Sharing

 Friends, we’re now in the third of four weeks of Advent, and now that we’re past the halfway point, our ancient foremothers and forefathers planned this day to give us a break, and a reward. In the first week of Advent, we generally hear something apocalyptic, about the end of the world and the second coming of Jesus, but nothing about his birth story, or anything even remotely Christmas-y. In the second week, we usually meet an important cousin, John the Baptist, but still, nothing cute, fun, or festive. Plus, those first two Sundays we light those dark purple candles. The first two weeks, historically, have centered on the themes of hope and peace, and have required seriousness, atonement, and discipline from us.

Week three is different. It’s Gaudete Sunday. “Gaudete” is a Latin word that means “rejoice”. Instead of lighting another dark, somber, purple candle, we light the happy pink candle! If pink is your favorite color, this is your Sunday! Today we focus on the spiritual gift of joy. This Sunday also falls close to the winter solstice, and we get to couple Advent being half over with the natural celebration that the longest night of the year is behind us, and lighter, sunnier days are coming. And Jesus is coming! Wear happy pink and be glad!

Now that we’ve crossed the halfway point, we get the reward of a story about one of the most important non-Jesus characters in this whole story: his mother, Mary. We weren’t ready for her yet before. And if we’re going to talk about joy, we really need Mary.

Despite “joy” sounding like such a light word, it’s actually a difficult topic to talk and preach about. It’s counterintuitive, but our brains don’t naturally lift up joy. Our brains want to solve problems, and things that make us feel joyous generally aren’t what we think of as problems. They certainly can be, but our brains want us to zero in on our worries first, even if it means we perseverate over them, accomplish nothing, fix nothing, and get all bummed out because of it. If we’re thinking about our worries, our problems, things that irritate us, we believe we’ll find a solution and feel better faster, and then thrive. So when I’m writing a sermon, the most accessible sentences in my head sound like “given the state of the world…”, “if you’ve read the news lately…”, “some war somewhere…”, “people going hungry…”, “the American healthcare system is totally bonkers…”, or even just the very reliable “ugh, being a mom is hard, [insert mom complaints here]...”. When we pray, our first inclination is to bring up what troubles us, our concerns. Folks who are sick, or facing surgery, loved ones who passed, scary news stories, recent natural disasters, you know how it goes. Luckily, in this church y’all are well-trained, and educated on the value of joy prayers, so we hear a bunch of them in this congregation. But still, we, the Frozen Chosen, don’t totally know how to tell God about our feelings. So we cover them up and limit our prayer language, using phrases like “healing mercies” and “travel mercies” and “God sighting”, rather than “my friend is sick, and I’m sad,” “my dad is traveling, and I’m scared,” and “this very happy thing reminded me of God today.”

If talking to God at all is so inherently challenging, and sharing our uncensored feelings is taboo in this space, then celebrating joy is going to be incredibly difficult. But it’s totally ok that talking about joy doesn’t come naturally to us, and that we struggle with it. It doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with us, or our faith. It just means we need help. And, in a faith community, we learn how to do new and hard things when we share.

That brings us to our sister, Mary, who teaches us that joy is not only accessible, but that joy is a revolution that our whole world needs. She has all kinds of reasons NOT to be joyous. We know Mary was young, but we tend to forget just how young. Despite an abundance of Christmas art that makes Mary look like a 30 year old new mom, the kind of image that jives with what we expect new moms to look like in 21st century America, that imagery isn’t accurate. In Mary’s day, marriages were arranged between parents, in order to make secure alliances and business connections, when the bride and groom in question were still small children. Mary would have been betrothed young, and then formally and legally engaged shortly after puberty. I’ll get into this all more next week–stay tuned!--but Mary being engaged to Joseph is also a much bigger deal than even him visiting Ye Olde Jewelry Store and getting down on one knee with a diamond solitaire. Mary, at this point in the narrative, is legally bound to Joseph, pending nothing but an official marriage ceremony. If he passed, even before the wedding, she’d be considered a widow. If he decided to call it off, she’d be considered a divorcee. 

When Gabriel visits Mary and asks her to mother Jesus, he’s asking for something huge, bold, and life threatening, and he and Mary both knew that. No one is going to believe “oh, the Holy Spirit is the other parent! An angel said so!” Best case scenario, Mary sounds crazy. Worst case scenario, everyone thinks Mary cheated on Joseph. She could be killed for that. She lived in a very harsh world. But she heard Gabriel, thought about the possibilities, and said “ok, let’s go.”

So, if you were a 13-14 ish year old young lady, and an angel just told you you were having a miracle baby…uh…what would you do next? For Mary, this page was left out of the manual. We have it in ours (if the Bible is a manual) because of her. Rather than being passive, and accepting whatever happens, Mary takes the bull by the horns, and goes on a road trip right after Gabriel’s visit. And where does she go? To visit her much older cousin, Elizabeth, who also has a miraculous pregnancy, with John the Baptist. Mary’s first lesson for us: be active, life is what you make of it. Mary’s second lesson for us: when you’re up against something crazy, find an ally, someone who’s up against something crazier. And Mary’s third, and most important lesson for us: if you can find some joy in all the crazy, go tell someone else about it. Share your joy.

Mary may be up against a lot, and it may get dicey for her. But she already loves her baby. And she wants to share the joy of motherhood with her cousin who also wasn’t expecting to be a mom. Mary teaches us that “joy” is different from “happiness”. Happiness is a temporary reaction to my present circumstances. It’s not deep. I’m happy I had waffles for breakfast today. There’s nothing all that special about my breakfast. Joy, on the other hand, is deep. It’s a spiritual discipline. It’s an attitude adjustment. It’s looking at the long term good, and growth, and potential for new light on the horizon even when we’re stuck in the weeds. I’m annoyed that my 6 year old threw a tantrum the other day–annoyed is just a temporary feeling–but I’m joyous nonetheless that he is learning new coping skills and growing every day.

Mary takes this joy thing way further. And she sings a whole song about it: the Magnificat. Her joy is her strength, her power, her not so secret weapon. To prejudiced onlookers, Mary may be a pregnant unwed teen, a poor girl with an unplanned child on the way, under suspicion of adultery, wearing a scarlet letter. And if she were passive, and didn’t center her joy, that could all become true, and seal her fate. But she takes charge of the narrative with her joy.

Her baby isn’t just her son, a miracle, the start of a beautiful family. He’s a revolution. He’ll overthrow the oppressors, the top 1%, and radically redistribute wealth and resources. He’ll feed, house, clothe, heal, naturalize citizens. He’ll shake up the monarchy. He lifts up the poor, the powerless. Her ancestors will be proud of her. And she won’t be called the slew of names you could think of for an unmarried young lady with child. She’ll be called “blessed.” She holds her head high and sings all of this to her cousin. That’s bold, y’all. There’s making lemonade out of lemons, and then there’s writing a whole song because there were two bars on the pregnancy test.

Earlier this year, a creative coach named Glo Atanmo went viral on social media for saying that “micro joys are how we survive macro grief.” We can’t all write a whole musical number and go on tour with it, like Mary. But we can identify small sources of joy even when we’re overwhelmed by the bad around us. Or, for the musically inclined among us, the song-writing Marys: life is a big choral number. Most of the lyrics might be a drone of bills to pay, laundry to wash, assignments at work, health struggles, and tweets from unhinged politicians. But even if all 4 main voice parts are singing those words, micro joy is the soprano descant. It’s the notes that soar over everything else, the notes your ear will be drawn to even if only one person is singing them, because they’re singing the highest. If the choral arrangement today is some annoying song like Baby Shark, let the words of your soprano descant declare “I’m a child of God, I’m beloved, I bring value to my community just by being here, and the world should hear my voice.”

Amen.