4/8/18 “The Next to the Last Frontier of Religion: Delight” by Nancy Petty
Selections from Psalm 37 & Psalm 30:5
The sermon I will preach today is not the sermon I had planned on preaching. The scripture text in the worship guide was my original text as well as the sermon title. But my original text and sermon didn’t seem to fit the context for today. And so, that sermon will wait. You will hear it soon. But for today, the sermon I will preach I have titled: The Next to the Last Frontier of Religion. Doesn’t it make you wonder what The Last Frontier for Religion is?
Today, I want to talk about Delight: The Next to the Last Frontier of Religion.
The second week of Lent, a member slid this poem under my door. It is titled A Brief for The Defense written by Jack Gilbert. The poem begins:
Sorrow everywhere. Slaughter everywhere. If babies
are not starving someplace, they are starving
somewhere else. With flies in their nostrils.
But we enjoy our lives because that’s what God wants.
Otherwise the mornings before summer dawn would not
be made so fine. The Bengal tiger would not
be fashioned so miraculously well. The poor women
at the fountain are laughing together between
the suffering they have known and the awfulness
in their future, smiling and laughing while somebody
in the village is very sick. There is laughter
every day in the terrible streets of Calcutta,
and the women laugh in the cages of Bombay.
If we deny our happiness, resist our satisfaction,
we lessen the importance of their deprivation.
We must risk delight. We can do without pleasure,
but not delight. Not enjoyment. We must have
the stubbornness to accept our gladness in the ruthless
furnace of this world. To make injustice the only
measure of our attention is to praise the Devil.
If the locomotive of the Lord runs us down,
we should give thanks that the end had magnitude.
We must admit there will be music despite everything.
We stand at the prow again of a small ship
anchored late at night in the tiny port
looking over to the sleeping island: the waterfront
is three shuttered cafés and one naked light burning.
To hear the faint sound of oars in the silence as a rowboat comes slowly out and then goes back is truly worth all the years of sorrow that are to come.
This poem has haunted me for the past six weeks, especially those lines: We must risk delight. / We can do without pleasure, but not delight. / Not enjoyment. / We must have the stubbornness to accept our gladness in the ruthless furnace of this world.
The Psalmist writes, “Delight yourselves in the Lord, and the Lord will give you the desires of your heart.” What does it mean to experience delight and to have the desires of your heart? Furthermore, how do we risk delight? How do we risk delight in a world where sorrow is everywhere?
A couple of years ago, Oprah appeared on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, and they exchanged favorite Bible verses. Oprah chose Psalm 37:4 as her favorite: “Delight in the Lord, and the Lord will give you the desires of your heart.” This prompted a number of listeners to ask about this text, especially as it relates to us having the desires of our hearts? John Piper, founder and teacher of desiringGod.org and chancellor of Bethlehem College & Seminary responded. Reverend Piper discussed four differences in his understanding of Psalm 37:4 and how Oprah discusses this favorite verse of hers. As he goes through his four differences, interestingly enough, I find myself more closely relating to Oprah—the non-trained theologian—and her understanding of delight and desires than that of Reverend Piper. For instance, Reverend Piper notes, and rightly so, that when the Hebrew Bible references “the LORD” in all caps that means it is a reference to the particular personal name of the God of Israel, not a generic name of God. Oprah, on the other hand, says “Lord has a wide range: compassion, love, forgiveness, kindness. So you delight yourself in those virtues where the character of the Lord is revealed.” I like the way Oprah thinks. And while Reverend Piper is right as a biblical scholar, it seems to me that Oprah’s understanding has more relevance for us today. We are to delight in compassion, love, forgiveness, and kindness.
But there was one point in Reverend Piper’s response that stood out to me. He makes the point that he thinks that delighting yourself in the Lord is another way of saying, “Love the Lord your God with all you heart, mind, soul, and strength; and your neighbor as yourself.”
And that brought me back to the poem by Jack Gilbert. How do we risk delight in loving God with all we are and loving our neighbors in the same way in this world that is filled with sorrow and slaughter and injustice? Have we made injustice the only measure of our attention. Yes, there is “sorrow everywhere. Slaughter everywhere. If babies are not starving someplace, they are starving somewhere else.” This is all true and heavy and burdensome. And we are called, without question, to fight the injustices that lead to deep sorrow and pain. And yet, is there not also a place for us to risk delight? Must we have the “stubbornness to accept our gladness in the ruthless furnace of this world.” This delight, this gladness—it is uncomfortable but it too is necessary. It feels wrong, but it, too, present. Maybe you ask as I do, “How can we be glad when it seems our world is hell bent on destroying itself.” And yet, the poet as does our scriptures reminds us, “We must risk delight, even in this ruthless furnace that we are living in.”
Our faith tells us that we cannot give in to despair when delight is God’s way. We cannot give in to hate when love is God’s delight. We cannot give in to greed when generosity is God’s delight. We cannot give in to callousness when compassion is God’s delight. We cannot give in to apathy when concern is God’s delight. And we cannot give in to exclusion when inclusion is God’s delight.
It seems to me in many ways that religion, especially Christianity, has lost its sense of delight and its courage to risk delight. Religion and faith for so many has become a burden, it has become more of a source of controversy than delight, more focused on exclusionary rules than delight, more bent toward fighting than delighting. And yet, we know from our own experiences that when we delight—in goodness, in kindness, in love, in compassion, in generosity—we receive the true desires of our hearts: that sense of belonging in loving and lasting relationships, belonging in a caring community, and belonging to a meaningful life. Such delight does not erase the sorrow. Actually, it helps us see more clearly the sorrow.
Delight is not about a life of ease without pain and sorrow and hardship. Delight is not about half-truths and easy answers that shield us from our own humanity. No, delight—the desires of our hearts, at least as our faith describes it, is about as Oprah says compassion, love, forgiveness, and kindness.
Khalil Gibran in his book The Prophet writes about joy and sorrow and delight. He writes:
When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.
Some of you say, “Joy is greater than sorrow,” and others say, “Nay, sorrow is the greater.” But I say unto you, they are inseparable.
Together they come, and when one sits alone with you at your board, remember that the other is asleep upon your bed.
There is sorrow everywhere. We are called to look upon the sorrow and to work for justice. But we know that our work for justice will not end sorrow. And we know that our God will not end suffering. And yet. And yet. And yet, we must risk delight. We must be willing to know that while sorrow sits with us at our board, delight is asleep on the bed, and it is our job to awaken delight, just as surely as it is our job to fight for justice! In these days of deep sorrow, it is our job, as followers of Christ, to hold the line on that next to the last frontier – we must be willing to risk feeling and doing and being the delight in this world. For we can do without pleasure, but not delight—not compassion, love, forgiveness, and kindness.
