A sermon by Richard Hurst, UNMC Deacon, on December 14, 2008
Today I wish to speak about joy and about liberty, which I am going to call by the more Anglo-Saxon term freedom. The Hebrew prophet Isaiah proclaims freedom, and release to the captives, and healing and recompense along the way for those in need of it; Jesus repeats the most important of Isaiah's proclamations in the gospels, in his very first public sermon. It is worth remembering that Jesus is attacked, physically attacked, for proclaiming Isaiah’s words of freedom and healing and reconciliation.
Freedom must then mean something to us as people of faith; but does it mean the same to us as it did to the ancient Israelites, or to Jesus and his followers? Even if it does, should it, or should it mean something different, in light of the passage of time and the evolution of what we mean by the term freedom during the intervening years? Ideally freedom means something broader now than it did then. Are we to proclaim freedom for others, for ourselves and those under our control, do we proclaim freedom from what haunts our own hearts, do we proclaim freedom to live our own lives in "pursuit of happiness," understood to mean "maximum happiness," perhaps even "maximum joy?" Do you personally understand freedom as something more Jeffersonian or more Ayn Rand-ian, or something altogether different?
Joy, is simultaneously a simpler and more complicated concept. It is an emotion; and I suspect, whatever underlies emotions and their purposes, ultimately does not change. I will leave what joy ultimately is to psychiatrists and social biologists and MRI machines. Suffice it to say that Paul commends joy to us, in all places and all times, in his letter to the Thessalonians, and this even before the age of Big Pharma. One might first wonder whether this is too heavy a burden for us and for joy; being commended to constant joy is itself a reminder that joy is not an emotion that human beings continuously experience as a matter of course. The question then might not be so much what Paul means by joy, but by what he means by telling us to experience joy in each and every moment, with the thought that that is possible or even good for us.
Our country we know as the “land of the free,” where we have come together in the “pursuit of happiness,” so we should have some affinity both with the call of the prophet Isaiah to “proclaim freedom” and with Paul’s call to “rejoice always.” Our popular culture tells us that “freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose,” at least turning first to singer Janis Joplin. Later pop music, in the 80's and 90's, gave us a different view of what freedom might mean. The provocatively named alternative rock group “Jesus Jones” told their own followers that they were “free to do what they want any old time,” amidst joyous shouts of “don't be afraid of your freedom!” to their fans. I think of my own life; I plan on being off for eight days in January. I cannot decide what to do because there are in a very real way no limitations except for time itself: have credit card, will travel. My current choices are the glaciers and hot springs of Iceland, the glacial albeit near Parisian elegance of Montreal, or the still-warm mountains of southern Arizona in the dark cold of January. There is so much to choose from, a veritable surfeit of choices. I am “free to do what I want,” nearly “any old time.” I am not “afraid of my freedom,” even if freedom nearly has me stuck in the mud before my choices. I doubt few people would have much sympathy for me. Ayn Rand, though, I am sure would rejoice in the fruits of my industry and hard work that has allowed me the freedom to be in the position to make them.
George Lakoff is a linguist who writes that there are two models of ideal family life that in important ways inform what freedom means for different people. The first he calls the “strict father” model in which the parent leads with a moral authority that “must not be seriously challenged;” the parent in this model first and foremost seeks to protect the family from the very real evils of the outside world. Think John Wayne. Children learn a demanding system of laws and punishments, instilling in them the self-discipline to succeed in a ruthlessly competitive and morally dangerous world. Within the strict-father model, “protecting our freedoms” could mean something such as eliminating or privatizing Social Security, so people are free to prove their self worth in the free market.
Others, by contrast, subscribe to the “nurturing parent” ideal of family life. This parent is “authoritative without being authoritarian,” based on mutual respect and the idea that discussion and explanation. Think Oprah. The reward for behaving well is affection, togetherness and help when you need it. It holds that “citizens care about their community and each other and act responsibly toward their community and each other.” For those who subscribe to this model, government spending provides more freedoms than most of us could afford on our own; regulations do not limit the freedom of business in this model, rather they free citizens from threats to the commonwealth like pollution or defective products.
Many Americans, however, are what Lakoff calls "biconceptual." In some parts of their lives, they behave according to the nurturing-parent model, while in others, they are more strict-father. Here might be the space of reconciliation and healing for us as a spiritual people; we can proclaim freedom, and proclaim release to the captives, each in our way, as we at the same time search for what binds us together as a free people. We can proclaim the spread of freedom far and wide, and proclaim freedom to the furthest limits of our imaginations, as we at the same time search for the healing and reconciliation that our overlapping senses of freedom might bring us; we might find in this way find ourselves “free to do what we want to do any old time” in the best and widest sense.
In a world where freedom was only a dream, and where all in Galilee lived under foreign rule, we hear that Mary rejoiced all the same when she felt the kick of the growing presence in her womb. Many an unwed mother in Nazareth might not have felt joy under these circumstances; it would have been more likely for someone to have felt alone and frightened, abandoned by God in the face of one’s circumstances than to feel the presence of the spirit and hear tell of a holy gift. Mary in her joyous reaction to the announcement of her child to come turns the tables on everyone—the rich and the power, the proud and lowly, the powerful and the powerless. Perhaps we are reminded in the shadows here of the pagan stories of Greek and Roman gods raping humans; but these stories of our imagination find themselves transformed into a sacred mystery; we are spared a ravaging deity at work on innocent mortals. More important still, Mary is given the voice to say “yes” in the face of an all-powerful God who tells her of the child she will bear.
What we are told about Mary’s virginity in the light of her impossible, paradoxical pregnancy mirrors her foolish irresponsibility in imagining a patently absurd divine reign, a community of equals where the holiness of God is present, where all are fed and the lowliest are freed from under the yoke of the powerful, including a servant girl in a land ruled by foreigners. But rationally we ask: How can the rich go away empty? And indeed we ask: How can a virgin be with child? These parallel questions are the heart of Mary’s story. This woman’s dangerous vision of the world upsets our every expectation. It is also what she taught her child, and what he proclaimed in his first sermon. She taught him the joy she experienced in the face of agony and the freedom she dreamt of in the face of servitude and foreign domination.
All the same, if you are anything like me, joy seems hard to find in the face of the world’s disappointments, despite whatever material comforts we might have that the servant girl of Galilee did not. She is right to say that the rich go away empty. Often I am pulled awake by my alarm clock, and the radio comes on; being a good Unitarian Universalist, I hear the soothing voices of National Public Radio intoning the horrors of the day one by one; both the ones around the globe, one day in India, the next in Afghanistan or Darfur, but as well the more immediate concerns such as the weather and the traffic, or the losses on the stock markets or increasing unemployment here and abroad. I feel the absence of the one I love who should be by at my side, but who many times is not, and my body aches from the lack of touch. I pull the comforter (such an appropriate name) further over my head, ticking off everything I think is wrong with me, what I do not like about how I live or what I look like or how I feel sorry for myself. There is no particular reason to get out of bed some days; sometimes in fact I do not. I go over what I think is wrong with me and everyone around me, mentally, physically, emotionally, and lately financially; I feel burdened by my circumstances and the circumstances of others.
Paul could not possibly mean when he tells me to “rejoice always,” to turn my back on all this, simply to forget it all, pretend like it does not exist or does not matter. So often I get out of bed merely on the promise of coffee. That is not infrequently joy enough; feeling the caffeine flowing through my veins I will tell you is more often than I care to admit what gets me to church. Sometimes I get out of bed out of fear; because I will be criticized or yelled at or because I will fail to do something important and disappoint people. (I like to call this Protestant guilt.) Perhaps being needed is joy enough; I know my presence is necessary for something to happen or for someone to be satisfied (even if for what I think are the most trivial reasons). I live in a community of men and women, not all of whom I particularly care for, but for whom my presence is in some sense meaningful. I suspect all of us do. Sometimes, when I am alone, all I have is my ever-present teddy bear; oddly, he reminds me that I am still in bed, but that sleep is over. His ursine work is then done, and my “people work” begins. I wake up to the world and recall eventually that I am human, a tremendous and paradoxical gift that my bear reminds me of every morning; I am thus reminded that whatever I feel that I lack and whatever pains and troubles me is merely a result of being human. I am resigned to joy, despite every bit of resentment that I have, every loss, every absence that I experience.
Joy, ultimately, is about remembrance, not merely of all we have, but what we do not have; otherwise, we would have nothing to be thankful for, we would not experience our humanity at all, we would not be able to experience the joy of being alive. We should not make the mistake of confusing joy with ecstasy (though joy can be ecstatic), but we need not rejoice loudly or even in a way anyone else might notice. One can rejoice merely drinking the first cup of coffee, happy enough, joyful enough, that the body responds to its combination of chemicals, the caffeine, the antioxidants, the aroma, while either sitting quietly or with the stirring of morning activity.
Mary knew this; we know it too, in the deepest part of our truest self. It is what pulls us through the worst of times when nothing else will. This is the hidden joy in life, the hidden locomotive that will carry us till we reach the destination where we need it full-force. Joy is subversive in the most literal sense then; it is a river that flows beneath the surface (the “sub” part), in places where we do not see it, that breaks forth at times we least expect it and turns things around when it does (the “vers” part). It is in this season of waiting that we need such sub-versive joy the most, when the stress and the burden of festivities to come might seem more trouble than they are worth.
The call to freedom too so often bubbles just beneath the surface, unfulfilled, though freedom be proclaimed; Mary knew this too. We are two thousand years out, and the lowliest still await to be freed, and hungry await to be fed. Freedom itself remains as subversive, as sub-versive, as it ever has, in so many ways and in so many places. Ask those who support Proposition 8. Ask those who ban the mere utterance of the word in Chinese text-messaging software. And ask those who oppose both, who seek to turn things around. Mary’s joyous and joyful vision of freedom, it could not be any clearer, is foolish and irresponsible, the world she envisions is absurd, her provocation to the powerful and the proud is ill-advised and reckless and dangerous.
And here we find the core of our faith.
LIGHTING OUR ADVENT CANDLE
“The Candle of Joy”
Leader: This third Sunday of Advent we gather round the Advent wreath to light the Candle of Joy. The light reminds us of humankind’s need for joy in our lives.
Congregation: It reminds us of the joy we have in the Son of God, the Messiah, Jesus Christ, born of the incarnate Wisdom of God, we call Sophia.
L: The author of the Gospel of John tells us that Jesus brought joy to us. Jesus said, “That my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full.”
C: The Scriptures tell us Jesus taught that joy must be a part of God’s kingdom here on earth.
L: As we look at the light of this candle we celebrate God’s promise of joy on earth.
C: Jesus knew each person had to believe joy is possible.
L: Jesus’ stories and parables teach us how to embrace joy.
C: He tells us that all should have the joy of little children who are loved by their parents.
L: As we celebrate the birth of the Messiah, this light calls each of us to the joy God promised as Jesus brought Light to the world.
Let us pray.
All: God of Abraham and Sarah and all the Patriarchs of old, you are our Source of Joy. Your Love is revealed to us in Jesus Christ. Help us in preparing to celebrate his birth, to make our hearts ready and to find joy in You. Until each of us finds joy within, there can be no joy for all the earth. Help us today and every day to hear Your word, and to do Your will by embracing the joy and laughter within us, as if we were beloved children. We ask this in the name of the Wisdom born in Bethlehem. Amen
OPENING WORDS
1 Thessalonians 5:16-21
16Rejoice always, 17pray without ceasing, 18give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. 19Do not quench the Spirit. 20Do not despise the words of prophets, 21but test everything; hold fast to what is good.
RESPONSIVE CALL TO PRAYER
The Song of Mary (The Magnificat), Luke 1:47-55
L: My soul proclaims God's greatness. My spirit rejoices in God the Saviour.
C: For you have looked with favour on your humble servant. From this day all generations will call me blessed.
L: You have done great things for me, O Most Mighty. Hallowed by your Name!!
C: You have mercy on those who revere you, from one generation to another.
L: You took action with a strong arm. You scattered the proud in their conceit.
C: You pulled the mighty from their thrones. You raised the lowly.
L: You filled the hungry with good things. You sent the rich away empty.
All: You came to the aid of your servant Israel for you remembered your promise of mercy to our ancestors, Abraham and Sarah, and to their children in every age.
READINGS
FIRST READING
Isaiah 61:1-11
The spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me; he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and release to the prisoners; 2to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn; 3to provide for those who mourn in Zion— to give them a garland instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the mantle of praise instead of a faint spirit. They will be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, to display his glory.
They shall build up the ancient ruins, they shall raise up the former devastations; they shall repair the ruined cities, the devastations of many generations. 5Strangers shall stand and feed your flocks, foreigners shall till your land and dress your vines; 6but you shall be called priests of the Lord, you shall be named ministers of our God; you shall enjoy the wealth of the nations, and in their riches you shall glory. 7Because their shame was double, and dishonor was proclaimed as their lot, therefore they shall possess a double portion; everlasting joy shall be theirs. 8For I the Lord love justice, I hate robbery and wrongdoing; I will faithfully give them their recompense, and I will make an everlasting covenant with them.
9Their descendants shall be known among the nations, and their offspring among the peoples; all who see them shall acknowledge that they are a people whom the Lord has blessed.
SECOND READING
From a list of blocked words and phrases in China's most popular instant-message software. Translated from the Chinese by Christopher G. Rea.
betray the nation
brainwash
children of high officials
commie dogs
create turmoil
credit crisis
democracy
dictatorship
foreign affairs and the general plan
hold different political views
human rights
literary inquisition
mass movement
massacre
multi-party
old men's politics
public funds
public opinion is against the system
reading prohibited
real people and real events
real sentiments of the people
real situation
revolution
self-immolation
single-party
student unrest
tyranny
whitewashed peace and tranquility
will of the people
and finally .... "freedom"