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.
