On The Matter Of Love
Sermon
The Culture Of Disbelief
Gospel Sermons For Lent/Easter
The presence of God is the difference between joy and happiness. We can be happy without God but we may not be joyful without God.
Jesus promised joy when he said, "I have come that your joy might be increased ..." (John 15:11 and 10:10). He came by way of the cross which leads to joy and not just happiness.
Happiness is a checkbook that has money, a car that works, a good date for Saturday night. Happiness is the absence of major hassles or terrorism or crime; happiness is children getting good report cards and one's spouse getting a raise. Happiness is something we know as enhancement or protection of our own lives.
Joy comes in the connection with an other or with Jesus. Joy comes as presence with God or as simply the presence of God. Joy can happen without money or a working car. Joy happens when we get to the core of life and realize that love is at the core. Joy befriends us; love accompanies us.
I know a woman who has four children. Three have AIDS. She does too. Her only hope is to outlive her three dying children so that she can comfort them as they leave this earth. She calls these dying children "morning glories." The name seems to be catching on for children who have AIDS. Their life is brief but beautiful. This woman knows almost no happiness, but God is never far away from her. She knows the joy of the presence of God. Her fourth son, she says, will have to be taken care of by the future. I asked her where she got her faith, and she said that she had no idea but that without it she'd already be dead. With it, at least she can enjoy what she calls the morning's glory.
She loves these children -- for whatever moment they have. Jesus loves us that way: joyously, for now, fully in the present.
Love can be there even if a future or a good report card is not. Joy can be there in spite of terrible grief or loss or hassles. Neither love nor Jesus is destroyed in terrorism. Ask the people of Oklahoma City or any of the parents who lost a child: they know that weeping endures for the night but joy comes in the morning.
A completed joy comes in spite of the terrible losses. An old woman once confessed to me that she worried about people who had never suffered until late in life: "They don't know about tomorrow and how we get over things." Joy comes when we are healed by the power and presence of God which is even more present in acute suffering. The score is always God 10-Suffering 9 or God 11-Suffering 10. Suffering can be horrible, but God is always more powerful than any suffering.
Jesus did not live and die to make us happy so much as to yield us joy. Joy is inclusive; happiness is often exclusive. Joy comes to people who lose legs or children or jobs. Happiness comes to the competent and the fortunate: joy has its arms around everybody.
Consider this parable about poor people. It could also be titled "The Strange Way the Cookie Crumbles." A rich woman found herself with some time to spare at London's Heathrow Airport. She bought a cup of coffee and a small bag of cookies. She staggered, laden with luggage, to an unoccupied table. She was reading the morning paper when she became aware that a very shabbily dressed man was seated at her table, eating a cookie. She did not want to make a scene so she leaned across and took a cookie herself. A minute or so passed. More rustling. He was helping himself to another cookie! The back and forth continued until they were down to the last cookie in the package. She was very angry but still could not bring herself to say anything. Then the young man broke the remaining cookie in two, pushed half across to her, ate the other half and left.
Some time later, when the public address system called for her to present her ticket, she was still fuming. Imagine her embarrassment when she opened her handbag and was confronted by her package of cookies! She had been eating his.
He was rich enough to share. She was not. He knew about joy. She only knew about cookies.
If joy is not something you know intimately, perhaps God will send you some suffering or some poverty. Even better -- because who could wish for suffering for anyone -- you might consider behaving as a wave of joy. You might spread the joy you do know. Joy does not only come to those who suffer; it also comes to those who get acquainted with who God really is.
Consider the wave. Not an Atlantic Ocean wave but the sporting event wave. Who starts it? How do 14,000 people get going all together in something like a rhythm? Somebody must start it. So why not you or me? The person who starts it is who starts it. When it starts, people get receptive to taking instruction. People cooperate. We experience what the computer types call a positive feedback loop. Everything is amplified. We don't have any special power but we experience joy anyway. Waves really show you the difference between power and effect. In lots of situations, we don't really have any power. But we can have a big effect if the situation is set up right.
A small amount of power can have a large effect Somebody starts every wave. Every joy and every love starts somewhere. It doesn't just happen. Somebody starts every wave.
Next time you are at a dinner party and everyone starts making themselves feel good by putting down the people who aren't there, watch what happens if you stop that wave and offer a replacement. Or watch the next fight you have with your spouse or children or neighbor. The same principle applies. Harness the positive power in the situation and you may diffuse the negative. You might even have a big effect. You might even find the effect of your action magnified. You might even start to have a good time!
You probably don't think you have what it takes to start waves of joy. But you do. Rabbits prove it.
We found the rabbits on a street in Vermont. The sign said, "Freeeee bunies." My children were young and went into an immediate sit-down strike in front of the "freeeee bunies." I argued that they would never survive the winter. My argument fell on deaf ears. Guess what? They did survive the winter. How? By growing fur as they needed it.
Our capacity for joy is the same. We grow the fur as we need it, depending on how cold it actually gets. Christ stays close to suffering. There is no growth or blockage, blood or gore, that Christ cannot penetrate and use for strength within us. Nothing can separate us from the Love of God. Even more powerfully true is this fact: God gives us what we need as we need it. God does not need to use suffering to show us joy, but God can. God 12- Suffering 11 is the end score of every important life game. But why wait for suffering when we can wave with joy right now? God's presence gives us what we need when we need it.
What do we need? Just joy. Just love. That's all. That's all.
Jesus promised joy when he said, "I have come that your joy might be increased ..." (John 15:11 and 10:10). He came by way of the cross which leads to joy and not just happiness.
Happiness is a checkbook that has money, a car that works, a good date for Saturday night. Happiness is the absence of major hassles or terrorism or crime; happiness is children getting good report cards and one's spouse getting a raise. Happiness is something we know as enhancement or protection of our own lives.
Joy comes in the connection with an other or with Jesus. Joy comes as presence with God or as simply the presence of God. Joy can happen without money or a working car. Joy happens when we get to the core of life and realize that love is at the core. Joy befriends us; love accompanies us.
I know a woman who has four children. Three have AIDS. She does too. Her only hope is to outlive her three dying children so that she can comfort them as they leave this earth. She calls these dying children "morning glories." The name seems to be catching on for children who have AIDS. Their life is brief but beautiful. This woman knows almost no happiness, but God is never far away from her. She knows the joy of the presence of God. Her fourth son, she says, will have to be taken care of by the future. I asked her where she got her faith, and she said that she had no idea but that without it she'd already be dead. With it, at least she can enjoy what she calls the morning's glory.
She loves these children -- for whatever moment they have. Jesus loves us that way: joyously, for now, fully in the present.
Love can be there even if a future or a good report card is not. Joy can be there in spite of terrible grief or loss or hassles. Neither love nor Jesus is destroyed in terrorism. Ask the people of Oklahoma City or any of the parents who lost a child: they know that weeping endures for the night but joy comes in the morning.
A completed joy comes in spite of the terrible losses. An old woman once confessed to me that she worried about people who had never suffered until late in life: "They don't know about tomorrow and how we get over things." Joy comes when we are healed by the power and presence of God which is even more present in acute suffering. The score is always God 10-Suffering 9 or God 11-Suffering 10. Suffering can be horrible, but God is always more powerful than any suffering.
Jesus did not live and die to make us happy so much as to yield us joy. Joy is inclusive; happiness is often exclusive. Joy comes to people who lose legs or children or jobs. Happiness comes to the competent and the fortunate: joy has its arms around everybody.
Consider this parable about poor people. It could also be titled "The Strange Way the Cookie Crumbles." A rich woman found herself with some time to spare at London's Heathrow Airport. She bought a cup of coffee and a small bag of cookies. She staggered, laden with luggage, to an unoccupied table. She was reading the morning paper when she became aware that a very shabbily dressed man was seated at her table, eating a cookie. She did not want to make a scene so she leaned across and took a cookie herself. A minute or so passed. More rustling. He was helping himself to another cookie! The back and forth continued until they were down to the last cookie in the package. She was very angry but still could not bring herself to say anything. Then the young man broke the remaining cookie in two, pushed half across to her, ate the other half and left.
Some time later, when the public address system called for her to present her ticket, she was still fuming. Imagine her embarrassment when she opened her handbag and was confronted by her package of cookies! She had been eating his.
He was rich enough to share. She was not. He knew about joy. She only knew about cookies.
If joy is not something you know intimately, perhaps God will send you some suffering or some poverty. Even better -- because who could wish for suffering for anyone -- you might consider behaving as a wave of joy. You might spread the joy you do know. Joy does not only come to those who suffer; it also comes to those who get acquainted with who God really is.
Consider the wave. Not an Atlantic Ocean wave but the sporting event wave. Who starts it? How do 14,000 people get going all together in something like a rhythm? Somebody must start it. So why not you or me? The person who starts it is who starts it. When it starts, people get receptive to taking instruction. People cooperate. We experience what the computer types call a positive feedback loop. Everything is amplified. We don't have any special power but we experience joy anyway. Waves really show you the difference between power and effect. In lots of situations, we don't really have any power. But we can have a big effect if the situation is set up right.
A small amount of power can have a large effect Somebody starts every wave. Every joy and every love starts somewhere. It doesn't just happen. Somebody starts every wave.
Next time you are at a dinner party and everyone starts making themselves feel good by putting down the people who aren't there, watch what happens if you stop that wave and offer a replacement. Or watch the next fight you have with your spouse or children or neighbor. The same principle applies. Harness the positive power in the situation and you may diffuse the negative. You might even have a big effect. You might even find the effect of your action magnified. You might even start to have a good time!
You probably don't think you have what it takes to start waves of joy. But you do. Rabbits prove it.
We found the rabbits on a street in Vermont. The sign said, "Freeeee bunies." My children were young and went into an immediate sit-down strike in front of the "freeeee bunies." I argued that they would never survive the winter. My argument fell on deaf ears. Guess what? They did survive the winter. How? By growing fur as they needed it.
Our capacity for joy is the same. We grow the fur as we need it, depending on how cold it actually gets. Christ stays close to suffering. There is no growth or blockage, blood or gore, that Christ cannot penetrate and use for strength within us. Nothing can separate us from the Love of God. Even more powerfully true is this fact: God gives us what we need as we need it. God does not need to use suffering to show us joy, but God can. God 12- Suffering 11 is the end score of every important life game. But why wait for suffering when we can wave with joy right now? God's presence gives us what we need when we need it.
What do we need? Just joy. Just love. That's all. That's all.
