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New Testament sélected, I John 1:4 tevbsn
September 5, 1971

John M. Buchanan ~ Wee eT

"Clap your hands, stamp your foot! Let your bodies and your voices
explode with joy. God is not some human concoction, He is for real! find
he is here! Despite all attempts 1d ‘eatienadile him out of existenco, He
is in our world, and he reigns eves our universe.

The rulors of nations often ignore him. Men of learning often pass him
by. Tho masses of his orcatures mutitate their own little gods in his
place and worship the things they can see and feel. There are others who ;
build fortresses about themselves and manifest no need for God.

Our great God will not be ignore’. He will not remove himself from our
world. Let us recognize his presence and fill the air with him praises."
[Paraphrase ~ Psalm 47, "Alive" ]

"So the Lord's people shall come back, set free, and enter Zion with
shouts of triumph, crowned with everlasting joy: joy and gladness shall
overtake them as they come, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away."(Isaiah 51: 1).

(nat the sight of the star thoy were overjoyed." (Matthew 2 0). pie eo
\ "po not be afraid: I have good news for you: there is great joy gs

coming to the whole people.” (Luke 2:10 Ps
"How blest are you when men hato yous. . . On that day be glad and dance ve

for joy." (Luke 6423) z
FF sapien thus to you, so that my joy may be in you, and your | —

joy complete." (John 15:11) | . =
"Thoy hurried away from the tomb in awe and great joy, and ran to tell

the disciples." (Matthew 28:8) | 3 | 7 ;
“Tho kingdom of God is not eating and drinking but justice, peace and

joy, inspired by the Holy Spirit." (Romans 14:17) _ :

"May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace xe nad faith in |
ums until by the power of ka mone Spirit, you overflow with hope." (Romans 14 rv Fl

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“We write this in order that the joy of us all may be complete."
(IJohn 1:4)

Something's happening here. Something's been going in the life of the
people of God for thousands of years: something illusive and strange, somo—
thing secret: something that has life and reality quite apart from oxternal
circumstances. Out of the dim recesses of the past we hear it, tho shouting
of the people of Isracl - "Clap your hands"; the words of the prophct to
an exiled and captive nation, - "The Lord's people shall come back, sot
free, and onter Zion with shouts of triumph, crowned with everlasting joy":
one man speaking to twelve close friends - "Be glad and dance for joy;"a
later chronicler, writing to a persecuted, struggling church - "We write
of all of us may be complete."

\
| There is no way to read the Bible without realizing that one of the

this in order that the joy
major charactcristic of the people on its pages is icy.) Joy is a major
Biblical theme. And in the Bible joy is not occasional, nor isolated from
the daily evonts of life: .it is not a superficial happiness that depends
entirely on something fortunate or lucky occuring. Rather it is part and
parcel of being the people of God, It is not so much a consequence of having
faith in that God, as it is one of the gifts God gives his children. Joy in
the Bible is summarized in the first question and answer in the shorter
Catechism written in the 17th century: "What is the chief end of man? Tho
chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy him forever." Enjoy God? A
strange way of putting it, isn't it? Yet, there it is, all through the
Bible.

— Emerson Fosdick put his finger on the essenco of the idoa when
he wrote: "The New Testament is the most joyful book in the world. It
opens with joy over the birth of Jesus; and it ends with a superb picture
of a multitude which no man could suites, singing Hallelujah Choruses. No
matter where you open it, anid fortunate or discouraging ok ndeiainteitscen, you

“always hear the note of joy.

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Even when a company of friends gather at a farewell supper before their .

leader is crucificd, he says to them, 'These things have I spokon unto you, Sic
that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be made full.! eae

Even when their best friend has gone, the mourners take 'their food
with gladness and singleness of heart, praising God.' If they are flogged
for their faith, the disxiples dened fron the council rejoicing that they
are ‘counted worthy to suffer dishonor for the Namec.'

When an apostle is put in jail overnight he passes the time singing, and
if you listen to him in his Roman prison, you will hear him dictating, ‘Rejoice oi
in the Lord alivegeis again I will say, rejoice.' |

There is cnough tragedy in the New Testamont to make it the saddest
book in the world, but instcad, it is the most joyful." Si a

[_ sna yet, we live in what I observe to be a joyless world, and aoe E aig
would suggest to you is an essentially joyless tio. | We are part of a
cultural situation that fancies itself Christian, and which has, in fact,
evolved from a Christian way of percciving history, mon and institutions.
And yet it is a situation that keeps looking protty grim whenever sniten
sented in picture or print. [ mre catalog of woes increases daily. We're
fouling up the rivers, oceans, air and landscape. We have more norve gas
than we can dispose of decontly and more nuclear weapons than wo need to
incinerate every man, woman and child on the face of the carth several times

wo are keenly aware that people are killing

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each other in northern Ireland, Pakistan, Southcast Asia, and all over Africa

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and South America. At home, we wring our hands over the apparent bankruptcy
of our own structures and institutions: big citics can't be governed, the “ae
educational ostablishment is turning out people for whom there aro no jobs: ef
racial animosity heightens aaily| politicians talk: and from all over our
culture the consensus seems to be that we are going to hell in a hand basket.
"A pretty heavy scene," tho young might coy] ana I think all of us fecl

worn down by the hcavy weight of cultural problems in the face of which we ae

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focl quite powerless.

The fact is there is no joy out there. It's all very grim, and as
individuals we do one of two things about it. We either take ourselves too
seriously and cngage in a monumental amount of hand-wringing, or we say —-
in a sonsc — "Stop the world, I'm here and now getting off." \ Some of us do
the first - for some of us things are so bad wo honestly feel that joy and

humor are irresponsible. The young, I think, are inclined in this direction -
and neod nothing so much as to laugh, occasionally, at themselves and the
absurdity of things in genoral. Some of us go the other routo, having given
up on the world - looking, secking, pursuing joy in external stimali. Happi-
ness, for us, is a task to be accomplished, an item in the budgot.

William Stringfellow tells about traveling to a small town in the mid-
west to be a best man in the wedding of a close friend. I+ was a wealthy
community and he was exposed in a day and a half to seven parties attondcd
by the same people, saying the same things to cach other. But before he left
this festive affair he had learned about - the wife swapping and the suicide
that resultcd: the young executive who was becoming an alcoholic: and the

major drug problem raging among the teen age children of many of those
having such fun at the seven parties. His reflection: "Thore was +oo
little life and joy in this place. Death was indeed, as far as I could
discern, very much at work there despite the security of the people from
the ordinary threats of disease, poverty or overcrowding." Lp. 68 Free in
Obedience |

[imho happens to us? We are born with the uninhibited capacity to

enjoy - as anyone familiar with a year old child well knows. What happens to
that capacity over the years? In a little magazine called "Alive" I found
a piece by a father that I wish I had written. Listen to some excerpts ~
"I suppose it all started when Ethan was born - for an hour we hold him,
and he was warm and close and peaceful . . . I kept thinking that this might,

be the most important hour of his life. What a way to begin, by giving

joy to his paronte. . . The Joy oontinuos. hon Behn oniLes, ovory coll of
his body smiles, including his turned-up toes. og he is unhappy, he is | e
= unhappy, all over. When he is intercsted._in a now object, only he and he

na object oxist. Ho touches it, tastes it, smells it, puts it on things, pi. :
things in it, gives it +o people, takes it from poopie, eiiaen at it fee :
and from noar. ‘he total absorption is bomtiful to wa .
Wells where docs it go? Is it inevitable that the joy of Ethan shalt

never return? Is it posible that somehow we are so wrongheaded in our own
approach to life that we stamp out this beautiful gift of God in our ow es
children? To watch a little child -- wich is a thoroughly worthwhile pasts
time - is to sense nostalgia, and wistfulmess and sadness. Because we wore:
once like that. Somes Cavanauch put it in verse; 3

eee Ss "Little boy, I miss you, with your sudden smile

and your ignorance of pain.

Ps

YOu walked in life and devoured it . « without any Sam het
misty goals to keep you company.

Your heart beat mightily vihou you chased frogs

There was not time for sates -a marshmallow gave it on
a. sharpened stick -
a jacknife in your pocket...
a flower in the woods . ; .

A dog who danced and licked at your fingers
and chewed your jeans. ;

A game of football you didn't expect

A glass of cider, a cricket's cry.

[en did you lose your eyes and ears, when did taste

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(ter docs it go? What happens to it? Is it absolutely necessary that
life be robbed of this essential Joytuincae?\ I think not - I hope not. And
I, for onc, koep turning to the church to be what the world is not, and to
say something that will restore some balance to the “heavy scene" out there,
and to affirm something and celebrate something that will equip me to look
it all in the face and laugh out loud. For the Church of Jesus Christ - if
it is an cxtension of those happy people of God in the Bible - is preciscly
the bearer of grant joy - the affirmer and cclebrator of good news.

But it never quite comes off that way. There is a dangerous disease
gnawing away at the lifo of the church. It was described in m article I
read on "Games Church People Play" as NWIT -— “Now wo're in trouble." It
is played with gleeful dispair by people across Presbyterianism: "Boy, are
we in bad shape: we have a money problem ae Pe! attendance problem: and a
curriculum problem and what it really is - I believe - is a monumental
theological problem.

I don't know what happens to joy, but I have a growing suspicion that
the answer will be found in some simple theology. [one thing is certain; )

religion in this culture - - has never

been an example of human joyfulness.| In fact, the opposite is so much tho
case that authors occasionally chose the word "Presbyterian" as a synonym
for sobriwty and sombernoss and long faced, grim picty.

[ are saddled with a bad image: and of all the institutions of our
culture the church is probably one of the last people expect to be joyful. |
And the reason, as I suggested, is theological. Somewhere in the life of
the early Christian Church, Christians started thinking like Greeks. Some
where the Greek notion that things of the spirit are good and things of the
flesh evil crept into Christian theology. The result-was a theological
stonce which maintained, in essence, that God made a mistake when he gave
us tidians Pleasure was suspect - and sexuality was to be hidden, disguised

and ignored. The truly good man ~ would be one untainted by sexual relation

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relationships. ind it was that subtle shift ~— that move away from the lusty,

life affirming heritage of Judaism, to the antiseptic dualism of the Greek,
that to this day robs Christian faith of its profound joyfulness. We are
still very much caught up in the position that if it is fun, it must be
immoral; and if it feels good, it has to be sinful. When wo worship -— it
looks and sounds for all tho world as if wo are engaged in corporate mourn—
ing. iy feiend, Jim Ollis, campus pastor x“ I.U., anys that if a stranger
from another planet happened upon an average Presbyterian congregation at
worship he would quickly conclude that God is dead. Liturgy ~- the forms and
rituals of worship — that are intended to help us express joy together some-—
how do the reverse, and ond up restraining and inhibiting. Hymns - vohicles
of joy and praise - come out sounding as if the singers are ocither very sad
or simply not interested.

[taste to the words of a woman sitting in a service of worship -

"In church the other Sunday I was intent on a small child who was
turning around smiling at everyone. He wasn't gurgling, spitting, humming
or rummaging through his mothor's handbag. He was just smiling.

Finally, his mother jorked him about and in a stage whisper that could
be heard in a little theatre off Broadway said, "Stop that grinning! You're
in church!' With that, she gave him a belt on his hindside and as the tears
rolled dowm his cheeks added, 'That's better,’ and returned to hor prayers.

Suddenly I was amgry. It occurred to me the entire world is in tears

and if you're not,then you'd better get with it. I wemted to grab this child

with the tcar-stained face close to me and tell him about my God. The happy

God. The God who had to have a sense of humor to have created the likes of
us. I wanted to tell him he is en understanding God. One who understands
little children who pick their noses in church because they aro bored. He
understands the man in the parking lot who reads tho comics while his wife
is attending church. He oven unéerstands my shallow prayers that implore,

"If you can't make mc thin, then make my frionds look fat.' =

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What a fool, I thought. Here was a woman sitting noxt to the only light
left in our civilization . . the only hope, our only miracle. . . our only
promise of infinity. If he couldn't smile in church, where was there loft

to go?" [pe 9 | revan he Os
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| The irony ef-eus.itmeties is that the whole roason weearcmhere: tthe

~ is something called
Good News.. God is. God is alive: God creates: God comes: God came in
Jesus Christ: God kecps coming into our lives. We are free - we are safc.
Nothing in life can defeat us: nothing can ultimately hurt us. The sting
has beon takon out of death: there is no longer reason to be afraid. In
sufforing, sickness, trouble we have a resource, a friend, a helper. In
tragedy and gricf, everlasting arms: in warfare, wisi i te - 2
God who is still sovereign. There is at the heart of our extstenco as-e-
Ghristian—peepic - Good News. that needs to be affirmed, sung, told, lived
and even shouted.

Now, it seems to me that we cither haven't heard the good news yot, or
we've heard it and don't really believe it, or else we have heard it and do
believe it, but wo can't quite let go of ourselves enough to express the
profound joy that is inside ond wants to be released. I think it's the
latter, I think you and I necd to do some deep soul searching and reflecting,
and then consciously, intontionally, try to let out all the joy we keep
Hidden inside. I think we can learn to feel joy, and to give to joy: . to
express joy and share joy.

I think we need to do that. And I think the world needs us to do it.
And I think once we learn: once we move from life denying to life affirm
ing: once we chonge our attitudes about worship and the church and oursleves
we will find that it's a great and good thing to know what joy is.

St. Augustine once said: “A Christian should be an alleluia from head
to foot:" - and Jesus Christ, our Lord - "I have spoken thus to you, s0°

that my joy may be in you, and your joy complete." fmen. \ :