How Do We Find Happiness? Humor and Humility

Click Here to Listen to This Sermon

Song of Solomon 4:1-5

October 20, 2013

How beautiful you are, my love,


   how very beautiful!
Your eyes are doves

      behind your veil.


Your hair is like a flock of goats,

   moving down the slopes of Gilead. 


Your teeth are like a flock of shorn ewes
   

   that have come up from the washing,


      all of which bear twins,
   

         and not one among them is bereaved. 


Your lips are like a crimson thread,
   

   and your mouth is lovely.


Your cheeks are like halves of a pomegranate
   

   behind your veil. 


Your neck is like the tower of David,
  

    built in courses;

      
on it hang a thousand bucklers,
   

         all of them shields of warriors. 


Your two breasts are like two fawns,
  

    twins of a gazelle,
   

      that feed among the lilies.

         This is the Word of the Lord….

            I want to start with a story. It’s one of my favorites, and one that I believe reveals a lot about religion and human nature. Back in the Middle Ages there were periods in which the Jews were heavily discriminated against, often violently.  

            During one of those periods the advisors to the pope tried to convince him that unconverted Jews should not live in Rome, the center of Christian Catholicism. The pope was unsure, but eventually relented and issued a decree: all Jews either had to become Christian and be baptized, or they would kicked out of Rome. The Jewish community panicked.  hey weren’t just being forced out of their homes. They also knew that they would be persecuted and attacked throughout the rest of Europe. They had lived good lives in Rome, and had been treated with relative respect. And so they sent a delegation to the pope asking him to rescind his decree. The pope listened patiently, and finally said, “Okay, I will rescind my decree if one of you can defeat me in a theological debate in pantomime (don’t ask me why he felt the need to debate in pantomime – it’s just part of the story).

            The Jewish delegation went back and reported to the rest what had happened. The Jews again panicked. The pope was known far and wide as a master debater. How could they possibly hope to defeat him, especially when he was the debater and the judge? They asked for volunteers among the rabbis, but each declined, saying that they couldn’t possibly bear the burden of debating on behalf of all the Jews. They then asked the leaders, but they, too, declined in fear.  No one would volunteer. Finally, the custodian of the synagogue volunteered: “I’ll debate the pope!” The rest responded, “How can you, a custodian, possibly hope to defeat the pope?” He answered, “Because none of you are willing.” 

            So the day for the debate came. The Jewish delegation entered St. Peter’s Basilica with their black robes flowing, and their white beards swaying. The pope sat ominously on his throne, flanked by all the cardinals. The custodian stepped forward, and without delay the pope jumped off his throne, stood before the custodian, and in one motion began the debate by sweeping a finger across the sky. Without skipping a beat the custodian defiantly pointed toward the floor. The pope stood back in surprise at the gesture. He thought for a moment, and then held his index finger up before the custodian’s face. The custodian responded without hesitation by holding up three fingers in the pope’s face. Again, the pope stepped back in shock at the man’s response. 

            The pope pulled out his handkerchief and mopped his brow. Pausing for a while, he finally reached into his robes and pulled out an apple. With that, the custodian reached into his robes and pulled out a flat piece of matzo bread. The pope stopped, looked at the man in amazement, turned to his cardinals and said, “The debate is over. This man has defeated me. The Jews can stay and keep their faith!” With that, he strode out of the room, followed by his cardinals.

            The cardinals stopped the pope and asked, “What did that man say?” The pope responded, “He is a master debater.  I could not defeat him.  I started by sweeping my finger across the sky to say, ‘God is the master of the universe.’ Then the man pointed to the ground, saying, ‘Yes, but there is also the devil who wants to take our souls.’ Then I put one finger out to say, ‘God is one.’ Imagine my surprise when he puts up three fingers to say, ‘Yes, but he is manifested in three persons.’ Finally, I pulled out the apple to say, ‘Some heretics say the world is round.’  The man responded by pulling out his bread to say, ‘Yes, but the Bible tells us that the world is flat.’ I simply could not defeat him.” All the cardinals agreed that the Jews could stay. 

            Meanwhile, the Jewish delegation asked the custodian what had happened. He said, “It was all a bunch of rubbish. The pope starts by sweeping his finger across the sky, saying, ‘All of you Jews get out of Rome!’  So I pointed to the ground and said, “No way!  We are staying where we are!’ He then puts a finger in my face, saying, ‘Don’t get fresh with me!’ So I put my fingers up, saying, “Hey, you were three times as fresh as me!’ Finally, he pulls out his lunch, so I pulled out mine.”

            I love that story because it has all the elements of a profound story. First, it speaks to how we all can be confused by theology, especially when expounded by big religious figures. Second, it speaks to how the powerful often use religion to oppress the weak. Third, and maybe the most important, it teaches that it’s the humble who are closest to God, not the proud. And it teaches all of these lessons in a humorous way.

            One of the things I’ve been very, very aware of since I’ve become a pastor is how important humor is to the spiritual path, mainly because humor often makes us humble, and grounds us more in our humanity. I had a conversation with Connie Frierson, our associate pastor, on Thursday, and I told her something that I don’t think I’ve ever told anyone before. I realized that over time my spirituality has become a spirituality of joy and laughter. I’ve come to discover that, in addition to all the spiritual practices of prayer, Scripture reading, and reflection we can do, one of the most powerful ways of discovering God comes from learning to find joy in life. Laughter is an entryway into joy. Often my approach is to find the joy in whatever situation we are in, even if we are in a bad situation.

            I don’t think I developed this spirituality on my own. This spirituality has been, and is, very much a part of Calvin Church’s life. You can see it in our worship and pastoral staff during worship services in the way we banter back and forth. That’s because we find joy in each other. You can see it on our staff in general in staff meetings. It often takes us 20 minutes to get down to business because of our laughing. And you can see it in our church as a whole.

            Back in 2005, we were part of a large, national study of churches. Diana Butler Bass—a church historian, researcher, and writer—studied mainline churches that were growing, but not by offering contemporary worship services and a ton of programs. Instead, they were growing by emphasizing prayer and spirituality—what Diana called “spiritual practices.”

            She studies 75 churches overall, and 12 churches intensively. Calvin Presbyterian Church was one of the 12. She released the results of her study in her 2006 book, Christianity for the Rest of Us. Calvin Church is mentioned prominently and constantly in the book. The particular practice she noted us for was discernment and listening to God as a community and as individuals. She wrote about how we run our meetings, how we encourage listening for God in budgeting and stewardship, and how we teach the congregation to make listening to God a priority.

            After she wrote the book, she told me that she and her research assistant, Joe, had a dilemma regarding our practice. Discernment was a prominent practice, but she noticed another “practice” that we have that no other churches had to the extent that we had: humor. According to her, we use humor in a way that no other church does. She saw our humor as a real spiritual practice that opened us up to God. This stands out because so many churches are SO SERIOUS.

            For me, humor is essential to spiritual growth because it makes us humble. Humor grounds us. Let me share two favorite stories as an example of what I mean. A grandmother was visiting with her grandson, and she asked him, “So, Mikey, do you say your prayers every evening before you go to bed?” He said, “Oh yes,… every night.” “And what about in the morning?” she asked. “Do you say your prayers every morning?” “Nope,” he replied. “Why not?” she asked. He answered, “Because I’m not scared in the morning.”

            I love this story because it points out that we often only go to God and pray when we are scared, struggling, or in trouble, but that we are called to reach out to God when things are going well, too.

            Another: Two men were hiking through the countryside across fields and pastures. Suddenly they heard a snort behind them. They turned to see a huge bull, with sharp horns, snorting and stamping, preparing to charge. “Run to that fence in the distance!” the one man said to the other. They ran as fast as they could, but the bull was gaining on them. “We won’t make it. We have to do something!” the one man said. The other replied, “What do we do?!” “I know,… say a prayer!” the first one said.  “But I don’t know any. I was never taught to pray”  “Pray anything,… it doesn’t matter what. Just pray whatever you know!!!” the first man said. So, as they sprinted, the other man yelled out, “Oh God, for what we are about to receive, make us truly grateful…”

            Again, there is great humility in the story that reminds us something Connie Frierson said in a sermon a few years ago: Don’t wait till you are in trouble to work on your faith and your relationship with God.

            There’s a deep connection between humor and humility. You can find that connection in the Creation story of Genesis. The word “humility” is literally rooted in the Genesis story in which the first human being, Adam, is created from the dirt, adamah (Genesis 2:7).  God breathes God’s Spirit into the adamah to create Adam.  The Latin root for “dirt” and for “human” is humus. Thus, to be human is to be “of the soil.”  o many words spring from humus:  humility, humor, and human.  All connote a sense of groundedness—a recognition that at our foundation we are nothing more or less than created matter.

            Good humor grounds us in our humanity. It reminds us that while we may be spiritual creatures, we are also humans created from humus. And this gives me an opportunity to show you what I mean through my favorite church joke. It’s a bit racy, but my hope is that your spirit of joy and humor will let you forgive me for that.

            There once was a pastor of a church that was doing poorly financially. The pastor didn’t know what to do, but he was desperate. If the congregation didn’t get more money soon the church might have to fold up shop. In desperation he came up with a bold plan: “I’ll hypnotize the people to give more money.” So the next Sunday, during his sermon, he pulled out a watch on a chain, swinging it gently back and forth. Once they seemed to be mesmerized by the watch, he gently said to the congregation, “You will each put $5 in the collection plate.” After the service, the plates were full of $5 bills, enough to pay all the church bills for the week. He decided to do it again the following Sunday. He pulled out the watch, swung it back and forth, and said, “You will each put $10 in the collection plate.” Afterwards the plates were overflowing with $10 bills, enough to pay the bills for the rest of the month. If he could just get $20 from everyone, they would have all the bills paid for a year. The next week he pulled out the watch and said, “You will all…”  At that moment the watch chain broke, the watch fell, and he yelled out, “Aw, crap!”  It took them two days to clean up the sanctuary. 

            This joke tells you all you need to know about how reluctant we are to give, how easy it is to manipulate people to give, and how all of our best laid plans can backfire. Humor is part of God’s world. I chose our scripture for this morning because I think the Song of Songs is an intentionally humorous book of the Bible. It is profound. It is a love sonnet between God (the groom) and us (the bride), but the imagery is both evocative and humorous. Comparing the bride’s hair to a flock of goats cascading down a mountain, her neck like the ramparts of a castle, and her teeth to shorn sheep with twins is not meant to be deeply serious. It is both evocative and joyful, using humor to bring out both. If you look at the picture on the cover of this sermon, you will see what these descriptions all would look like. It shows that the Song of Songs is meant to be both humorous and deep at the same time. The Bible is full of humor, mostly that we don’t get. In the original Hebrew you find puns galore, along with sarcasm, facetiousness, and absurdity.

            The humor of Song of Songs taps into the same humor that the greatest television comedies does. Whether you are talking about shows like “I Love Lucy,” “The Dick van Dyke Show,” “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” “Cheers,” “Seinfeld,” or “Modern Family,” they all start with the recognition that everyone in the show is flawed and human. And they exploit their humanness to both humor and humble us. Every character who lifts him- or herself up is brought down. And every character who is laid low gets brought back up. In great comedies, everyone is a fool, but they are fools in a community of people who keep lifting each other up no matter how often they stumble. These shows remind us, simply put, that we need humor as humans because humor keeps us humble. And real humility leads us to happiness.

            I have a simple message to close with for this morning:  When we combine humor and humility they allow us to find joy in the simplest things of life.

            Amen.

Coincidence or Providence? A Vision and a Conviction – by The Rev. Connie Frierson, Luke 5:1-11 7-28-13

Luke 5:1-11  Jesus Calls the First Disciples

Once while Jesus was standing beside the lake of Gennesaret, and the crowd was pressing in on him to hear the word of God, he saw two boats there at the shore of the lake; the fishermen had gone out of them and were washing their nets. He got into one of the boats, the one belonging to Simon, and asked him to put out a little way from the shore. Then he sat down and taught the crowds from the boat. When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, ‘Put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch.’ Simon answered, ‘Master, we have worked all night long but have caught nothing. Yet if you say so, I will let down the nets.’ When they had done this, they caught so many fish that their nets were beginning to break. So they signalled to their partners in the other boat to come and help them. And they came and filled both boats, so that they began to sink. But when Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, ‘Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!’ For he and all who were with him were amazed at the catch of fish that they had taken; and so also were James and John, sons of Zebedee, who were partners with Simon. Then Jesus said to Simon, ‘Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching people.’ When they had brought their boats to shore, they left everything and followed him.

Coincidence or Providence? A Vision and a Conviction – Luke 5:1-11 

7-28-13

        

         I recently learned a life-changing concept that I would like to share with you. There is an alternative to that daily grind of an evening meal, the grocery shopping, the menu planning, the chopping, the cooking and the cleaning up.  The concept is called, “Unusual Dinner.”  When all those mealtime tasks are too much, I declare Unusual Dinner and we go for ice cream to Dairy Queen.  Well when Graham told me that we would do a sermon series that was all stories, stories of coincidence and providence, I thought that this was as wonderful. It’s unusual dinner, sermon style.  So I riffled through my mind for stories of God’s providence and mine happen to my own stories. So here is one.

         People treat you differently once you become a pastor. You tend to get trapped in particular conversations, such as defending Christianity, ideological controversies and theological parsing. For some reason lots of strangers seem to want to talk to me about how much better things were fifty years ago and how kids are different now a days.  But, when people learn that I was once a lawyer the question I get most often is, “Why did you go to seminary?”  I have a bunch of answers to those questions and some of them are true.

         So why did you go to seminary? The first answer is, “to make up for being a lawyer.”  If you get this answer you know one of two things, either I don’t like you and I am giving you the non-answer answer or the setting we are in doesn’t lend itself for long soulful discussions.  Is this the right answer?  BUZZZ No.  I really have no terrible lawyerly misdeeds on my conscience.

         So why did you go to seminary? Answer number two; “I had done about everything else in the church and this was the next step.”  Is this the right answer?  BUZZZZ No.  It is true. I had organized potlucks, was a prayer minister, taught Sunday school, led small groups, visited the sick, and volunteered with hospice to sit with the dying.  But many of you have done the same and you don’t feel the call to seminary. But if you do, talk to me after church.  This is the joking deflector of truth, but not the whole truth.

         So why did you go to seminary? Answer number three; “Faith is the most important thing in my life.”  BUZZZ AND A BING.  This is true and false.  True, faith is the most important thing to me.  False, just as faith is important to many of you, it is not the core reason to be led into seminary. This is the answer I gave to the presbytery and it was true as far as it went.  But alone it is not enough.

         So why did I go to seminary? Answer number four; “I had a vision and a prophet spoke.  BELLS, WHISTLES, FLASHING LIGHTS. This is the true answer. As unlikely as it seems, plain, ordinary old me has just stepped into the twilight zone.  This is not what I told the presbytery committee on ministery lest they put my application in the wacko pile.  But with this church and our sermon series on coincidence and providence, I step out of the mystics’ closet. I don’t share answer four with many people.  But at its core that is the real and most insistent reason I went to seminary.  Here is that story.

         By the year 2000, I had found my way back from a desert of agnostic non-belief to faith.  But I felt the call to learn more.  So I became part of a group called the Vineyard Guild, a group of pastors and laypeople who wanted to take spirituality seriously.  In 2000 I went to my first Vineyard Guild retreat held at East Liberty Presbyterian Church. I got my sister to go with me so that if the retreat was a bust, we could slip out the back for fun. But it turned out to more worthwhile than I knew.  We took a workshop on something I never heard of before called Lectio Divina.  Lectio Divina is Latin for Holy word. It is a way of reading passages of scripture that invites your mind, imagination and God’s spirit into this practice of reading the bible.  So my first ever experience of Lectio Divina was with this very passage from Luke 5 and it was a doozy.

         In Lection Divina we had a quiet time of simple breathing and prayer.  Then slowly the leader read the passage.  We were instructed to put ourselves right into the story.  If some aspect of the reading drew us in we were told to stay with that thing to see what God would say to us.  The leader read that the crowd had gathered to hear Jesus by the shores of the lake at Gennesaret. The leader asked quietly, “Where are you in the crowd?  Near Jesus?  Far away?  Alone?”  The leader read on that Jesus stepped into a boat and was rowed a little bit out from shore and preached to the crowd.  The leader asked, “Where are you, in the boat, left on the shore? Where?  The leader read on, ”Jesus told them to go out to the deep water.”  That is the point where the library room at East Liberty Presbyterian Church fell away for me.  Whatever the reader read further on I do not remember.  I was called by Jesus to the deep water and I was IN the deep water. I have tried with these slides to give you an idea of the beauty of the deep blue.  It became a mini obsession with me to look through Internet picture after picture.  But after hundreds of photo’s I never found a blue as deep or as blue or as vast or as open. I could not find a photo to give you the sensation of floating of being in the presence of the great blue.  My imagination or my vision or this gift from God seemed to last for a long time. But as I gazed and gazed in wonder, I started to become afraid.  This was too blue, too vast, too much.  But just as that thought registered into my consciousness my vision changed. I was in the deep blue but a wonderful net of gold, like the light on the water, encompassed me and kept me in the safety of God’s presence.  I would not have the atoms of my being disbursed into that vastness because this net of light kept me safe in the proportion of God that I could bear. 

         Sometime later the reader said, “Amen.”  I guess she went on through the passage with Peter and the fish and so on and so forth.  But I never heard it.  As I reflected on my experience, I took away something quite specific.  God was calling me to the deep water.  I was to put away dabbling in spirituality and playing at faith.  I was to go as deep as I could into that vast blue.  And so I did, as I was able.  I read and read whatever Graham suggested. I went to each class of any Faith Groups Graham offered.  I listened and tested and savored writers and ideas and spiritual disciplines. All the while feeling that I was bit by bit falling into that deep blue.

         Following God into the deep was not just reading. It involved doing too and doing leads to more learning and the need to learn even more.  So I felt a call to delve deeper.  I settled on a program at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary called the Spiritual Formation Certificate Program.  This is a course of study where about four or five books are assigned that you can read at your leisure.  Then there is a one-week course. Then you write a paper in the next three months and then your done with that little course.  This was a program that I felt I could handle.  I could still be a wife, mom, run a house and a garden and a farm and help at church, but not go crazy.  So off I went to my first class. 

         During that week I made several new friends but one was quite special.  A woman named Janet Brown was there.  Janet was about twenty years older than I.  What bonded us immediately was a shared concern and love for children with Cerebral Palsy.  At the time my son was just in second grade and struggling with large motor problems and the perceptions of his teachers and classmates.  Janet had a grown son of 28 with Cerebral Palsy. Janet’s son was smart and successful and living a full independent life.  Janet understood what my son and I were going through.  Another bond was the love of several Quaker writers. Janet had enrolled her son in a Quaker grade school years ago.  Janet and I enjoyed each company and had lunch each day together. One day someone asked for prayers for their friend in California who was very ill.  After our prayer time, Janet said, “Oh her friend died in the night.”  I asked how she knew this and Janet ducked her head in a little embarrassment and said that she had the gift of prophecy.  She said she just knew things that words or events would come to her in her prayer time.  Later in the day the woman whose friend was ill in California told us that she had called and that her friend had in fact died in the night.  Janet was very quiet about this gift.  She was the moderator of a Presbytery and very respected. She definitely did not give off a new age vibe.  So I took Janet at her word. But didn’t think that her gift would have anything to do with me.

         On the last day of my week with this little class we separated into two groups. Janet was in one and I in the other.  My group was scheduled for Lectio Divina.  Guess what the passage was?  It was the very same passage from Luke 5 verses one through eleven, that had started me on this journey.  So with a great deal of anticipation I looked forward to falling into the deep blue of the Lake at Gennesaret.   I was so looking forward to this. If I were a dog, I would have wiggled in delight.  But as we prayerfully settled into the passage, I didn’t have a repetition of my prior vision.  Instead, the parts of this passage that hit me between the eyes wasn’t the deep water but the interaction with Peter.  Peter falls to his knees and says to Jesus, “Get away from me, I am a sinful man.”  Jesus tells him, “Don’t be afraid you will catch people.” This bit was uncomfortably real and provoking.  I felt Jesus was calling me to something I was afraid of, something I would just as soon dodge.  I felt I was being told to go to seminary.   This was disturbing.  Seminary would ruin my comfortable and perfect life.  It was too much work, too much trouble, too much cost, too much commuting, too many ancient and archaic languages.  And the worst part was that at the end you had to be (gasp, horrors) a minister.  At the end of the session I didn’t actually run out the door but I walked swiftly and did not look back.  I skipped lunch with my friends. I walked, or more truthfully, stomped around Highland Park and argued with God.

         When I returned to the room where we met after lunch we were to prepare for a session on prayerfully journaling.  We were told to find a little place where we could be quiet and undistracted.  So I turned my back to the larger room put up my feet on a windowsill and brooded.  As I scowled at my paper, my friend Janet came up and cleared her throat to get my attention.  I looked up and Janet rushed into a quick speech.  Janet said,  “I know this sounds weird, but when we were in prayer before lunch I received a very clear message.  God wants you to go to seminary.” I looked right into her eyes in horror and I burst into tears, crying, “I don’t want to go to seminary.”  Janet’s natural good girl response was a flustered, “Oh no, Oh my, I’m sorry…” but then her back stiffened and she said with uncharacteristic force,  “you really are to go to seminary.  That is what I am supposed to tell you.” 

         The afternoon session began.  Janet scurried to her seat. Our instructions were to think of a question that is the most pressing and important question of  your life and write it out at the top of your paper.  Guess what was at the top of my paper? SHOUD I GO TO SEMINARY? The letters were big and angry. The pencil dug mad little grooves in the tablet.  We were then instructed to think of an important person, living or dead, famous or unknown, and to dialogue back and forth with that person about the important question, recording each side of the dialogue in out journal. I picked my mom who had died eight years earlier.  My mom told me that I could have gone to seminary after college. Didn’t I remember that?  Remember how much my faith had meant to me in high school, how important God’s love was when daddy died. Remember all those friends of mine in seminary, the two guys I dated from seminary, and the times I helped with their sermons and talked with about social justice? My mom said I only went to law school out of fear of financial instability and that wasn’t an issue now so the way was clear.  Oh course I should go to seminary. She saw it all along. I hate it when my mom is right.

         So in the weeks following that time at in my little course I needed to make a choice.  If coincidence and providence come together, do I follow where they point or look the other way?  I went to seminary.  That difficult choice has led to the best and riches place for me.  I think I am in the center of God’s will for my life. 

         I learned three things from this experience.  First, God loves you and has a difficult plan for your life.  Whoa.  That doesn’t sound like the prosperity gospel.  This must be the Christian fine print.  God loves you and has a difficult plan for your life.  The difficult plan could be hard to swallow. But if you make the effort to follow God and it is indeed the right plan then it will go down like honey. The difficult part is often our own willful ideas of our life that have to be rooted out. Once the false and selfish will is booted out the yoke is easy and the burden light. 

         The second lesson is this. “You don’t need to anticipate every turn in the road.  When you are at the beginning, don’t obsess about the middle. Because the middle will look different when you get there.”[1] I remember a conversation with my husband, Allen, when we talked about me going to seminary.  Allen very gently asked, “What do you think it will look like when you are done with seminary?”  And I remember answering that I had no idea.  I kinda figured that I would do what I do now but do it better and deeper.  My ‘I don’t know’ answer was enough for Allen.  He completely supported me.  He often joked that I was in training to be a minister and he was in training to be a church custodian.  But the middle looked quite different than anything I had anticipated.  Allen unexpectedly died half way through my seminary years.  But that hard time was met not only with the community of my family and my Calvin church, but also my seminary community.  My middle was drastically different.  Glad I didn’t spend too much time running ahead.  God had already prepared for a middle I would know nothing of until it happened.  Just as God prepares our future that we know nothing of now. 

         The final lesson is to look for the bright spots.   God is putting light on the water in front of each of us.  Pay attention to what catches our eyes and our hearts.  I was caught in the deep blue and the flashing gold net.  I didn’t intellectually know what that could be but I knew it was important to pay attention and to look for how God would reveal step by step the days and years to come.

         The question for each of you is, “What are you called to?”      AMEN

          

        

---

[1] Chip and Dan Heath, Switch, How to Change Things When Change is Hard

How Do We Find Happiness? Seeking Celebrations – By The Rev. Connie Frierson, Romans 15:5-13 9-29-13

Romans 15:5-13

 May the God of steadfastness and encouragement grant you to live in harmony with one another, in accordance with Christ Jesus, so that together you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

The Gospel for Jews and Gentiles Alike

 Welcome one another, therefore, just as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God. For I tell you that Christ has become a servant of the circumcised on behalf of the truth of God in order that he might confirm the promises given to the patriarchs, and in order that the Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy. As it is written,
‘Therefore I will confess you among the Gentiles,
   and sing praises to your name’; 
and again he says,
‘Rejoice, O Gentiles, with his people’; 
and again,
‘Praise the Lord, all you Gentiles,
   and let all the peoples praise him’; 
and again Isaiah says,
‘The root of Jesse shall come,
   the one who rises to rule the Gentiles;
in him the Gentiles shall hope.’ 
May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

How Do We Find Happiness? Seeking Celebrations –  By The Rev. Connie Frierson, Romans 15:5-13

 9-29-13

        

         Who has heard of the science of positive psychology?  Is this positive psychology in your lexicon?  After years of studying the pathology of human psychology, the researchers and thinkers have perhaps had enough and have embraced this idea of looking at what is right versus what is wrong. Positive psychology is in some ways the study of happiness.  Happiness is the topic of our sermon series.  Graham and I have gotten together and created a list of the things that make us happy and are by this series putting those actions at the center of our sermons.  So today we will look at something that is as old as humanity and as new as this moment. We will look at celebrations as a way to happiness.  When we think of worship services in a traditional church what is the image that comes to mind?  Is church a celebration or is it something like this. (Bruce plays a dirge of a hymn.) Ah that is how church sounded when I was a kid.  I think it must be how Moses worshiped right? Yes the ancient Hebrews labored through the wilderness with the organ on their backs.  Many, many organs were uncovered in the archeology of the ancient temple. Oh how traditional is the sound of the organ, slowly pounding out a death knell, slowly, somberly, deadly dull. (Bruce stops playing on a crescendo of doom.) Now if you love the organ, please know that I am just poking a little fun.  I know there is wonderful, uplifting and rousing organ music.  But too often we think of church as having this sad sack music, somber faces, not enough laughter and little joy. God forbid there should be clapping or toe tapping or stomping or shouts. I’m not speaking of this church. But this is the perception of so many outside the church.

         This is a problem.  Rejoicing, laughing and stomping and shouts and dancing and cymbals and trumpets are all biblically required.  If the Good News is Good News then we need to act like Good News people.  I think we have some explaining to do. We are called to make celebration a spiritual discipline. So put on your party hats.

         Celebrations do things.  Sometimes Celebrations are a reminder of what has happening. Sometimes Celebrations are a reminder of what will happen. Sometimes Celebrations tell us who we are. Sometimes Celebrations give us hope. Sometimes Celebrations remind us we aren’t alone. Sometimes Celebrations mark off time that might be a monotonous round of days as special seasons that give spice and appreciation.  If we aren’t celebrating we are only half living and God calls us to be fully alive.

         Now sometimes as I prepare a sermon, I have in my head a little voice of a reformed seminary professor. I know he isn’t real but he is real to me.  He is a cross between the banker from Monopoly and the ghost of Marley from Dickens. This little guy is frowning at me and saying this sermon isn’t biblical enough. So to satisfy that dour visage I will point out our passage today speaks of living in harmony, welcoming, praising God, rejoicing and having joy. How do we do these things?  Sounds like we should have a party.  Come together so that we know the people God know and love the people God loves. Christianity in its infancy was a small Jewish sect. But Peter and Paul and Silas and Barnabas and Timothy and thousands of others saw that God was moving beyond sectarianism into the entire world. Actually God has always been moving among strangers and foreigners. But in early Christianity we were just catching on.  In Paul’s day the odd man out in were the Gentiles.  Well now, son of a gun, we are all Gentiles.  So who is the odd man out here? Is it the person you don’t know?  Is it the new member you haven’t met? Is it the visitor that doesn’t know anyone?  Then come together and celebrate. Have a party so that you can eat and drink and talk and learn together. 

         Our problem is that we have several party killers in our hearts and heads. Part of our problem might be that we think of partying as non-Christian, so we have to use the more formal and rarified word celebration.  The problem is that for every blessing God creates we humans have some godless counterfeit. Partying is just such a counterfeit.  In the partying I knew as a teenager and 20 something, drugs or alcohol are used to deaden our minds.  Drugs and alcohol narrow our vision to just what we want and to what gives us happiness. Drugs and alcohol depress our ability to reach out to others or to think of their happiness.  If we gather so we can grab some happiness from others, it’s not a God party. If we gather to give happiness, it’s a God party.  Too often our casual party is without God and so real happiness goes missing. But informal or formal, big or little, all our parties should have God on the guest list. “Where two or more are gathered in my name, I am also.” That is what moves us from a mere party into celebration.

         A second party killer is the trend toward isolation.  So much in our life and work and play and technology skews us toward isolation.  We have a choice to reach out to others or to isolate and that choice is given again and again.  When we graduate from High School, we have a choice.  The absence of the usual crowd of friends either pushes us to holing up or it urges us to a new outreach.  The same occurs at the end of college or the end of a job in a particular workplace.  Even the birth of children our pride and joy can send us into a peculiar isolation as we adjust to diaper bags and toddler management. Further along the empty nest years allow us the freedom to choose new ways to fill our lives and the tendency may be to fill them with private and solo hobbies and interests. We make choices to come together or split apart throughout our lives.  But turning away from community is not the God led way.  While balance between quiet and parties is important. Coming together offers important encouragement and wisdom.

         A final party killer is excessive attention of the external party and neglecting the real basis of communion, which is God. When I was a kid all it took for a party was a bag of chips and a carton of French onion dip and my cousin. Perhaps as a younger person we are unconsciously closer to God.  When we were young parties came more easily. Now we feel the pressure to create a Martha Stewart extravaganza.  Choice and expense of party accoutrements discourage sharing our homes, and so we rob ourselves of the opportunity for sharing. These are the things that kill parties; excluding God from the guest list, isolation in our hearts and unreasonable demands of the incidentals.

         But parties are distinctly Christian. Think of Matthew 22 and Luke 14 “The Kingdom of God is like man who invites many people to the banquet. But they are busy. So he invites everyone in the street. In Luke 5:33 Jesus and his disciples are criticized for feasting.  Why aren’t you fasting like John the Baptists followers?  Jesus says while the bridegroom is with you, you feast.  So if Christ is alive and in and through everything then it is time to feast. Maybe parties are distinctly Jewish. The Hebrews had celebrations all the time. Every Sabbath evening is a family celebration and worship. There were nine festivals in ancient Israel, many we recognize like, Passover, Pentecost, Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Sukkoth, and Hanukkah. Or maybe parties are distinctly Easter Orthodox. That church has 12 great feast days. Or maybe parties are really Catholic. The medieval Roman Catholic Church had over 80 feast days. Or maybe parties are distinctly human. God knows what we need. Parties are built into our religious lives, into the bible and into our psyche and into our body.  Holidays are so important that during holidays heart attacks and other stress related illness events decrease by 32%. 

    We don’t have to wait for formal festivals. Sometimes the celebration needs to pull us together and give time to be together and be thankful for our specific blessings. So I want to share an example from the life of Dana Corwin.  Dana is the editor in chief of Food & Wine magazine.  Dana was diagnosed with stage III breast cancer.  She had to undergo, chemotherapy, a double mastectomy, removal of her ovaries and fallopian tubes, radiation and breast reconstruction surgery.  She went through the whole nine yards.  Dana Corwin had three choices. She could isolate. She could feel sorry for herself. Or she could celebrate.  She chose parties.  Early on she called a party for her staff.  She had pink champagne and pink cupcakes.  She said, “we are celebrating Breast Cancer Awareness month and I have breast cancer.”  She gathered everyone together and kept talking till it was OK for everyone to talk and share and the panic passed and mood lightened. The next party was the midpoint of her chemotherapy.  She called it “If Life Gives You Lemons, Make Lemon Meringue Pie Party” Everyone was to bring a pie to share.  The next party was before her double mastectomy.  Dana said though her breasts were a small part of her, they were her favorites and she was sad to lose them.  So she had a Soul Sisters/Girls only party, with 70’s theme and a sound track. Her next party celebrated the end of radiation, The Wishing Well Party. She had all her guests write down what they would do if they could do anything. Dana Corwin says she is a different kind of party girl now.  She learned parties gave a chance for people to come together to process some hard things.  It gave an outlet for people to say what they needed to say.  It brought her closer to her staff and friends.  It gave people a concrete and specific thing to do to help. It moved her from a pity party of one to the center of a dynamic and thankful group. It moved her from isolation to community. It helped her think about what was important.

    I understand this party mania. In the last year of my mom’s life we had so many parties it was crazy.  Our theme for the year was “Let’s Have No Regrets.” Our Thanksgiving was so full of activities that we needed a schedule of events.  One party was a mystery theater party. Family members had to come as a character in costume and play their role.  My 6‘6” brother came as the brainy nerd complete with high waist Urkel pants, pocket protector and a slide rule.  We will always remember my mom’s laugh.

    We can talk, talk, talk about celebration. But I think we need to do it. So here is the participatory part of our sermon. We are going to exercise the theological basis of God’s joyful celebration.  You will see on your pew there is a balloon.  If you see one and can breath, pick it up.  Now this is the illustration.  Take a deep breath.  If you are breathing you have been given a gift from God.  God breathed into Adam.  Christ breathed on the disciples. The Holy Spirit is a breath and life in each of you.  Now I want you to capture a little of that God gift of breath.  Blow up your balloon but don’t tie it off.  Now some of you will be tempted to tie it off.  So you can save it for later. But eventually, that air will sadly leak out and deflate and there is nothing more forlorn than a flabby old balloon.  But God keeps giving you this gift so you can take the chance and not save it. So don’t tie it off.  But reach over your head and waive it around for bit. Now look around.  If only one person was sitting in a church pew waiving a balloon it would be lunatic. A party is not a party by yourself. Doesn’t this look cheerful.  Now on the count of three I want you to let them all go.  The thing that lets you rejoice is the God in you.  But you can’t keep it to yourself. So let the balloon go.  Let it speed around and slap into your neighbor.  Rejoice. Welcome. Share the party.    Amen.

How Do We Find Happiness? Don’t Be Afraid to Be Bummed, By The Rev. Connie Frierson, Oct. 13, 2013

Jeremiah 29: 1, 4-7 - Jeremiah’s Letter to the Exiles in Babylon

These are the words of the letter that the prophet Jeremiah sent from Jerusalem to the remaining elders among the exiles, and to the priests, the prophets, and all the people, whom Nebuchadnezzar had taken into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon. Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat what they produce. Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease. But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.

Psalm 137 - Lament over the Destruction of Jerusalem


By the rivers of Babylon—
there we sat down and there we wept
when we remembered Zion. 


On the willows there
we hung up our harps. 
For there our captors
asked us for songs,
and our tormentors asked for mirth, saying,
 ‘Sing us one of the songs of Zion!’


How could we sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land? 
If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right hand wither! 
Let my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth, if I do not remember you,
if I do not set Jerusalem
 above my highest joy.


Remember, O Lord, against the Edomites
 the day of Jerusalem’s fall,
how they said, ‘Tear it down! Tear it down!
Down to its foundations!’ 


O daughter Babylon, you devastator!
 Happy shall they be who pay you back
what you have done to us! 


Happy shall they be who take your little ones and dash them against the rock!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

How Do We Find Happiness? Don’t Be Afraid to Be Bummed, By The Rev. Connie Frierson

         We continue on with our sermon series on “How Do We Find Happiness.”  One of the things that really inspired this sermon series was an article in Psychology Today entitled, What Do Happy People Do Differently.  As Graham and I read this article we were struck by how much of this research sounded like spiritual wisdom. So much of this happiness seeking business is counterintuitive. So many of these insights reveal a biblically based paradox. So many of the things we think will make us happy do not.  Perhaps the core paradox is that the more you seek happiness the less happiness you find. The more frantic, the more frenzied, the more demanding, the more insistent that you must be happy, the more you will experience unhappiness. Happy people know one very important thing. There is a time for everything. So if we paraphrased Ecclesiastes chapter three, “There is a time for every feeling under heaven.” So don’t be afraid to be bummed.

         This whole sermon reminds me of dog stories, perhaps because dogs bring me so much happiness and so much grief.  But this crazy paradox about happiness reminds me of my dog, Anna.  Anna was a Hungarian Kuvasz.  She was 115 pounds of determination and muscle and white fur. The Kuvasz is a livestock protection breed. Bred to work independently on a hilltop herding and protecting without a shepherd. So they use their own judgment and take human direction as a mere suggestion. They can’t be bribed by food or affection or play. They are single-minded dogs on a mission. So Kuvasz management can be elusive, kind of like happiness. I worked and worked with this dog.  We went to puppy school five times.  I don’t mean five sessions. I mean five sets of nine sessions each of classes.  We socialized Anna as much as we could.  And much of that training worked. Anna was wonderful with children and people and other dogs. She behaved well on a leash. She was house trained in about two weeks. But the one huge failure was that we could not get Anna to come reliably to the recall.  If Anna was off leash in our fields, God only knows if she would come when called.  I would become frustrated and I would chase and chase her.  Do you know how fast a Kuvasz can run?  I do.  I tried everything including rubbing myself with bacon grease. But the only way I could get Anna to come to me was to run the other way. The more I chased Anna the farther away she would go. Actually I wasn’t chasing her as much as I was pushing her.  Once I realized this I started running the other way. Then she would come to me.  If there was an emergency and I needed her to come immediately. I would run frantically away and fall over dead.  This would get Anna to my side immediately. This is the way of happiness. Happiness is like a Kuvasz, as long as we chase, push, demand, yell, lure, and the farther away goes happiness.  The more we stop chasing and turn our lives to the deeper stuff of life, and then we can be surprised by joy.

         One of the ways we push happiness away is when we run from unhappiness.  Happy people feel and acknowledge every emotion. Happy people don’t run, they don’t hide, and they don’t deny negative emotions.   Dealing with our negative emotions, of sadness, disappointment, grief and anger are important pieces to this happiness puzzle. Happy people don’t practice denial. They practice acceptance and through acceptance of whatever emotions come, happy people experience transformation. Perhaps this is a law of spiritual alchemy.  If we allow the crucible of hard, hot and sad emotions then we can become flexible and strong enough to openly receive the joy and peace of God.

         We see this emotional flexibility displayed in two pieces of scripture that deal with the very same event.  Both Jeremiah 29 and Psalm 137 deal with the heartbreak of the Babylonian exile. In these two scriptures we will see some ways not to chase happiness but to experience happiness when it comes our way and to experience every other emotion also when other emotions come our way. The Old Testament prophet Jeremiah sends a letter to the homesick and heartsick Jewish exiles in Babylon. The northern kingdom of Israel had disappeared at the hands of the Assyrians 200 years earlier, and now Babylon has successfully subjugated the smaller kingdom of Judea. Many of Jerusalem's best and brightest have been carried off to Babylon, where the new Jewish population isn't quite sure what to do. Should they fight? Should they die? Should they sow insurrection? How could they be God’s people in this place, without a temple, without a country? Prior to this exile the way to be happy was to worship in the temple, follow the law, be a good citizen of God’s promised land.  All happiness and righteousness was tied to temple, nation and land. God through Jeremiah tells the Jews what they should do.  Thus saith the Lord, they should build, plant, marry, pray and seek the welfare of place they are, this enemy territory, this exile. This advise is so unexpected, so radical.  Do you mean Lord we should work and live and love?

          So how do we apply this word of the Lord to us?  First we may need to name the exile.  What is your exile?  Were you healthy and now your ill? Were you young and now your old?  Did you have a good job and now your unemployed? Were you married and now your widowed or divorced? Were your kids successful and now they struggle?   These are some of the exiled places in our lives. We better call them by name so we know what to do next.  It doesn’t help to pretend to go to the office when you have been fired.  It doesn’t help to refuse medical treatment when you are sick. Understanding what “is” right now is important.  Unhappy people hide, pretend, deny and run. They spend lots of time and energy denying the exile. They deny. They get stuck in a place that is not real and then they can’t take real steps to move forward into transformation.

         Jeremiah 29’s text is good advice.  Even if you are in heartbreak, go build a house for your family. Even if you are downhearted, give your children in marriage. Go to the wedding. Give a blessing. Even if you are in a land of enemies, work for their welfare. Don’t repay evil for evil, but good for evil. There is a lot of just getting on with life, tough love, in this passage. 

         But at the same time the bible has lots to say about naming all the emotions that we feel, the good ones and the bad ones, and the rotten ones too.  The Psalms are full of prayer with no off limits emotions.  Here is a paraphrase of Psalm 137. This lament isn’t in God’s voice. The speaker is a Jew of Jerusalem now in exile.  Here is what this person prays in the Holy Scripture “I am weeping by the rivers of Babylon. I have to hang my harp on the willows here because I will never play or sing again. My tormentors, my enemies, say, ‘Give us a song of Zion.’ But my tongue can’t find any words of joy. My tongue is so swollen with suffering and sadness I can’t speak or sing.  I hate my enemies. I remember them chanting ‘Tear it down; Tear it down when my home, Jerusalem was ripped apart.  Happy are the people who will pay you back. Happy are the people who can dash your innocent babies heads against rocks.”  WOW, Talk about not knowing what will make us happy!  This seems to be an example. It is a known fact that baby killing produces very little happiness and oodles and oodles of misery. But how telling that this completely horrible out of control emotion, the ugliest outcry to despair and hatred is allowed to be expressed, repeated and reprinted for thousands of years. Does this prove that the God of love is really advocating infanticide?  Or is this passage telling us that everything, absolutely everything, is a subject of expression and prayer.  Is God saying that the ugliest parts of us get to be expressed, released and ultimately transformed?

         Lots of people don’t know what to do with this kind of vehement hatred, this passion and pain that has broken all the rules of being nice, If the bible was about denying our feelings, then this passage would have been edited out centuries ago. But evidently there is one safe place to say the unspeakable and the undoable, that place is prayer. 

         A healthy pattern repeats itself again and again in the Psalms, first a cry of the heart, then a plea for help and finally a declaration of God’s steadfast love. This is an emotional flexibility that God is trying to teach us.  Feel everything. Don’t deny, run or hide, but then move on. Don’t get stuck. This is the same lesson to the exiles in Babylon. Psalm 137 speaks of crying by the rivers of Babylon, hanging up harps by the willows because the exiles cannot rejoice anymore. But then God speaks through Jeremiah 29 saying build, plant, marry, pray and seek the welfare to that foreign place.

         We are in training to be happy. But to be happy requires us to go through each step, to keep stepping up to God’s call. This both teaches and requires emotional flexibility. You are in an emotional Triathlon. Feel the emotions you have.  Hear God’s call to your life. Do what you are called to do, build, plant, marry, pray and seek the welfare of others.  Each of these things builds happiness, Building leads to satisfaction. Planting leads to the wonders of nature.  Marriage is a connection of relationships, kinship, family and community. Prayer invites God into each of these activities. Working for the welfare of the large community of exile or Babylon lead to inviting God into everything we do in the world.  That final line that the NRVS translates as welfare is really the more transcendent word; “shalom” Shalom is completeness, wholeness, harmony, wellness and contentment at the deepest level.  Shalom is happiness transcended.

         Perhaps I need to give an example of this emotional flexibility that God calls us to. This is on the small scale but still it will serve.  So listen to this story for feeling all the emotions we feel and yet still doing what we are called to do in life.  Finally look for God’s blessings in the midst of happiness and sadness. As some of you know I have a beloved old collie named Major.  This dog was a gift from God. About six months after my husband Allen died, I had to put down my old stubborn Kuvasz, Anna.  Her hips had given out. And in March of 2008 for the first time in 20 years I lived in a house without a dog. It was strange and odd.  A part of me wondered if I would ever get a dog again.  The end of Anna’s life was so sad. I don’t want to do that again. There also was never a dog that I have gotten as mad at as Anna.  Nor would there ever be a dog as beautiful.

         Well every spring, my friend Mary Worstell would come to pick daffodils for her mom, June.  Mary would bring her two labs.  But this April, three dogs jumped out of Mary’s SUV, her two labs and a beautiful collie named Major. Mary mentioned somewhat slyly that she was looking for a home for Major. I told her I would think about it, but that we needed to go to Tennessee in a few days for Easter and I couldn’t get a new dog till after that.  On the way back from Tennessee the boys and I decided to get Major. I called Mary once we turned onto the last leg of our journey and made arrangements to pick him up the next day. When we got home, Nate suggested that we unwind from our long drive with an old movie on TCM (Turner Classic Movies).  So we popped popcorn and settled down to watch whatever might be on.  The movie was Home From the Hills, it was a 1948 movie about a collie, Lassie, who is damaged and fearful but is taken in by good doctor, Edmund Gwenn, (who played Santa Claus in Miracle on 34^th St.) That movie was like a blessing.  We would take in this Lassie dog that needed a home and he would help us heal. Taking in a new dog was like building and planting and making new relationships. Major was seven when he came to us and in the next seven years he was a blessing. But at 14 his arthritis was very bad and it was time for him not to suffer. In the week before the bonfire he had started to have spells where he could not move at all. I knew he would be distressed if he couldn’t move among the guests. So Friday night before the bonfire I had a vet come over to the house. The boys and I spent a lot of time with him through that week saying goodbye.  And we cried an ocean of tears. There is no denying that saying goodbye is painful.  We buried him Saturday morning and prayed and cried some more.  But it was the day of the bonfire. We had so much to do. Life required us to build and plant some fun to bring people together.    The next afternoon after lots of blessed volunteers had come and cleaned and cleared away after the bonfire. I lay on the couch exhausted and decided to watch an old movie.  And what just happened to be showing on TCM that Sunday afternoon? The movie was the 1943 classic, Lassie Come Home. With Elizabeth Taylor and Rodney McDowell and my favorite Edmund Gwenn and of course a big beautiful Collie, like my Major.  It was a benediction and a blessing.  This is way we work through painful emotions. We mourn, and then we dance. We know how we feel, but then we put aside those things for a bit to join in life.  When we do this God has a way of blessing us with the happiness that transcends our own little pleasant emotion of happiness into the blessing of God’s Shalom.  Amen