“Shout for joy, O daughter Zion!
Sing joyfully… the Lord is in your midst,
you have no further misfortune to fear…
The Lord, your God, is in your midst…
He will rejoice over your with gladness…
He will sing joyfully because of you…”
--Zephaniah 3:14-18
“Rejoice in the Lord always.
I shall say it again, rejoice!”
--Philippians 4:4-7
Last week the readings for the 2nd Sunday of Advent encouraged us to make a straight path, and there was a sense that this was the point of—a time of straightening our path, straightening our houses, straightening our hearts, in preparation for a special visit. In some sense, at this time of year, our daily lives become a kind of practice for this Advent lesson. We rush around preparing ourselves and our homes for visitors, straightening up rooms, straightening up the yard, the path from the driveway to the front door, the path from the front door to the living room and the dinner table. We pick up dirty laundry, put way half read books and unfinished puzzles, unread mail gets piled up in a closet, and the cat litter boxes get scooped and cleaned and fresh filter. The path through the hallway to the bathroom gets swept and lightbulbs that have flickered for months or gone out weeks ago suddenly get changed. Everything is freshened, straightened up—we say. Rooms are vacuumed and cleaned, even the lamp shades get dusted … We are filling in those valleys we have allowed to form, and mountains (of laundry, old mail, dishes) are suddenly made low. In a very literal sense, Advent is a time of making straight and smoothing out the rough ways. But why? Because we are expecting someone, a visitor, a friend or family member, perhaps even a stranger or two –your sister’s new fiancé, or your brother’s college roommate, somebody from work is stopping by--with their spouse… And sometimes all of this preparation and rushing around can feel exhausting, overwhelming, taking the fun and the magic out of the season, leaving us drained and feeling more like a humbug than a herald angel who may or may not sing.
And yet, this week, on the third Sunday of Advent, we have an added instruction: Rejoice! And just so we get the message, it’s repeated in the readings, and it is the focus of the day. The third Sunday of Advent is called “Gaudete” Sunday, which is Latin for rejoice. And as I ponder making straight my paths, both spiritual and literal, it occurs to me that prayer and fasting and changes of behavior and appetite are important, but perhaps the most important change we have to make is in our attitude. We have to stop looking at this whole God thing –our relationship with Him—as fear based, as if God was out to get us. According to Zephaniah, the only way God is out to “get” us is to sing joyfully because of us. God loves us, wants to spend eternity with us… rejoicing.
Have you ever been invited to a holiday party that you didn’t want to go to, but you felt obligated to attend. Perhaps your spouse had a work event, or there was a family gathering, a reunion, a holiday get-together… Whatever it was, think back: did you feel uncomfortable? Or did you feel at ease? Did you feel resentful or did you feel joyful? And how did that attitude affect the party? Your behavior at the party? Did you try to put on a happy face and “grin and bear it?” Or did you (like I too often do) try to find a corner where you could hide with a cup of cider and a plate of cheese?
All around me people are chatting, laughing, talking –some even singing—and I am huddled on the edge of a couch with my little plate of cheeses and a wadded napkin that I keep unwadding to dab at some imagined crumb in my beard or on my lips. Trying to look pleasant, and yet desperately hoping not to be seen. And completely miserable.
That discomfort and that constant self-awareness… That is a kind of Hell for me.
But does it have to be?
What if I made a straight path not for the cheese tray, but for the first person I see, even if it is someone I have never met before? What if, instead of treating the party as an obligation, I rejoiced that I was invited. And what if I let that joy become my calling card, my greeting to anyone and everyone I met—whether I know them or not. What if I simply rejoiced, and let myself be seen? What if I took myself and my ego less seriously and let myself laugh and smile, be silly, be uncomfortable, and even occasionally embarrassed—and didn’t worry about what anyone thought about me or my cheese?
Well, what could happen? Well…
One, I might find myself becoming more approachable —creating a kind of straight path for someone else to escape their own discomfort, for them to find someone to talk with, someone to laugh with or share their stories with, perhaps even someone they can rejoice with.
Two, it might allow God to work through me, to reveal through me the joy He feels whenever 2 or more are gathered…
Three, perhaps the best way for any of us to make a straighter path for God to enter into our lives, is to become more and more like Him. every day. And perhaps the first step, the most important step, has nothing to do with rules or laws or even creeds and practices, but with our attitude.
But what does that mean? What does it look like in daily life? All smiling through the hard times and laughing off the struggles? Or just smooth sailing. No worries. Let a smile be your umbrella! Probably not. Think about Mary and Joseph, given glad tidings by an angel, called to rejoice, but what happened next? No room at the inn, baby born in a stable, sent fleeing for their lives by Herod’s army, years in Egypt living in exile, and then her Son, the good news that the angel proclaimed, is cursed and called a madman by neighbors and friends, accused of blasphemy, abused by the powerful, and finally betrayed and crucified. This rejoicing thing doesn’t sound like milk and cookies. It might be hard work, it might require a little more effort than simply turning your frown upside down. Habits are hard to break. If –like me—you have a habit of trying to avoid crowds and hide with a book (or some cheese), you may find the Christmas season a little more challenging than merry and bright. And yet, all we can do is try. Try to be joyful. Maybe that’s why Paul says it a second time: “Again I say rejoice.” He’s reminding us, don’t give up! There is nothing more to fear…Just open the door. God will do the rest.
And if we need an example, someone to look to when we are struggling to rejoice, let us look to Mary. Ask yourself, how did Mary handle things when they got too big, too strange, too hard? She pondered them in her heart (cf. Luke 1:29; 2:19; 2:51). And perhaps that is how we must handle things too. Perhaps that is how we train ourselves to rejoice. We train our hearts and minds to ponder, to contemplate, to allow the seed of God’s grace to be planted within us and give it time to grow, nourishing the soil of our soul with contemplation and pondering. If something makes us uncomfortable, or anxious, let us ponder why. Perhaps, and let us ask God to open our eyes to the joy He is planting within us, the joy He feels at being in our presence—even when things aren’t going well, or at least not like we planned, or hoped. Let us spend time pondering why we are afraid, and where we might discern God’s presence—even in what frightens us. For me, that might mean looking for God’s presence in a stranger at the party, in the face of a stranger at the mall, or the eyes of an old friend I haven’t seen for years. In those moment of discomfort and challenge, where do I find God? And how? That is worth pondering. And that is the path to joy.
This year, whether I am at the school Christmas party or the neighbor’s holiday gathering, or eating tamales with family I rarely see, when I get that urge to excuse myself and hide, I just need to take a moment to ponder and remember: There is nothing to fear. God is already here. With me. Right here. Right now. In this moment, and in these people. In fact, He is with me always…
And even when times get tough, that is a reason for rejoicing.
