First Parish Unitarian UniversalistTake Joy
A sermon preached by the Reverend Diane Teichert
First Parish Unitarian Universalist - Canton, MA
Easter Sunday 2002
Ask any candidate for the Unitarian Universalist ministry about the most nerve-wracking aspect of their preparations and they won't likely say it was their theological studies. Or the unit of chaplaincy in a hospital or other clinical setting. Or their internship in a UU congregation. They'll likely say it was the required psychological evaluation!
It's one of those things in which you're told what you already know, but don't wish to remember. Like, in my case, that you're "somewhat reserved" or that you "tend toward the serious" or that you are "self-contained."
Now, the latter description was probably intended as just that, merely a descriptive phrase the psychologist found in her handy lexicon of ways to describe people non-pejoratively. But, reading that phrase in my psychological evaluation raised the hairs on the back of my neck. "No, I'm NOT!"
You see, when I was growing up and for years after, one of our Christmas traditions was to listen to a recording of Basil Rathbone reading, in his deep sonorous voice, Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol. We kids had it practically memorized. Especially the scary parts, like when Jacob Marley's ghost appears to Scrooge who exclaims, "chains, you're wearing chains" and Marley says, "I wear the chain I forged in life. I made it link by link; I girded it on of my own free will."
I'll spare you the rest of Dickens-this is Easter Sunday, not Christmas Eve!-it's just that Scrooge. who was too cheap to light the fire in his clerk's office and wouldn't even give him a day off on Christmas.Scrooge "that old skin-flint". was described by Dickens as "self-contained.and solitary as an oyster" . and although the psychologist forgot the oyster part, and nobody but somebody who grew up knowing that if you were like Scrooge you were destined to be visited by chain-wearing ghosts in the middle of the night would care, I was horrified!
But, it was the "tends toward the serious" not "self-contained" that relates to our topic this morning.
Years ago, back around the time I was letting this psychological evaluation sink in, especially its implicit message that perhaps I ought to "lighten up" a bit, we, my spouse and kids and I, went to have dinner at the home of another family, close friends. While their kids and ours played together, the adults were conversing and getting the dinner ready, and I noticed here and there-on the frig, on the door molding between the kitchen and dining room, the bathroom mirror, and on the railing at the landing down to the front door- little yellow sticky-notes with the words "take joy" written on them in my friend Jan's handwriting.
I was surprised, and kind of pleased, to realize that I wasn't alone. That a good friend, unbeknownst to me, was also trying to take life, and herself, a little less-seriously. I wanted to ask her if she, too, was trying to "lighten up" but soon it was time to corral the children for dinner and I forgot.
As we were putting on our coats at the end of the evening, I had a chance to ask Jan about the little yellow sticky notes. "What's that about, take joy.?"
"Oh," she said, "that's so I don't forget, before we leave on vacation tomorrow, to take the hamster to the neighbor's downstairs."
Outside some Christian churches this morning, they will be taking joy. I don't know if they still do it, but even the Church of the Covenant in Boston, a liberal Protestant congregation with a clear social justice mission, used to head out onto the sidewalks after their Easter Sunday worship service, singing Hosanna! And Jesus Christ is Risen Today, Alleluia! declaring their faith for all to see as they processed down Newbury Street.
I envy the joy of their celebration. Sometimes we Unitarian Universalists "tend toward the serious" a bit too much!
As Unitarian Universalists, we may or may not observe Easter as a religious holiday. For those of us who do, I suspect few celebrate the resurrection of the body of Jesus as a literal fact, or believe that we are somehow saved from the consequences of wrong-doing, evil or sin (our own or others') by the death of a good man.
Rather, I think, we may understand the stories that support the Easter claim that Jesus has risen as descriptions of one kind of faith experience. The empty tomb, and Jesus walking with the women on the road to Emmaus or talking to the disciples in the upper room or preaching on the mountain in Galilee to go and make disciples of all nations are not thought of, writes liberal Christian theologian Marcus Borg, as "publicly observable events that could in principle have been videotaped." ("Hearing the Easter Stories Again" in the Living Pulpit, January-March 1998, pp.16-17).
But, rather, Borg says, they are stories that illustrate truths about his own individual religious experience, and that of other Christians through the centuries. One such truth is that they experience the man Jesus as a spiritual reality in their lives, just as those followers who loved him when he was alive experienced his presence, in a spiritual sense, after he was dead. This experience gave them joy back then, and it gives Christians today joy. It is that joy that they express on Easter.
That joy, however, does not have much meaning without the death that preceded it, without the crucifixion of Jesus. The death of Jesus wrenched the love and the hope right out of the community of his followers. As they watched him die a brutal and public death-we would call it capital punishment today-they must have been greatly distraught with anguish and grief, fear for their own lives, utter despair and confusion in the face of losing their leader.
So, feeling that they were experiencing him as alive, even though they knew him to be dead, gave the followers of Jesus hope, and they took joy! It enabled them to re-group and continue his teachings, spreading his word that God was love.
We all need to know what gives us joy, and-moreover-we must take it!
Thursday is my worship preparation day, my sermon writing day. As you may recall, the days prior were wet and dreary, but this past Thursday dawned bright and sunny. Nevertheless, I awoke discouraged about personal concerns (admittedly not very major compared to those of other folks) and the world seemed to mirror my mood to an even greater degree. The morning paper showed that nineteen Israelis at a Passover seder had been killed the night before by a Palestinian suicide bomber, and the Arab leaders who in the end attended the summit in Beirut were at major odds with each other. (Things, of course, have gotten worse since then in Israel/Palestine and the Arab leaders in Beirut did come to agreement, one that I think may help, even if it's not what the American President wanted.)
Whether my concerns on Thursday should have gotten me down, they did. The rest of the family had left for the day; there was no one to cajole me out of my discouragement. I had no scheduled pastoral care or committee meetings through which I might engage in the pains and sorrows of others or in working for larger visions for First Parish or the world, and so be lifted out of my own concerns.
The sermon title publicized in the newsletter was "Take Joy." Joy? What's that? The sermon was in trouble, big trouble!
Fortunately, I have learned something-however minimal it seems to me at times-about what draws me away from my serious tendencies and out of my own concerns, and so, for starters, I went off for some exercise. I rarely run into anyone I know at the gym, but on Thursday I saw not just one but two people I know. Serendipity lightened my load. I took joy in it.
Leaving the gym, with blood circulating and perspiration flowing, I felt physically renewed. I took joy.
Back at home, the crocuses were ablaze in the sunlight, brilliant purple and gold in front of the house. I took joy.
Breakfast tasted good and I even found some good news in the newspaper. I took joy.
Then, outside in the fields near our house, our dog Oliver's black and white coat glistened in the sun as he gracefully leapt up for the Frisbee, toss after toss. Overhead, a red-tailed hawk soared in the updrafts, its tail a momentary fiery burst, lit by the sun's rays from the underside, as the hawk tipped to swerve in the air. I took joy!
So may it be for us all on Easter, and on each and every day. Especially when our sorrows are undeniably huge, but even when it's just that our spirits are low, dragged down by the chains we forge for ourselves, may each of us know there is always joy to be had somewhere, somehow.
We must have the presence of mind and heart to recall who or what or how it is that we experience joy, and then take it!
Take joy, brothers and sisters! Take Joy!
Benediction after the children have entered and gathered in the front with their hats:
Look who has arrived to help us take joy in the springtime! Ancient peoples greeted spring and welcomed the new life springing up around them, with singing and dancing processions, wearing clean clothes for the first time after months of winter's grimy layers, and fanciful head-gear! So, too, will we, all those who are able, don these fancy hats, and process out the front door, into the fresh air, proclaiming our joy in life for all to see, through the parking lot and into the Parish Hall for fellowship and refreshments.