“Joy is not made to be a crumb”

Karen Sloan 24/12/2023

Readings - Luke 1:46-55, Modern Magnificant

So we come to the last week in advent, and we light the candle of joy.  We have lit the candle of hope, peace, love and now joy to reflect our faith journey that culminates in the celebrate of the birth of Jesus, a birth that has changed the world or at least ours. For he shows us a different way to be in the world.  And shows us the divine mystery that sits behind it all.

So how to talk about joy.  It reminds me of the poem from Mary Oliver,

“Don’t Hesitate”

If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy,

don’t hesitate. Give in to it. There are plenty

of lives and whole towns destroyed or about

to be. We are not wise, and not very often

kind. And much can never be redeemed.

Still, life has some possibility left. Perhaps this

is its way of fighting back, that sometimes

something happens better than all the riches

or power in the world. It could be anything,

but very likely you notice it in the instant

when love begins. 

Anyway, that’s often the case. 

Anyway, whatever it is, don’t be afraid

of its plenty. Joy is not made to be a crumb.

Joy is not made to be a crumb.

 This week Matt and I have had some beautiful, joyful moments, being able to get together with long-time friends and their new grandchildren, for our annual pre-Christmas bash, seeing all the kids that belong to our church gather at our place for a dinner and pressy exchange which we have been doing for a number of years. The kids are getting older and progressing through school, some almost driving while for others, it’s a new life of work.  Still they came.

We were also blessed with the presence of Josiane, Sandra’s sister, who you met last week. It was a joy sharing time with her, and learning about her experiences in Uganda and the Congo and of her new life in the USA.

But as I was reflecting on this idea of joy, it made me think of our normal everyday lives.  Lives when we live and work, pay bills and get up every morning greeting the day and what that day will hold for us,

Lives that go on even if it’s not Christmas and holidays.  Lives that require us to hold the faith of Christmas, the hope and love and peace of Christmas every day.

Recently I have been speaking to people about their occupations and how they feel about them.  They spoke about choosing jobs that make a difference and also give them joy.  People who do some of the hardest things, looking after children who are troubled, really troubled and society doesn’t know what to do with them, people who teach and write and preach and care for others, at the beginning of life or at the end, and those who build and create things.

These people spoke about the joy of what they do.  Which is more than about money or power or ambition.  It’s like their vocation, a deep place where what they do seems to reflect who they are.  The joy they find is deeper and more sustaining, or as Mary Oliver would say “very likely you notice it in the instant when love begins”. 

Or another way of thinking of it is given by Frederick Buechner, who says, “vocation is found at the intersection between your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger”. According to Buechner, this calling involves taking a look inward and a look outward. And is part of our faith journey.

Buechner is referring to something much deeper. Something that's a part of who you are, who you were created to be. What he describes elsewhere as the "hidden hunger" of your life.

So let’s get a bit more specific.

I have always been a scientist, not a world shattering one, not one that has discovered something crazy and life changing for the world, but one that plods along.  Of course most of you know I am doing a PhD on work I did for RPH on joint replacement, analysing what the outcome of joint replacement looks like over a number of years, and what factors are at play in patients overall result after surgery.

Many people ask, why am I doing it?? Often I ask myself the same question.

Yet when I talked to my friend Rob , also an engineer come scientist he said it better than me, and gave me an example.

He was working with a PhD student, some years ago, and advising him on his data analysis, after helping him collect it!.  It was looking at the strength of vertebral bone up and down the spinal column, pretty interesting actually.  Once they had plotted it, and looked at the results, Rob felt this overwhelming joy!!!.  He explained it this way,

“No human being had ever seen this before, and it’s like discovering a new country, or a new way of being in the world that wasn’t there before. It was an amazing feeling”.  When he said that his eyes lit up and I could tell it was coming from his heart, not his head.  And from a memory that was a much about today than a past event. 

This is what research, and particularly novel research can give those who do it.

In my little area, I take huge amounts of information and turn this data into something that gives an explanatory story that no one knew before.  And that hopefully makes a difference.   And yep it gives me joy! Which again sounds crazy.

So science is full of hard work, grind and labour, sweet labour, but in the end, the discovery aspect is joyous, as is the aspect of completion or solving a puzzle that inevitably adds to our human knowledge.  As Einstein says, “If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants” which really means we stand on the shoulders of those who have gone before, to see further, or even a little bit down the road of our knowledge.

Science gives us a moment of clarity, the world makes more sense, even in a small or large way.  And it can give great joy. Because what we are doing is actively changing things hopefully for the better, even in a small way.

Now, you may wonder where I am going with this.  But maybe we have to rethink what joy is all about.  And what love is all about because they go together. And what God has to do with all, particularly today.

Because what Jesus points us to is a new way of being in the world. What he calls us to is a new country, a new discovery, much like science, where we are more than just our possessions and our money. He points us to a life lived in love, for love and for others.

As we heard from Richard Rohr last week…

“Love is more than a feeling.  Love is a form of sweet labour, fierce, bloody, imperfect and life giving, a choice we make over and over again. If love is sweet labour, love can be taught, modelled and practised. This labour engages all our emotions. Joy is the gift of love, grief is the price of love. Anger protects that which is loved.  And when we think we have reached our limit, wonder is the act that returns us to love…”

Joy is the gift of love.  Whether you are scientist or not, joy is the gift of love. This joy is from the heart not the head.

….

The reading today from Luke is a famous reading, of Mary’s Magnificat. It speaks to us today because it is about calling, a calling from the spirit of God to someone ordinary and everyday.

This is the great liberation song of the New Testament detailing a wider vision which will challenge the lordships of this world.  Mary is expressing her joy about carrying Jesus in her womb.  The hope it brings to the poor and downcast that a new kingdom of love will be born.

But she also knows full well the labour of life. She was a woman of humble circumstances who lived at a time of political turmoil, military oppression and social inequality.  In the Christmas story an angel appears to this woman, who feels inadequate to bear God’s word to the people.  But eventually she bravely relents, submitting to the call of the spirit on her life, and the life of her loved ones. The call of love.

Mary is one of the great prophets of the bible. She’s not really noticed or acknowledged, because she is a woman in a man’s world, a man’s religious world. Seen as meek and mild,  this Mary is a prophet of the poor, the champion of the downtrodden, proclaiming the overthrow of the social, economic and political order of things.  This Mary proclaims the coming of God’s kingdom, soon to be born into the world.   This Mary does not sound so meek and mild, suggesting that God will show his power by filling the hungry with good things and exalting the lowly.

She was a prophet in her own right in the tradition of the great prophets of the Old Testament.  Well before the birth of an infant.

So out of faith Mary sings, and we want to hear more of this person, who surrounded by hardship and injustice, shows incredible strength of character and clarity of vision.  She becomes alive to us in a way that brings out the strength of all women at all times.  Without her the light would not have shone in the darkness.

Out of faith Mary acts. Out of faith Mary sings. Out of joy Mary lives.

Not the joy of temporary possessions, but a deeper seated joy. From the heart.

This Mary found in our religious tradition challenges us like nothing else.  Where do we find joy in our lives, that deep seated joy, that comes from within, regardless of external circumstances? And how can we help foster that in others? And I think, as we have seen, the key is love.

Often in our modern developed world joy is misinterpreted, a lot by the money men, such that many think joy will come from owning more things, like bigger houses or cars or televisions, or being in a powerful position at work or in the community or even having a great social life. Yet we know this type of joy is transient, easily lost as we have seen when disaster strikes or when the novelty of those things wears off, and the need for more overwhelms us.

The real joy we have is through relationships with other people and with the spirit of God who urges us to connect with one another in love. This joy comes from the heart and gives us a fullness of life that has nothing to do with what we own. What we do for others in our life, our ordinary everyday lives, in our work and our leisure, in our day and in our nights is what matters and what gives joy. As Buechner says, listen to your life, for you will sense and feel if the life we are leading is the life that is life giving for others, and well as for us.

“See it for the fathomless mystery it is. In the boredom and pain of it, no less than in the excitement and gladness: touch, taste, smell your way to the holy and hidden heart of it, because in the last analysis all moments are key moments, and life itself is grace” 

We find joy in love, as Richard Rohr says. 

But where does love arise?

As I said last week, I believe it arises from the urging of the divine presence within and between everything that exists, now, in the past and in the future. Which connects and transforms us, if we let it. If we listen to it.

And how do we listen to it….

How do we, as Frederick Buechner says, find that intersection between what makes us glad and what the world needs…

Maybe by being here, by sitting in silence occasionally, by helping others, by sharing and being generous, by choosing jobs that are life giving, if we can, by protecting the earth.

Maybe by meditating, contemplating or maybe by praying a bit, not for a spot in the carpark at Christmas, but to quietly sense the presence of the divine.  And to hear, even dimly, through the cacophony of other sounds, the still small voice within us, calling us to be better than we thought we could be. 

Maybe by listening to the Jesus story, not one that leads to life elsewhere, but the blood and guts story of an infant born to become a leader, prophet, justice seeking compassionate mystic.  Who challenged the rules of the day and produced something new!! A new way of living, who he himself lived it out in word and deed. 

Maybe by listening to those who have gone before, or who teach us now.

Elsewhere, Buechner suggests that the way to discern your deepest gladness, the way to listen to your life, is to follow your feet.

"When you wake up in the morning, called by God to be a self again, if you want to know who you are, watch your feet. Because where your feet take you, that is who you are.” 

Pay attention, Buechner insists. Pay attention to those moments. Because they are telling you something deeply important about yourself. Even more, such moments are whispering something about the kind of work and life which is yours and ours to do.

Remember, it’s a heart thing, not a head thing.  Where is our passion, where is our harmony , where is our purpose. Where is our meaning? Heart stuff! 

 ……

 And so we come back to Mary, as in Mary the mother of Jesus.  She paid attention!

Out of Mary’s vision comes a vision for us, today.  Mary invites us to move beyond the world given to us by the money men and into a new different world.  We in turn are to act in and for this new age, with the hope that the new reality that Christ brings will someday come to pass. A reality based and embedded in love.

Because through the love of others, through caring for others, we can live a full joyful life, with God, the spirit of life, within and between it all. When we strive for things that are life giving and transforming, we find we are in harmony with God’s purpose and the purpose of the universe.   It sometimes seems we are swimming in God’s stream, even if we know nothing about God.  Suddenly we become awake and alive to new possibilities, in all of life.  That’s our aim, our purpose.  And then we may even say we are followers of Jesus the Christ, whose birth we come to celebrate tomorrow.

It’s as simple and as difficult as that!

Amen