Adult Spiritual Formation

 
 
In the Sanctuary: Sermons from Sunday Mornings

If  you can't make it in for Holy Eucharist, you can read Father Christopher's Sunday sermons right here, or scroll down to download the PDF version.

St. Mark’s Episcopal Church

Albuquerque, New Mexico

Sunday May 13, 2012  Mother’s Day

Preacher: Christopher McLaren

Text: John 15: 11- 17 Abide in Joy

When I was a child I can remember hearing my dad singing in the shower. It was a small house so I knew his entire shower repertoire.  My father had grown up in a very different part of the Christian church and so he knew a lot of music, more colloquial and chorus like. One of his favorite shower tunes went something like this:

               The Joy of the Lord is my strength

The second verse had obvious connections for singing in shower.

               He gives me living water and I thirst no more

The final verse of it always made me smile as it was simply this:

               Ha, ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha

Laughter of course is infectious, and I would often find myself joining in on the final chorus. It wasn’t high music by any means, but it was joyful. And while there are many ways to wake-up in the morning, hearing your father singing and laughing in the shower is not a bad one as wake-up calls go.

The 15^th chapter of John is deeply loved because I believe it speaks of things that all of us deeply long for in our lives, a close nurturing connection with God.  Abiding is an image of the sustaining attachment to the source of life and love and healing that each of us longs for. But, the world is full of axe work and wreckage. The sheer quantity of wreckage around us is appalling: wrecked bodies, wrecked marriages, wrecked dreams, wreaked careers, wrecked families, wrecked friendships, wrecked portfolios, wrecked loved ones.  We are all surrounded by wreckage everyday whether we like it or not. We’d love to avoid it. We try not to dwell on it. We try to put the best face on things or build up defenses against the carnage, but it is not all that easy. We do what we can to keep our hopes alive, waking up in the morning hoping for health and justice, for love and success, for relationships that truly satisfy. 

And of course that is what the 15^th chapter of John is speaking about. It is telling us that in the midst of all the wreckage of our lives, there is an astounding word that we are summoned to not only listen to but to take into our hearts and lives and truly believe. “You did not choose me, but I chose you.” We are desired by God. God has chosen us, has been pursuing us, wants to nurture that intimate connection that each of us has secretly and perhaps not so secretly been longing for in our lives.

The truth of the gospel is that it was not we who chose God, but God who, in his grace, came to us and made an offer of relationship out of his love.  For what are we chosen? John makes it clear that we are chosen for joy. “I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete (John 15:11).” I wonder if that is the word we would have expected? He could have said something else I suppose, “I have said these things to you so that my ‘obedience’ may be in you, or ‘my mercy,’ or ‘my goodness.’ ” And perhaps all of these things are implied but Jesus uses “joy.” Joy is the experience that Jesus points to as the ultimate goal or reason of all that he came in God’s name and with God’s power to give.  The point of abiding in the vine, the purpose of staying connected, the fruit of being in communion with God is joy.

I would venture to say that every one of us in this room have been touched by the experience of joy in our lives. It shouldn’t be hard for us to bring to mind moments of intense joy that have invaded our existence unbidden.  When Jesus mentions joy, it really shouldn’t be a chore to remember the joyous moments of our lives.  I hope I’m wrong here, but I wonder if joy is really what we associate the Christian life with? We’ve all experienced joy in our lives, but ironically we may not be accustomed to associating them with our faith or religion. Think about it: do we tend to think that joy is not really the purview of religion or that it is actually the opposite of it? Do we think that religion is sitting stiff and uptight and a little bored and that joy is laugher and freedom and reaching out our arms to embrace the whole wonderful earth, which at times can overwhelm us with its beauty and nearly break our hearts? We need to be reminded that at its heart Christianity is joy and that laughter and freedom and reaching out arms in love are really the essence of it. And that whenever we are getting too severe or overly righteous, or dogmatic about things, we need to be reminded that we are called into joy by Christ, and that we are called to have enough Christianity to make us truly joyful and not only enough to make us miserable.

In the Christian tradition joy is not the same as happiness. Happiness is something that we work at making ourselves – a happy marriage, a happy relationship, a happy home, or a happy place of employment. Every human being desires these things and rightly works at them, and sometimes when we are careful, patient, wise and lucky we can actually create them.  Happiness is one of the most sought after human achievements and when we manage to achieve even a little in our lives, we congratulate ourselves and I suppose we ought to.  But joy is rather different, it seems, as we rarely take credit for our moments of joy because we know that they are not man-made and that we are never really in control of them. Moments of joy come unbidden. They come when they come.

They are always sudden and quick and unrepeatable; the unspeakable joy sometimes of just being alive; the miracle sometimes of being just who we are with the blue sky and the green grass, the faces of our friends and the waves of the ocean, being just what they are. The joy of release, of being suddenly well when before we were sick, of being forgiven when before we were ashamed and afraid, of finding ourselves loved when we were lost and alone. The joy of love, which is the joy of the flesh as well as the spirit. (Fredrick Buechner)  

I imagine that each of us can offer our own moments of joy to the praise of God if we just give ourselves a moment to recollect them. I can remember not that long ago just sitting in my car at a traffic light waiting for the signal the change and suddenly without warning being overwhelmed with the beauty of life and the wonder of being alive and found myself crying joyfully. Fredrick Buechner, one of my favorite pastors and writers, reminds us that

Joy is always all-encompassing; there is nothing of us left over to hate with or to be afraid with, to feel guilty with or to be selfish about.  Joy is where the whole being is pointed in one direction, and it is something that by its very nature a person never hoards but always wants to share… And that joy is a mystery because it can happen anywhere, anytime, even under the most unpromising circumstances, even in the midst of suffering, with tears in its eyes. Even nailed to a tree. (Buechner)

There are many stories of course of how Jewish prisoners in the concentration camps of Nazi Germany met together to talk about moments of joy they had experienced each day in the midst of the hell they were living in. It was this practice of recalling fleeting moments of joy that kept them human, kept them hopeful, kept them from giving up in the face of terrible hatred and inhumanity.

Something similar to this practice is found in the Ignatian Spiritual Exercise of the Examen.  The Examen is a prayerful reflection on the events of the day in order to detect God’s presence and discern his direction for us. The Examen is an ancient practice in our tradition that can help us see God’s hand at work in our whole experience. Part of the practice is to simply gather oneself at the end of the day and recite aloud the thing that you are truly thankful to God for, to remember and savor the brief moments of joy that came into your life that day unbidden and wild. For wherever joy is found God is near.

The point is that we are made for joy. And you or anyone who is truly joyous has the privilege to say the he or she is doing God’s will on this earth. Where you have known joy, you have known God for we have been called into joy by the crucified and risen one. No matter how difficult the Christian way is, it is both in the travelling and in the end, the way of joy. There is always joy in following the Risen One, there is always joy in doing the right thing, there is always joy in choosing to love, there is always joy in remembering that we belong to Christ, not as slaves but as friends.  There is always joy in heaven over one who was lost and who now is found.

So despite the wreckage that surrounds our lives and that we must walk through almost daily there is still joy; joy that is able to steal into our lives without warning and for which we cannot be responsible.

In the midst of all of our questions about what life is really supposed to mean, all of our anxieties and shortcomings, all of our incessant worries, all of our ponderous questions about God, the God who made us and holds us in life, holds up before us the figure of a man whose face was marred beyond human semblance but who still speaks these beautiful words, “These things I have said to you, have done for you, have died for you, have loved you to the end, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be made complete.”

Ha, ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha…

Sermon 4-29-12: The Good Shepherd, click here.

Sermon 4-22-12: Fishin' In Heaven, click here.

Father Christopher's Sermon for April 15, 2012, was delivered extemporaneously, so there is no text for this week.

Sermon 4-8-12: Spices at the Tomb, click here.

Sermon 4-5-12: The Rev. Patty Soukup's Maundy Thursday Sermon, click here.

Sermon 4-1-12: April Fool's, click here.

March 2012

Sermon 3-25-12: Guest Preacher, The Rev. Christopher Johnson

Sermon 3-18-12: Preacher, The Rev. Patty Soukup, click here.

Sermon 3-11-12: Guest Preacher, The Rev. Pat Green, click here.

Sermon 3-4-12: The Bright Side of the Cross, click here.

February 2012

Sermon 2-26-12: Wilderness Exam, click here.

Sermon 2-19-12: Transfiguration, click here.

Sermon 2-12-12: Healing the Leper, click here.

Sermon 2-5-12: Finding the Divine Center, click here. 

January 2012

Sermon 1-29-12: St. Mark's On-The-Move, click here.

Sermon 1-22-12: Follow Me, click here.

Sermon 1-15-12: Samuel, click here.

Sermon 1-8-12: The Baptism of Our Lord, click here.

Sermon 1-1-12: Our Naming Day, click here.

December 2011

Sermon 12-25-11: God Gets Small, click here.

No sermon on 12-18-11, Lessons & Carols Order of Worship, click here.

Sermon 12-11-11: Meditation on Mary, click here.

Sermon 12-4-11: Making Room for the New, click here.

November 2011

Sermon 11-27-11: God the Interventionist, click here.

Sermon 11.20.11: God the Sorter or God the Collector? Click here.

Sermon 11.13.11: The Parable of the Talents, click here.

Sermon 11.6.11: All Saints' Sunday, for the PDF version, click here.

October 2011

Sermon 10.30.11: Servanthood That Begins From Within, click here.

Sermon 10.23.11: The Two Great Commandments, click here.

Sermon 10.16.11: A Conversation That Matters, click here. 

Sermon 10.9.11: The Invitation, click here. 

Sermon 10.2.11: Five Core Practices for a Fruitful Church, click here.

Sermon 10.25.11: Outsiders Become Insiders, click here. 

September 2011

Sermon, 9.18.11: Welcome New Rector, click here.