12/12/21 “Sanctified Joy” by Nancy E Petty
Isaiah 12:2-6
“With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation.”
The man slipped and fell into the swift current of the surging river. Another moment and he would drown. Everyone panicked, and they were all crying out in terror, “Save him, save him!” And they were all astonished to hear Rabbi Bunim cry out to the drowning man, “Give my regards to Leviathan” – the legendary giant fish!
The drowning man, who had lost hope of fighting the current, heard him and suddenly began to struggle again to save himself. Why? Because the rabbi’s levity snatched him out of his despair and aroused his will to live. He finally found a floating plank that had been cast out from a passing ship and held on to it until he was able to get back safely to shore.
There was a big crowd on the shore, but the man went straight to Rabbi Bunim and fell on his neck, saying, “You saved my life! If it wasn’t for your clever words, I would have died because of my despair and the confusion I was in because of everyone’s screams. But your joke aroused my will to live; because of you, I’m alive … ” Rabbi Bunim used to tell this story and he would conclude by saying, “See the power of joy!”
The Rabbi’s conclusion to this story, “See the power of joy!” begs the question: What is joy? Is it a kind of levity that jolts us out of our despair, as the story suggests? Is it an emotion or feeling that we have when something positive happens in our lives? Is it an internal feel-good response to an external experience? Is joy even real or simply something perceived?
The prophet Isaiah proclaims: “With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation.”
Literature and psychology discusses joy as an emotion, a feeling, a reaction. But if we turn to the Biblical narrative, it draws a connection between joy and the sense of freedom; the freedom that comes from the “water of the wells of salvation.” Joy comes in experiencing the freedom that comes in wholeness of soul and spirit. For example, in 2 Samuel 6:12-14, David is so overcome by his joy in the Lord that he spontaneously leaps and dances in public, not even caring (nor perhaps noticing) that he is not adequately clothed. In Luke 1:41, 44, the gospel writer describes how the fetus of John the Baptist leapt for joy in the womb when he encountered pregnant Mary. And later Luke’s gospel uses the Greek word, skirtan which means leaping for joy, to describe how, when one suffers persecutions, one should “leap for joy” on account of their reward in heaven. Each of these biblical references seem to indicate that indeed joy is closely connected to a sense of our freedom: a freedom in being and thinking. Or in the reverse, that when we experience a freedom of the soul and/or mind, there is joy.
I will confess that the word joy makes me feel a bit uncomfortable. When I hear the word, I am transported back to a theology that I was taught growing up that doesn’t resonate with me now; and can even feel harmful. If you grew up in conservative Christianity, you know what I’m talking about. That little acronym: J-O-Y. We were taught that joy is found in putting Jesus first, others second, and finally yourself last. That is how you find real joy in the Christian life. At least that was the teaching. But my discomfort with joy goes beyond that little acronym, even though my present discomfort is probably still rooted there. As I wrestle with my own theology of joy today, beyond that old teaching, I struggle to allow myself to feel a sense of joy, or freedom of joy, when there is so much pain and suffering and injustice in the world. What right do I have to feel joy when my siblings in Cuba and the Republic of Georgia are suffering from hunger, and when I have neighbors two blocks from my warm and safe home sleeping on the cold hard pavement? How can I experience the freedom of joy when my transgender siblings are being beaten to death for simply wanting to live their joy? What right do I have to feel or experience joy when people I care about and love are tormented with mental illness? You see my conundrum. The same faith that taught me that I would find joy in putting Jesus first, others second and myself last also teaches me that my salvation, my wholeness, my joy is directly related to the joy and salvation of my fellow beings. Or as the prophet Martin said, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.”
If I think of sorrow and grief and despair being the opposite of joy, I might read Martin’s words to say: Sorrow and despair anywhere is a threat to joy everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. And thus, I often think from the perspective of my faith: how can I feel and experience joy when there is so much sorrow and despair and grief and injustice in the world and right here in this place?
While we are often taught one truth or perspective from the biblical narrative on a specific topic, like sin or love or forgiveness, the biblical writers have a way of holding the wisdom and tension of such weighty concepts embracing more than one meaning or one truth. Joy is no exception for the biblical writers. The truth is, we can experience the kind of joy the prophet speaks of in all of life – in our despair and sorrow and in times of great happiness and elation, as did David and Mary and the disciples before us. “With joy, you will draw waters from the wells of salvation.” Such joy is not dependent on external circumstances but rather on the freedom one experiences within their heart and soul knowing that they are God’s beloved. Such knowing doesn’t dismiss the sorrow or pain or despair. It simply holds that sorrow and pain and despair in waters from the wells of salvation; that is, God’s embrace and love that makes us whole people. In that embrace, in that love, in that wholeness, there is the possibility for us to open our hearts to experience joy. It is this kind of joy that C.S. Lewis writes about in his book Surprised by Joy. In the midst of so much sorrow and pain, Lewis was surprised by a sense of joy, something he describes as “stabs of joy” – an inconsolable longing.
Is there a moment in your life when you have been surprised by joy? That moment when joy “stabbed” a longing and a dream was realized? Or when a pang of joy reached beyond the pain and sorrow and despair of a moment? Maybe it was that moment when you realized your baby was no longer your baby but rather a brave independent 5 year-old who declared on the first day of kindergarten that they didn’t need you to walk them into the school building, and you felt all at once sadness and great joy. Or maybe it was the day you and your spouse decided to end your marriage and in that moment you felt a profound sorrow and a profound freedom. It feels odd to call that a joy but maybe that’s what it is. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not calling divorce a joy. There is nothing joyful about divorce. And yet, there are those moments that moving toward salvation, a wholeness of soul and spirit, requires a change in relationship. In such times, it is the Psalmist that speaks the truth when he cries out: “Weeping may tarry for the night, but joy comes with the morning.” Sometimes it takes a while, sometimes a long while, to feel the joy when the despair can be so overwhelming.
If I’m honest, joy scares me a bit. Maybe you feel that way too. To feel joy is to feel freedom as God’s beloved not matter what one faces. To feel joy is to know that wholeness, the salvation, which God desires for each of us. To feel joy is to open our eyes and ears and hearts to God’s goodness in the midst of so much sorrow and pain and despair without dismissing the hurt. To feel joy is to know that we are not yet who we want to be; and yet, to trust that our faith offers us a well from which to draw water that leads us to the depths of wholeness and freedom. Joy!
This past week, I received a text message that says best what I have been trying to say to you this morning. In 2019, I met with a young man who was struggling to figure out how to reconcile his faith with being gay. He had grown up in church with all those harmful and damaging and abusive messages about how being gay was a sin and how he couldn’t be gay and be a Christian. His faith was so important to him, and yet he knew that in order to keep living he needed to be true to himself and who he was as a gay man. In agony and desperation he was trying to decide if he would abandon his faith or himself. I tried to reassure him that he didn’t have to abandon either. That he could be both a Christian and a gay man. He left my office still carrying the weight of his decision not really convinced, I could tell, by our conversation.
This week, I received the following text message from this young man.
Hi pastor Nancy. I’m not sure you remember me but I came to talk to you one day in 2019 about coming out. Well, fast forward to this weekend and I’ve officially come out to the world! I wanted you to know how instrumental you were in guiding my faith and how you inspired me that you can be both gay and live a life of faith and grow a relationship with God.
“With joy you will draw waters from the well of salvation.”
When I read that line: “Well, fast forward to this weekend and I’ve officially come out to the world!” I laughed out loud with joy, and I could hear the prophet speaking: With joy you will draw waters from the well of salvation. In a text message, I could feel his joy. It was palpable. I could feel him drawing and drinking the water from the well of salvation, of wholeness, with joy. “…officially, I came out to the world.” I knew all the pain and sorrow and despair and struggle that young man had gone through, and probably still, at times, experiences. And yet, through it all, “with joy” he chose to draw water from the well of salvation – of trusting that, as a gay man, he is indeed God’s beloved not instead of his sexual identity but because of the fullness of who God created him to be. When we live in that place, oh the depth of joy we know. This young man invites us to ask ourselves the question: What closet do I need to officially come out of to feel such joy?
Today, with all my uncomfortableness with the word joy, I choose joy, too. Not a worldly joy that leaves us feeling empty. But rather a sanctified joy, a “stab of joy” that touches our longings for a radical welcome to all of life. A joy that is set apart and has us drawing from the waters of our wholeness as a humanity. In this season and in all seasons, in all the sorrow and pain and despair of the world, with joy let us draw water from the well of salvation: the kind of salvation that offers freedom in knowing that we are God’s beloved. With our eyes and hearts wide open, let us live in the freedom of God’s joy as we seek to meet the needs of our hurting world. Let us choose joy together. And as God’s people, let us risk being overcome with joy in God’s belovedness, so that we may spontaneously leap and dance in public, not even caring nor perhaps noticing that we may not be adequately theologically or religiously clothed as others deem necessary.
With joy may we draw our water from the wells of God’s radical and inclusive love that is our salvation!
