description. So comfortable and accustomed to the old, familiar pain that their minds are closed to new directions and their options are limited to minor tinkerings or adjustments.
"Let my people go!" shouted Moses, "Let my people go." There will be no business as usual. There will be no deals. There will be no slavery in Egypt. And with the drowning of Pharaoh's army in the sea, the people escape after centuries of oppression. I can just see them leaping and dancing in the desert, singing at the top of their voices, "Free at last, free at last, great God almighty we're free at last!"
45 days later they had run out of provisions and the joy of their salvation had begun to wear thin. Wouldn't you know it, but the whiners were back in force. "If only we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt!" they moaned. We may have been slaves. We may have been treated cruelly. We may not have known the God of our ancestors. But at least we had food in our bellies and roofs over our heads. Better slavery at the hands of the Egyptians than freedom at the hands of a God such as this. (Exodus 16:3).
Fortunately God does not take pleasure in the suffering of people. So for the second time in two months, God makes a way out of no way and provides food for the people. "At twilight you shall eat meat," the Lord says to Moses out of a cloud, "and in the morning you shall have your fill of bread; then you shall know that I am the Lord your God." (Exodus 16:12). Voilà! Once again the people have something to celebrate. Once again the people have reason to look up and give thanks. Once again the people have cause to leap and dance and sing.
I am convinced that God has given us joy as the single most important antidote to stress and fear and pain and problems and anger and impossible situations. Scripture is loaded with admonitions such as our memory verse for this month, "Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice." (Philippians 4:4). This is not some masochistic admonition to enjoy pain or to bask in terror. This is not a denial that bad things happen, even to good people. This is a simple statement of what the world is only now rediscovering: namely, that joy is good for you. Find something to laugh about, interject humor into an otherwise impossible situation, find some shred of evidence that God has not totally abandoned you, and life will start looking up.
Frankly I think those Israelites had to do some pretty fancy footwork to hold on to the notion of a providing God for forty years in the desert. The manna that sustained them and seemed to come out of nowhere exists to this very day in the Sinai peninsula and is still called manna. It is produced by nocturnal insects after eating the sap of the tamarisk bush, and it quickly dries up and deteriorates in the heat of the desert sun. If it is not gathered at dawn, it disappears for the rest of the day. Now I can imagine that a group of former slaves, who were accustomed to the fleshpots of Egypt, would take at least 45 days to find such a desert food source. The miracle is that they found it at all, and they saw in that miracle the providing hand of God.
In other words, they took an impossible situation and infused it with joy. They were not sitting idly by, waiting for joy to drop into their lap, as though it were a matter of winning the lotto. Instead, they grasped what little provision could be found and claimed it as their own. Although some people continued to whine and complain, at times driving Moses to distraction with their moaning (Exodus 17:4), the 40 years of desert life taught most of the people how to be filled with grace during even the worst of times.
This same lesson of learning how to shake off the dust of life is a lesson the apostle Paul claimed to have learned more than 1,300 years later. "Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. (In this) I have learned the secret of being content with whatever I have. I know what it is to have little, and I know what it is to have plenty. In any and all circumstances I have learned the secret of being well-fed and of going hungry, of having plenty and of being in need. I can do all things through the One who strengthens me." (Philippians 4:4, 11b-13).
That secret is joy, and next week I will talk about how to hold on to joy, even in the worst of times. For those times will come. They may already be here. Life is difficult. It is difficult for you. It is difficult for me. It is difficult for everyone. There is no way to wave a magic wand and make things easy. There is no way to insulate oneself from change and loss and woundedness and fear and death. There is no way to understand all things, to know all things, or to anticipate all things. But there is a way to live gracefully through it all. There is a way to make things better rather than worse. There is a way to find contentment, even in the midst of the desert.
"Rejoice in the Lord always, again I will say, Rejoice." Find something to laugh about. Find some reason to chuckle, unto the Lord your God. Find some time to look up, to praise God, and to give thanks. Amen.
The Secret of Joy
The First Congregational Church
United Church of Christ
Columbus, Ohio
September 4, 1994
Memory Verse: "Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice." (Philippians 4:4)
Today's Texts: 1 Corinthians 1:1-18 and John 20:11-18
Opening Prayer: O God, fill us with the power of your Spirit. Stir us and speak to us, with the dynamite of your Word. Move us and bless us, with the laughter of your grace. I ask this in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior. Amen.
This morning we are going to learn a few things about the secret of joy from three women. The first was Hannah, the mother of Samuel. Weeping through her prayers in the temple, Hannah found the secret of joy. The second was Mary, the friend of Jesus. Weeping in distress at the empty tomb, Mary found the secret of joy. The third is perhaps better left without a name, but she too, in the end, found the secret of joy.
Robert Fulghum tells the story of what he calls "the quintessential wedding." Now keep in mind that weddings, although rich in meaning, are also full of mishap. My own wedding, for example, was delayed by an hour and a half when my aunt and uncle ran into a suitcase on the highway, with my parents in the back seat. Fortunately no one was seriously hurt. But weddings are like that. It seems there's always something. Weddings act like magnets for mishap, with so much pageantry being attempted by so many amateurs. Dene, this one's for you.
"The central figure in this drama is the mother of the bride. Not the bride, nor the groom, nor the minister. Mother. Usually a polite, reasonable, intelligent, and sane human being, Mother was mentally unhinged by the announcement of her daughter's betrothal. I don't mean she was unhappy, as is often the case. To the contrary. She was overcome with joy. And she just about succeeded in overcoming everybody else with her joy before the dust settled.
Nobody knew it, but this lady had been waiting all her life with a script for her daughter's wedding that would have met with Cecil B. DeMille's approval. A royal wedding fit for a princess bride. And since it was her money, it was hard to say no. The father of the bride began to pray for an elopement. His prayers were not to be answered.
The Mother of the bride had seven months to work, and no detail was left to chance or human error. Everything that could be engraved was engraved. There were teas and showers and dinners. An eighteen-piece brass band and wind ensemble was engaged. The church organ simply would not do. The bride's desires for home furnishings were registered in stores as far east as New York and as far south as Atlanta. Not only were the bridesmaids' outfits made to order, but the tuxedos for the groom and his men were bought--not rented, mind you. Bought. If all that wasn't enough, the engagement ring was returned to the jeweler for a larger stone, quietly subsidized by the Mother of the bride. When I say the lady came unhinged, I mean UNHINGED.
Looking back, it seems now that the rehearsal and dinner on the evening before the great event were not unlike what took place in Napoleon's camp the night before Waterloo. Nothing had been left to chance. Nothing could prevent a victory on the coming day. Nobody would EVER forget this wedding. (Just as nobody ever forgot Waterloo. For the same reason, as it turned out.)
The juggernaut of fate rolled down the road, and the final hour came. Guests in formal attire packed the church. Enough candles were lit to bring daylight back to the evening. In the gallery the orchestra gushed great music. And the mighty Mother of the bride coasted down the aisle with the grandeur of an opera diva at a premier performance. Never did the mother of the bride take her seat with more satisfaction. She had done it. She glowed, beamed, smiled, and sighed.
The music softened, and nine -- count them, nine -- chiffon-draped bridesmaids lockstepped down the long aisle while the befrocked groom and his men marched stolidly into place. Finally, oh so finally, the wedding march thundered from the orchestra. Here comes the bride. Preceded by four enthusiastic mini-princesses chunking flower petals, and two dwarfish ringbearers--one for each ring. The congregation rose and turned in anticipation.
Ah, the bride. She had been dressed for hours if not days. No adrenaline was left in her body. Left alone with her father in the reception hall of the church while the march of the maidens went on and on, she had walked along the tables laden with gourmet goodies and absentmindedly sampled first the little pink and yellow and green mints. Then she picked through the silver bowls of mixed nuts and ate the pecans. Followed by a cheeseball or two, some black olives, a handful of glazed almonds, a little sausage with a frilly toothpick stuck in it, a couple of shrimps blanketed in bacon, and a cracker piled with chicken liver pâté. To wash this down--a glass of pink champagne. Her father gave it to her. To calm her nerves.
What you noticed as the bride stood in the doorway was not her dress, but her face. White. For what was coming down the aisle was a living grenade with the pin pulled out. The bride threw up. Just as she walked by her mother. And by "threw up," I don't mean a polite little ladylike urp into her handkerchief. She puked. There's just no other word for it. I mean, she hosed the front of the chancel--hitting two bridesmaids, the groom, a ringbearer, and the minister.
The details are not open to debate, for you see it was all recorded on videotape. Three camera's worth. The Mother of the bride had thought of everything.
Having disgorged her hors d'oeuvres, champagne, and the last of her dignity, the bride went limp in her father's arms, while her groom sat down on the floor where he had been standing, too stunned to function. And the Mother of the bride fainted, slumping over in rag-doll disarray. The fire drill that came next could only have been topped by the Marx Brothers. Groomsmen rushed about heroically, mini-princess flower girls squalled, bridesmaids sobbed, and people with weak stomachs headed for the exits. All the while, unaware, the orchestra in the gallery played on. The bride had not only come, she was gone--into some other state of consciousness. The smell of fresh retch drifted across the church, mixing with the smell of guttering candles. Napoleon and Waterloo came back to mind.
Only two people were seen smiling. One was the mother of the groom. And the other was the father of the bride.
In due time, people came back to real life. Guests were invited to adjourn to the reception hall, though they did not eat or drink as much as they might have in different circumstances. The bride was consoled, cleaned up, fitted out with a bridesmaid's dress, and hugged and kissed a lot by the revived groom. She'll always love him for that. When he said, "for better or for worse," he meant it. The cast was reassembled where it left off, a single flute played a quiet air, the words were spoken, and the deed was done. Everybody cried, as people are supposed to do at weddings, mostly because the groom held the bride in his arms through the whole ceremony. And no groom ever kissed a bride more tenderly than he.
If one can hope for a wedding that it be memorable, then theirs was a raging success. NOBODY who was there will EVER forget it. And they lived as happily ever after as anyone does--about twelve years now, and have three lively children.
But that's not the end of the story. The best part is still to come. The secret of joy is still to be learned. On the tenth anniversary of this disastrous affair, a party was held. Three TV sets were mustered, a feast was laid, and best friends invited. Remember, there were three video cameras at the scene of the accident, so all three films were shown at once. The event was hilarious, especially with the running commentary and the stop-action stuff that is a little gross when seen one frame at a time. The part that got cheers and toasts was when the camera focused on the grin on the face of the father of the bride as he contemplates his wife as she is being revived.
The reason I say this is the best part is not because of the party. But because of who organized it. Of course. The infamous Mother of the bride. The Mother of the bride is still at it, but she's a little looser these days. She not only forgave her husband and everybody else for their part in the debacle, she forgave herself. And nobody laughed harder at the film than she.
There's a word for what she has. Grace. And that's why the same grinning man has been married to her for forty years. And why her daughter loves her still." (It Was On Fire When I Lay Down On It, Ivy Books, 1988).
This story, fraught with dashed hopes and wounded pride, has much to teach us about the secret of joy. Along with the stories of Hannah and Mary, we indeed strike a mother lode in our search for the truth about joy. I mentioned last week the fundamental problem when it comes to joy, namely that life is difficult. Joy is not something that gets handed to us on a silver platter. It is something that has to be worked at and seized, moment by moment. Especially when our best laid plans go awry.
Joy does not require a secret when everything's going our way. Even the smallest toddlers know how to rejoice when they get what they want. But what happens when life starts kicking us in the ribs? What happens when life squeezes out between our fingers, even after we've done everything in our power to make things go smoothly, to maintain our sense of control, and to massage life until it conforms to our expectations? That's when we need to know and apply the secret of joy. For joy is so much deeper than having things go our way.
The stories of Hannah and Mary remind us that life's difficulties are often more painful than a spoiled wedding. Sometimes our dreams just don't pan out; sometimes our hopes for a child, to love and to cherish, just never materialize; sometimes our rivals just taunt us mercilessly, making us miserable with their barbs; sometimes our best of friends, people with whom we've wrapped up our hopes and dreams, people we can't imagine being without, just up and die, leaving us distraught and despairing.
What then is the secret of joy, that can carry us through even the most difficult of times? I would lift up three lessons, from three women. The Mother of the bride story tells us to never take ourselves too seriously, and to never lose perspective. With a little distance, even the most awful of weddings can become humorous. The trick is learning how to not wait ten years before we start laughing. With a little imagination and a few deep breaths we can ask ourselves, even in the midst of a trying situation, "How will this look to me a year from now, or five years from now, or ten years from now?" If in retrospect we will find something to laugh about, then our imagination can create a kind of emotional distance, even in the midst of difficulty, that will help us to recover a sense of balance and equilibrium. Let's not lose sight of the important things in life.
The story of Hannah tells us to put our trust in God, for God can use even the most hopeless of situations, even our tragedies and our pain. This story has been traveling in my soul ever since I preached on the call of Samuel at the end of July. I just can't seem to get it out of my mind. Here was this woman, apparently barren, provoked and humiliated by her archrival, Peninnah, who was having children one right after another. Stressed to the breaking point, Hannah throws herself at the Lord while attending the annual family pilgrimage to Shiloh. She's in such a state that Eli, the priest, thinks she must be drunk, and orders her to go home. But Hannah answers, "Oh, no, my lord! I am a woman deeply troubled. I have drunk neither wine nor strong drink, but I have been pouring out my soul before the Lord."
At which point Eli responds, "Go in peace. May the God of Israel grant your petition." And then, Scripture tells us, Hannah thanks him, goes to her quarters, eats and drinks with her husband, and finds that "her countenance was sad no longer." (1 Samuel 1:18).
That was it. Before there had been any answer to prayer. Before there had been any baby. Before there had been any signs of deliverance. This woman, who had been so upset only moments earlier as to have Eli calling for the temple security guards, was now bouncing around as happy as could be. She didn't care about Peninnah's taunts. She didn't care about her years without children. She was filled with joy.
Why? Nothing had changed about her external situation, but something had changed on the inside. As she put her trust in God, she went from despair to delight. Her life situation might not have been different, but she was different. Her attitude was different. Her outlook was different. Her hope was different, for it was now anchored in a providing God. She had learned the secret of joy, for in the end God never abandons us.
Finally we come to Mary, the best friend of Jesus. This was no Mother of the bride, with a botched up wedding on videotape. This was no Hannah, fervently hoping against hope for a miracle answer to prayer. This was the case of a broken and shattered woman, grieving over the violent death of her teacher and friend, distressed over the apparent desecration of his grave. The tomb was open. The body was gone. And she had come undone.
At which point, Scripture tells us, "she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but did not know who it was." (John 20:14). Jesus even spoke to her, but all she could figure was that he must be the gardener. But then he called her by name. "Mary." "Mary!" He called her by name. He called her by name! The scales fell from her eyes and she threw herself at his feet, filled with joy from the biggest surprise of her life. Deep had spoken to deep, and she was transformed by the amazing grace of God. Suddenly bad news was good news, defeat was victory, death was life, and there was reason to hope again.
Sometimes, in the end, that is the secret of joy. Sometimes our best efforts at maintaining perspective fail; sometimes our heartfelt desire to put trust in God is not strong enough; sometimes life is so difficult that God has to sneak up on us and surprise us with grace. God has to take over and turn things around in a whole new way.
Three lessons from three women, three women who found joy in the midst of the struggles of life. One was finally able to get her bearings, to loosen up, and to laugh. Another was finally able to put her trust in God, and to rest confident in the knowledge of God's love. But the third may be exactly what you need today. To hear God call you by name. Carl. Evalyn. Megan. Rick. To be seized by a power so great, so wonderful, and so surprising that not even death itself can stand in the way. Open your hearts and mind to this transforming God, and you will know the secret of joy. Amen.