Sermon 50 - The Advent Candle of Joy
Matthew 2:9,10
After they had heard the king, they went on their way, and the star they had seen when it rose went ahead of them until it stopped over the place where the child was. When they saw the star, they were overjoyed.
I am at a serious disadvantage when talking about joy. After all, I am a depressive. That does kind of work against the topic. I have a great deal of difficulty when mental health counselors, and the like, ask what brings you joy. There are some things that do bring me joy, but they are not necessarily within my control. For example, one thing I could think of that would bring me joy is Gloria, but Gloria is dead. There is nothing I can do about that.
Another thing that could bring me joy is teaching. I love to teach. And I have a wide variety of subjects I can teach on. But, try as I might, for the last couple of years I haven't been able to develop any opportunities for teaching. The local school district doesn't seem to be too active beyond the confines of the immediate needs of the provincial curriculum. The local campus of the regional college doesn't seem to be too active either, and has a very limited set of programs in any case. Between the school district and the college, absolutely nobody is doing any computer or technical training in town. I have tried quite a number of other possibilities, including presenting workshops and seminars through local churches as a form of outreach to the community, to invite people to a workshop when they might not show up to a church service. Unfortunately, the local churches don't see outreach in quite the same light. They are fine about reaching out to people in Guatemala, but people here in town, not quite so much.
So, about the only thing left that might bring me joy is Timbits, and that is contraindicated by my diabetes.
This is not to say that I wander around as some kind of grump. Gloria taught me that, like so many other things. No, just because you are not enjoying things, doesn't mean you have to go around this snarl on your face. Gloria was a soloist, and knew from a very early age that she was going to be spending her life on church platforms. She took this responsibility seriously, and trained herself to have a resting face that was, at least, pleasant. She was so good at this that, when she was walking down the street, people would often smile at her, thinking that they were smiling back at her because she was smiling at them. Very often she would not even have known, until they smiled at her, of their existence. So, I learned this lesson from her. Not quite as well as she did, but I have trained myself to have a resting space that is at least minimally pleasant.
But of course, just because I have a smile on my face, doesn't mean that I'm happy. Shakespeare said that a man may smile and smile and be a villain. It's also true that a man may smile and smile and be a depressive.
Now this does not mean that I have never experienced joy in my life. Every time I think about the topic I can recall one shining moment. There wasn't anything particularly special about it. I was working at a job that I didn't particularly enjoy, for minimum wage. It was a job where I was primarily alone, and taking care of an area that contained a large, and weed strewn, gravel lot. It wasn't particularly pretty, and it wasn't particularly interesting. But one day, a fairly ordinary day, as I was walking across said weed strewn gravel lot, I was just struck with joy. I just really felt good in that particular moment. For no particular reason.
A lot of people, when talking about joy, say that joy should be shared. Generally speaking, I would hardly agree that chasing after joy is a futile endeavor. And, yes, I would say that, in most cases, sharing your joy helps to expand it, and also means that it brings joy to others.
But I would I would note a caveat about that in most cases.
I have two counter-examples. The first is yet another moment that I can remember, when I experienced joy. I was teaching a course, to do with technology, and part of the course was to teach students programming, and, specifically, to teach students how to program in the JavaScript scripting language. JavaScript would not be my first choice. It contains a number of really bad elements, which experience programmers know should not be taught to beginning programming students. But this was the language I was to teach, and so I tried to do my best. At one point I had given the students an assignment to create functions, really for the same purpose, but, in one case, using iteration (simply the cyclical repeating of a function), and in the other case recursion. It is hard to explain recursion to a non-technical audience. Recursion would appear, to the outsider, simply to be another case of using a cyclical function. However, there is a nuanced, but important, difference. The recursive function starts its own separate, but identical, function, using as its input the output of the calling function. It's okay if you don't understand that: we'll just put it down to the fact that you are not a programmer, and we'll go on.
It is difficult, even for an experienced programmer, to avoid the trap of falling back on iteration and just thinking that you are doing recursion. So I worked hard at creating a sample, which I could use with the students once their own assignments had been marked. And I managed to do it. And I managed to do it properly. And I was, once again, struck, briefly, by joy. And having achieved my purpose, I ran downstairs, to try and share my joy with Gloria. And Gloria didn't understand. I never should have expected Gloria to understand in the first place. As I say, it is a complicated and nuanced distinction. And Gloria didn't understand why I was so chuffed about it. And that was kind of a buzzkill. So, sometimes, you just *can't* share the joy.
But sharing the joy is sometimes pretty cruel. Not always, and not necessarily even in most cases. There are a number of people that I know, who are bubbly, happy people. And I, as a depressive, really do enjoy being around them. Joy and happiness pretty much always helps, even when you are depressed. But some people are toxically positive. These are the type of people who *insist* that when I am depressed I could just *choose* to have a great day! Some say that it's a choice. That every day you should just choose joy. But simply choosing Joy does not mean that joy will choose you.
I suppose that there is a difference here. On the one hand, someone is insisting that I am wrong, and not only wrong but *deliberately* wrong, because I won't *choose* to have a good day, when they figure that everybody could just *choose* to have a good day. The other people are just happy, enjoy it, and that happiness, while it will sometimes clash with my darkest moods, is, in pretty much no case, harmful to me, as long as you just aren't insisting that I could be a part of it regardless of my situation. Yes, in some of my darkest and bleakest moods, anybody else's happiness is somewhat painful. But it's the *insistence* that I could just choose to be happy, that God *always* and invariably binds up the broken hearted, that God *always* and invariably comforts the afflicted: that insistence without regard to my situation or mood is toxic positivity. That isn't actually joy. That isn't actually even happiness. That toxic positivity seems to be based more on some extraordinarily deep-seated *fear* that your happiness is so tenuously balanced, and so weak, that not sharing it might damage it in some way, and might even destroy it. There is a vast difference between joy and toxic positivity. Those who are truly joyous and truly happy need not fear that they are harming me by being happy around me. Those who are afraid of my depression are the ones whose joy isn't really joy.
(I have, recently, been trying to come up with a greeting for the new year which is less toxically positive than the normal *command* that you should have a "Happy New Year!" So far the best that I've been able to come up with is that, "I hope, but have, as yet, no evidence that would support any expectation, that this year, for you, is less disastrous than last.")
Now, a lot of people, when talking about joy, note that joy eludes you when you chase after it, and escapes you when you grasp for it. Some note that joy shrinks when held tight. Yes, in the two examples that I gave above, there is no point in trying to hold on to that joy. The joy came unexpectedly, and stays fleetingly. There is no point to trying to hold that state of mind. Joy comes when it will, and leaves when it will. Those who make lists of ten rules to achieving joy are foolish. Trying to chase after joy is equally unproductive. We cannot create joy. There may be certain things we can do to make it more likely that joy will come to us; to attract it like a hummingbird or a butterfly, but joy is always faster than you are, and chasing it will never allow you to catch it.
Some will say that music, or art, or some other beautiful thing will bring you joy. Sometimes it will. But art is not, or at least not always, about joy. Sometimes art is to teach us, and sometimes the lessons are not pleasant, let alone joyful. Some say that nature will bring you joy. Nature is full of many things that are beautiful, and, yes, nature is possibly one of the places that will attract joy. But marching forcefully into nature, determined to track down joy is likely to fail, in the same way that marching into a forest in search of a butterfly is unlikely to be successful.
Some say that focusing on the good, kind of following Philippians 4:8, will bring you joy. Once again, I would say that focusing on the good may make it more probable that joy will come to you, but concentrating on joy, by itself, will not automatically bring you joy. Many of those who would suggest that you concentrate on the good, or that love will bring joy, would undoubtedly recommend that you choose joy. But simply choosing joy does not mean that joy will choose you. Indeed, very often those who insist on seeing only the good; never allowing any negative images, or thoughts, for consideration or to be a part of your thinking; well that is toxic positivity. That is pretty much guaranteed to bring pain to a lot of people that you push it upon. Not joy.
Some will say that comparison is the death of joy. In fact, Mark Twain said that. And yes, comparing what you have, to what others have, is likely to make you either vain, or jealous. Neither is conducive to joy.
Love is said to fuel joy. Again, as with the practice of concentrating on the good, I would say that love creates an atmosphere attractive to joy. But, once again, you cannot force joy. I love doing volunteer work. I love to help people. I particularly love it when something that I have studied can be used to help others and protect them from the worst that may befall them. But, today, while I was on my way to a shift with one volunteer group, I got a call from another volunteer group, telling me that my services are no longer required. I love that second volunteer group. I love the people I worked with, and I love the people that I helped, when doing it. But, apparently, somewhere along the way, I upset someone. And now I am dismissed. This does not bring me joy. No matter how much I love the work, the concept, my fellow volunteers, and the people that I help, joy did not come. I do not know why. But this happens. Love is no guarantee of obtaining joy.
Many say to spread joy. Well, as in one of the examples above, I tried. It didn't work. Sometimes you can share the joy, but often you can't. And, as noted elsewhere, trying to force your joy on someone else, well, again, that is toxic positivity. It will not bring others joy, and it is unlikely to increase your own joy. Not unless you are exceptionally delusional.
Some say that joy increases our inner strength. That joy *is* strength. Yes, joy does give us strength. But simply noting this does not increase our access to joy.
Others say that gratitude is the root of joy. It is interesting, David Steindl-Rast said that the root of joy is gratefulness: it is not joy that makes us grateful, it is gratitude that makes us joyful. Concentrating on gratitude, like concentrating on the good, or prioritizing love, probably makes us more ready to accept joy when it arrives, and to realize it when it arrives. But, once again, simply reciting three things you are grateful for does not automatically bring you joy. There are always things to be grateful for, if only that your life is not worse than it is. Gratitude does not automatically create joy.
I wish you joy. I really do. Joy is a gift, and it is a gift from God. But joy is a *gift*. A gift is given. It is not pursued. It is not obtained, or worked for, or given as part of some transaction. Joy is a gift, and I hope God gives it to you.
If God does not give you the gift of joy ... well, let's just say that I hope he gives it to you. If you do not have joy, yes, being grateful for what you have, thinking about whatever is pure and good, and loving others as much as you can, these are all good things. But do not expect joy to come to you in return for this.
Look to nature, music, art, and beauty. Concentrating on the good is always good. Concentrating on the good, and the beautiful, will help you to weather minor trials and tribulations. But do not expect that just concentrating on, and emphasizing, beauty will bring you joy. Think on these things, yes, but mitigate your expectations. If joy comes, if joy is given to you, that is good. But merely concentrating on music or nature is unlikely to bring you true joy.
Choose always to be open to joy. But do not expect the mere openness to bring you joy. Joy is a gift. Gifts must be given. Do not expect to will to have joy, and then to obtain it. Willing it, and having it appear for you, is not a gift. It is magic. And, many times, the Bible warns us to beware of magic, and not to pursue it.
If, when you are given joy, you can spread it, then it is even better. But do not expect to be able, purely because you are joyful, to spread joy. If you can bring joy to others, then you are truly blessed, but expecting to be given the gift of spreading joy is as unlikely as being able to grab joy, or chase joy, or trap joy, by your own efforts.
I hope God gives you joy. But remember, joy is a *gift*. It is given. It is not the result of any kind of process or transaction.
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