Sermon: Joy

2007

Sermon: "Joy"

Delivered February 25, 2007 by Dr. Andrew Purves
as part of the Theologian in Residence Weekend.

Theme: Joy is a raucous and loud notion in the Bible. Biblically, joy is our sharing in our Lord's communion with the Father. It's the call to realize that in union with Christ we share in his joy – not about being upbeat, but about understanding that we share in the life of the Trinity.
"... the joy that I am speaking about is not just having an upbeat disposition now and then. I am not talking about being in a good mood or having a sunny smiley face on your face. I am talking about that deep deep down conviction that you know Jesus Christ has reached in to the hell of your humanity and healed it and brought you to communion with the father, that deep conviction that nothing the evil one can throw in your face, that nothing that a diagnosis can do to you, nothing that a broken relationship or a failed hope can do to you. You know that at the end of the day the final page of your autobiography has the name of Jesus Christ written on it and you are bonded to him and as Paul says in Romans 8, "Nothing can separate you from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.""

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Sermon Text: John 15:1-11 and Psalm 30

Rev. John Schmidt, introducing Dr. Purves:

We have a fun weekend this weekend. This is our theologian in residence weekend. Now we picked out that title because its true; we have a theologian in residence for the weekend and it's a title that has a long history here, but I must admit that there are people who have come up and said, "You know, when I came on Friday, I was afraid that this was going to be way too difficult to understand" and thankfully that person also told me that it wasn't and what we have found that even though its got a name that might not have grabbed your attention, the talks have grabbed our attention, because it's been clear; it has spoken to our minds, but it has spoken to our hearts and I have personally just experienced you know just a reconnection with the important things about my faith, as I understand ministry, to understand that it doesn't all depend on me, which is good news for me and it's real good news for you, but that it depends on Jesus Christ. So we have been blessed by having Dr. Andrew Purves here for the weekend and he will be preaching today.

Dr. Purves teaches pastoral theology at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary. He is a professor there. He is from Edinburg, Scotland, but has lived here for many years and has taught at the seminary now for about 24 years. He is married to Reverend Catherine Purves, who is a minister there in Pittsburgh. Dr. Purves goes to a lot of churches, lots of conferences to speak on the issues of renewal, to speak on the theological roots that we need to understand in the expression of our faith. Now in just a moment he is going to speak to us and I want to pray for him first, but I also want to let you know that because of the weather we have made a decision that it would make sense for him to leave immediately following his sermon so that we have the extra time to get him to the airport, trusting that the flights are going to be going out today. So he will be leaving after the sermon. It's not because he doesn't like the music or like us, it's a decision that George and I madetogether with him right before the start of this service.

Let's pray. Holy Father, we are awed that you have reached out to us and that we now have the privilege of worship, acceptable worship. What an amazing thing that we are acceptable and we can bring offerings, we can bring ourselves to you in worship. We thank you for your word, your word that you have given to reveal yourself to us. We thank you for the Holy Spirit that quickens that word and makes it real enough, makes it alive in us, applies it to our hearts and so we invite you Holy Spirit to walk up and down the aisles, to tap us on the shoulder, point out the things that we really need to hear and we pray that you will uphold Dr. Purves as he speaks. Grant him the words. Grant him the strength and grant us open ears so that we might respond to you with the obedience that comes through faith. For it's in Jesus name that we pray. Amen.

Welcome Dr. Purves.

Dr. Purves speaking:

The word of God, Psalm 30:

"I will extol you O Lord for you have drawn me up and did not let my foes rejoice over me. O Lord my God I cry to you for help and you have healed me. O Lord you brought up my soul from the grave, restored me to life from among those who had gone down to the pits. Sing praises to the Lord O you his faithful ones and give thanks to his holy name for his anger is but for a moment. His favor is for a lifetime. Weeping may linger for the night, but joy comes with the morning. As for me I said in my prosperity I shall never be moved. By your favor O Lord you had established me as a strong mountain. You hid your face. I was dismayed. To you O Lord I cried and to the Lord I made supplication. What profit is there in my death if I go down to the pit? Will the dust praise you? Will it tell of your faithfulness? Hear O Lord and be gracious to me, O Lord be my helper. You have turned my morning in to dancing. You have taken off my sackcloth and clothed me with joy so that my soul may praise you and not be silent. O Lord my God, I will give thanks to you forever."

And these words of the Lord Jesus from John 15, Verses 1 through 11:

"I am the true vine, and my Father is the vine grower. He removes every branch in me that bears no fruit and every branch that bears fruit he prunes to make it bear more fruit. You have been cleansed by the word that I have spoken to you. Abide in me as I abide in you. Just as a branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides on the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. I am the vine and you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit because apart from me you can do nothing. Whoever does not abide in me is thrown away like a branch and withers. Such branches are gathered and thrown in to the fire and burned. If you abide in me and my words abide in you, ask for whatever you wish and it will be done for you. My father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples. As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you. Abide in my love. If you keep my commandments you will abide in my love. Just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in his love, I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete."

This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. Come on, you can do better than that. This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.

Good to be with you this weekend and the way I am feeling right now, it will be go to be away from you this weekend if I can manage to get home and sleep in my own bed tonight. So pray for traveling mercy that at least the plane to Pittsburgh is up in the air. My wife is a pastor in Pittsburgh Presbytery and they canceled church this morning because of ice, but apparently it was to pass by noon, so who knows. We will see. It's good to be with you and good to be with your pastors. You have very special pastors in this church. Look after them. Pray for them and their families and for others in the ministry teams. Ministry is very difficult today for all manner of reasons and so I charge you in the name of the Lord Jesus to pray for your families, for your pastors and their families and those who are leading in ministry, that the ministry may go forward in power. I also greet you on behalf of the Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, the oldest Presbyterian Seminary in the country and by far the best.

In the name of God, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, Amen. My odd Lenten theme this morning is a strange little word, joy. Joy is hardly associated with Lent and yet I think it's appropriate to think about joy in Lent. Joy, just a little word, you can aspirate it in less than a second, just like a breath of air out of your lungs: 'joy' and its gone. You would hardly think such a little word could carry the weight of Christian fulfillment and expectation. 'Joy,' it's just a little word. One syllable and its gone. Well I want to suggest to you this morning that, in fact, joy is a huge word. Joy is an enormous word. Joy is a noisy word. Joy is a big word. Joy is a great word and I want to make case for joy this morning, as being integral to the Christian life and I want to begin by telling you a long story; a story of my pre-autobiography. Now there is an interesting concept and the adults among you will understand what it means once I have told the story without me going in to the gory details.

My mother and father were married in the holy city of Edinburg in 1939 in Scotland, the capitol city, my fair land and very soon after they were married Britain was at war and my father was called up to the army and sometime soon after basic training and so forth he was sent to Burma. Later in life my father would never talk of these years in Burma; they were quite ghastly, horrible and violent years apparently. My mother had grown up in Edinburg on Donald Street, you don't know Donald Street, but was a street where she grew up and then when my mother and father were married they got a little apartment on the same street, Donald Street. So as a young couple for a few months before the war they were living on the same street with the same neighbors with whom my mother had grown up. So my father goes off to the war and my mother never knew from one day, one week, one month perhaps or one year to another if my father was alive or dead, imprisoned or sick. There wasn't the same news capacity in these days and the story is told that in November 1945 after the war, my mother was in a little butcher shop on Donald Street. Can you picture these high Scottish tenements at street level that are little shops and little butcher shop and my mother was in this little butcher shop with some of the other women in the neighborhood and waiting in line and I see her with a ration book in one hand and her shopping bag in the other, waiting in line to get her little parcel of butcher meat and here I was in the street there was a noise beginning, some commotion is beginning and the women are curious, what's this noise? Is that cheering or shouting? It gets louder and building and building, cheering and clapping and the women are very curious what this is and eventually their curiosity gets the better of them and they walk to the door of the little butcher shop and there down the center of the street, not on the pavements down the side, but down the center of the street was my father walking home from the war. The story is that my mother dropped her shopping bag, let out a great big yell and ran in to the middle of street where they embraced, while the neighbors who have known my mother since she was a little girl were at their windows and at their doors cheering and shouting and making a great big noise. That morning in November 1945 for my mother joy had a name. His name was Jimmy, my father.

You're a young set, but there are enough of us here with grey hair or two who have been around the block, had some life experiences. Most of us we know what joy is and you could tell some of your similar joy stories. You know what the word joy means. We are not talking about having a good day. We are not talking about a little kind of nice effective experience of feeling upbeat for an hour or two. Joy as I am meaning it is a deep deep experience of great gratitude. Now I want to expand on that theme. I want begin by reflecting briefly on Psalm 30. Psalm 30 is a wonderful Psalm. Here is a man who is the Psalmist and everything has gone well. He is top of the heap. Things are going well. He is in charge of his life and he is assailed by some kind of an illness that looks like it may be an illness that will kill him and he cries out to the Lord, "Lord if I die and go down in to the underworld, will the dust praise you? Will the grave praise you?" He cries out to the Lord for God's mercy and healing.

And then in Verse 5 of Psalm 30 there is one of these great verses of the Bible. "Weeping may linger for the night, but joy comes with the morning." That's a verse you should type up and stick on your refrigerator. It's a great verse. "Weeping may linger for the night, but joy comes with the morning." Some of you are old enough to know what it is to have wept for a while in the night; a broken relationship, a diagnosis, a failure in some aspect of our lives, a dashed hope. I am a four-year cancer survivor and I know what it is to weep in the night, to weep in the morphine filled pain of the night. Weeping may linger in the night, but you know what the Psalmist and what the gospel later is telling us is that that which causes weeping does not write the final page of our life script. That which causes weeping is not the last act in our autobiographies. Weeping may linger in the night, but joy comes with the morning. The word in Hebrew is rinnah and it doesn't just mean joy; that's not a very good translation. I know there are two Old Testament scholars in the room and I am a little intimidated in saying this, but it's not just joy. I am having a good day. Jesus and I are out in the corner having warm fuzzies together; that's not what it's about. What the word means in this passage is not joy; that's a really kind of wimpy translation. What the word means in JOY (shouted). It's vigorous. It's loud. It's throwing a party and annoying the neighbors. It's getting cymbals and banging them. It's hitting drums with great rhythm and volume. It's joy. It's vigorous. I was dead, but now I am alive. I was lost, but now I am found. It was the darkness of night unto death and now it's the dawn of a new day and joy is the name of the day. Thank you. See if anybody else will follow your lead.

Folks this is the third time I have done this this morning and I don't know if I am getting home, encourage me. The last script of our life is not the cancer diagnosis. The last script of our life is not losing your job or having your hopes dashed. The last script of our life is not our death. The last script of our life is not the evil one thinking he can cut us off at the knees. I spit in the face of cancer and the evil one and death, because joy is the last script of our life in Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

You know what we say in Scotland; don't applaud, just throw money. That's naughty. Loud shouts of joy; Psalm 126 talks about loud shouts of joy, not just little whispered, timid little expulsions of air joy. Vigorous, loud, assertive joy. Have you ever noticed in the gospel of Luke; people say I say the word Luke funny, look up the Book of Luke, do I say that funny? The gospel of Luke begins with joy; and the angel of the Lord appeared to the shepherds; the annunciation and he said, "Do not be afraid for I am bringing you good news of great joy." Great joy, why? Because the Lord's birth is being announced. The one who would overcome the fatal separation between human kind and the Lord God almighty is going to be healed from God's side by God's act unilaterally and unconditionally by God. And at the very end of Luke's gospel after the ascension, the great forgotten doctrine, sometime I will come back another time and do a weekend on the ascension. I promise. I am a real vigorous ascension guy. After the ascension the disciples are walking back to Jerusalem and the text says they went on their way with great joy. Why? Because the tomb thought it had claimed him, but on the third day he was raised again and ascended in due course to the right hand of the father where all things, all things, all things are in the hands of the one who loved us and died for us and brings us home to the father.

At the end of John 15, Verse 11 we read that Jesus gives us his joy. Let me get the verse right. I have said these things to you, these things about abiding in him, about being deeply connected to him, about as John Calvin would say about being bonded in to Jesus Christ, being kind of glued in to Christ, cemented in to Christ. I have said these things to you so that my joy, my joy, the Lord's joy may be in you and so that your joys may be complete. My joy. His joy. He gives it away. Here, trust it. Here, my joy, it's yours, take it. I am giving it to you. I am giving you joy. What a joke. Presbyterians and joy. I mean think about it.

I have a book in my library in the seminary and it's called, The Encyclopedia of the Reformed Faith. It's a big big thing; The Encyclopedia of the Reformed Faith, edited by my friend Donald McKim and I thought I wonder what McKim has to say about joy and reformed faith, so I got to J, J, J and there was no entry under joy. Undaunted I went to Calvin's Institute and looked up the index and found one entry under joy; things are not so bad. Perhaps a joyful presbyterian is an oxymoron, I don't know. But the fact of the matter is if we have been bonded to Jesus Christ, if we have been bonded to Jesus Christ then joy has to be the hallmark of Christian existence. Why? Because he is our joy.

Hebrews 12:2 puts this in a Lenten context. "For the joy that was set before him", Hebrews 12:2, "For the joy that was set before him, he endured the cross." Now that at first glance is the darkest connection, connecting joy with the terrible, mutilating violent death of the cross. How can you put joy and cross in the same sentence? Well, what was the Lord's joy that he gives to us that's connected with the cross? I am sure you are making the connections already. What was his joy? I come to do the will of him who sent me. His joy was to leave his throne in glory, to become a dulas, a slave, not just a servant, a slave the New Testament says; to empty himself of his glory in order that he might go all the way into the hell of our separation from God to bring healing and reconciliation at that place and in those lives who cant' do it for themselves. His joy is that he fulfilled the loving, willing purpose of God and to salvation reconciliation and restoration to communion with the father. He goes all the way in to our hell. Some churches in the old UP tradition we have up in Pennsylvania, in the creed, don't descend in to hell. You know, you go to preach there on a guest Sunday and one of the things you have to ask, do you descend in to hell? I am glad that we descended to hell in the creed, because that's what I am living my life outside of Jesus Christ. I am in hell. I don't have a hope in hell. Can I say that here? Yeah.

If you have been brought up in Scotland with a Westminster Calvinism that has killed Christianity in Scotland; you bet I am mad because I want to be filled with the passion of Jesus Christ and I see of the preaching and the teaching of the gospel that does not unleash the liberation of freedom in Jesus Christ. Thank you for the question. I will pay you later. This Sunday morning in my home country of Edinburg, less than 5% of the people are in church and part of it is this preaching of a guilt ridden, introspective, fear-oriented Christianity. It's killed the faith in Scotland. Joyless. Right, just go to church. They are all sitting there wrapped in overcoats not relating to one another because they might have a cheery moment and yet joy is the key signature of the gospel. It's the summary of Christian fulfillment and you cannot be in Jesus Christ; that is to say receiving his redemption, receiving his salvation, receiving what he gives: the restoration to communion with the father. You can't be abiding in Christ and not be caught up in to his joy, his victory.

One of the first times that I put something together on joy was for a large conference and I was sharing the stage, the speaking duties with a well-known academic psychiatrist. I am not going to mention his name, but he was a Methodist and I do my little talk on joy. Now I'm a Celt. My mother was Irish and my father was Scottish, of course I am melancholy. I'm a Celt. You know the word, dour? North Americans tend to mispronounce the word dour. They call if dower. It's a Scottish word trust me, 'dure.' I know what I am talking about and people tend to talk about dour Scots and by implication dour Presbyterians. So this psychiatrist comes up to me after my speech and he says, "Purves, you are not really very joyful are you, ha ha ha?" And I said to myself, "Well this guy may be a jolly good psychiatrist, but he's a terrible theologian, because the joy that I am speaking about is not just having an upbeat disposition now and then. I am not talking about being in a good mood or having a sunny smiley face on your face. I am talking about that deep deep down conviction that you know Jesus Christ has reached in to the hell of your humanity and healed it and brought you to communion with the father, that deep conviction that nothing the evil one can throw in your face, that nothing that a diagnosis can do to you, nothing that a broken relationship or a failed hope can do to you. You know that at the end of the day the final page of your autobiography has the name of Jesus Christ written on it and you are bonded to him and as Paul says in Romans 8, "Nothing can separate you from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord."

So folks it's not joy. It's JOY, (shouted) vigorous and assertive spitting in the face of cancer and the evil one and divorce and all the other things that would seek to destroy us. I know that my redeemer lives and I charge you in the name of Jesus Christ, joyful Presbyterians: take your joy in to the streets and in to the places of work and in to classrooms and in to the hospitals and the cancer wards and the elementary schools, take the joy out in to the places where people do whatever people do and let that deep joy motivate you to share in ministry to the broken of the world and do it not with guilt or obligation, but with joy, because you have been bonded to Jesus Christ, abiding deeply in him.

Now 20 minutes or so ago I said that on that November day in 1945 joy had a name for my mother, his name was Jimmy my father. Well I want to tell you that for all of us joy too has a name. It is the name that is above every name. It is the name before which every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that he is Lord. Joy has a name. Let's see if we can lift the roof off this place. The name is Jesus! I am out of here.

Rev. John Schmidt speaking:

Let's pray. Lord, thank you for this word. We pray for protection over Dr. Purves now as he drives and then flies home and we pray for the rooting of this word in to our lives now, so that we might know and experience this joy and share our joy and the Christ of our joy with others. For it's in his name that we pray. Amen.