In the Gospel lesson today, Jesus used several keywords that are essential to understanding what he is talking about. Love, abide, commandments, joy, and friends are some of the important terms Jesus uses. I want us to focus on the term Joy for a little while.
The closer we get to God, the more we become able to see how the enemy uses good things created by God, like joy, to attack us. How often do we feel great joy at the failure of others? Joy at seeing people “get what they deserve.” I would venture to say that some of the greatest joys we experience are at the expense of other people. Don’t believe me? Well, let me give you a few examples.
For, allow me go someplace littered with landmines and hope I don’t blow myself up. Politics! No matter which team you are on, the blue team or the red team, or the I don’t have a team, team, how often do we feel joy by the failings of the leaders of the political party with whom we disagree? For many, there is great joy when some politicians are fact-checked, and their ideas and statements are proved to be mostly false. For others, there is great joy when politicians are shown to be corruptible or seem to have a hard time explaining ideas effectively. Our current state of political tribalism is causing our great republic to be a dualistic nation of warring factions instead of being one nation under God. The cause of much of this is a disjointed and corrupted understanding of joy.
Sports is a less controversial but equally powerful example of this. I know from experience the intense feelings of joy sports have brought me in my life. In some cases, that joy has been due to personal accomplishments, or the accomplishments of a team I root for. But all too often, and across all sport, the great joy we feel is not because of the success we have witnessed, but for the sadness of the group of fans, or the team, or the person we cannot stand when they fail or lose. A great example of this is rooting against a team no matter who they play. Growing up, I always told people I had two favorite baseball teams, the Mets and anyone who was playing against the Yankees. I am embarrassed to tell you the amount of joy I have felt in my life over the Yankees losing. (That joy does pale in comparison to the sorrow I have felt watching the Mets try to win,) These two examples prove that a good and virtuous thing like joy can become as sinful as hate.
So, when Jesus in today’s lesson speaks about Joy, what exactly is he saying? I want to use a theological definition of Joy by Karl Rahner, who was one of the most influential theologians of the 20th century. “Joy is the basic frame of mind which results from the experience of the ordered harmony of the plurality of human existence. This harmony is ultimately based on the intrinsic harmony of creation itself; it reaches its climax by the loving deed of the Creator himself whereby he has revealed his Son as the sense and ground of this creation and ordered creation to him. From this point of view, joy becomes joy in God and his salvation.”
True joy is to be found in knowing that Jesus Christ wants all people to be reconciled to him. Jesus wants all people to be his friends, as the disciples who he is speaking to in the lesson today are his friends. To feel joy in the Christian sense of the word is to rejoice that all who come to Christ are saved by him. That is the starting point for our collective and our individual joy.
Now that we understand joy, we can talk about the commandment Jesus gives us to love one another as Jesus loves each of us. Jesus defines this love by saying, “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.” This is, of course, Jesus foreshadowing his death on the cross where he lays down his life for each of us, his friends. It’s also a call to action for all of us, to lay down our lives for each other. As much as I would appreciate one of you diving in front of a bullet for me, to lay down our lives for another does not have to be so extreme an action. The often-used term to die to self is a much more practical way to lay down our lives for our friends. To die to self is to, instead of taking joy in the failure of another, to mourn with that person, even when you warned him or her of the impending mistake or misunderstanding of an issue. To die to self is to let go of the intoxicating need to be right and to embrace the virtue of charity toward neighbor.
You all know I love sports; there is a video that has widely circulated on the internet that I think illustrates the concept I am preaching about today. This event took place in Saint Paul, Minnesota. Two high school baseball teams were playing for a spot in the state championship tournament. The pitcher, Ty Koen (Cain), found himself pitching with two outs in the last inning to one of his best friends Jack Kocon. Ty struck out Jack to end the game. As Ty’s team ran onto the field to celebrate, Ty ran toward Homeplate and sidestepped his catcher to embrace his friend Jack whom he had just struck out. Jack said this, “I will never remember the score of that game, but I will always remember what Ty did for me.” What Ty did, was instead of entering into the joy of the moment, he, by embracing Jack, instead entered in the pain of his friend, thereby dying to self and giving his friend Joy. Joy that he will always cherish and remember.
God has revealed to us through Jesus Christ that we are His friends. We have each been chosen by God to bear fruit for his kingdom, to bear the fruit of love and joy for Jesus’s sake. We are to be the branches that graft people to the vine. Jesus is the vine, we are the branches, and we attract people to Jesus through our lives. Abide in God’s love, and rejoice that the salvation won for us by Jesus is available to all people. Rejoice that even those who we cannot stand to be around today will one day be standing next to us, completely enraptured with joy, as we together worship God in perfect holiness.
Sermon preached by the Reverend Christian M. Wood
Church of the Redeemer
Sarasota, Florida
6th Sunday of Easter
May 9, 2021