Third Sunday in Advent - Fr. Phil

THIRD SUNDAY IN ADVENT
December 14, 2008
Ss. Peter & Paul – 8 A.M.
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Today, the third Sunday in the season of Advent, is known in some places, like this one, as “Gaudete Sunday.” The Latin is “Rejoice” and comes from the beginning word of the Introit – or introduction – to the Latin Mass of this Sunday: “Rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say rejoice” (Philippians 4).
At the risk of being perceived as quite mad – today’s weather [at least predicted by meteorologists as treacherous], the market, the auto-industry, the Governor of Illinois, the cheating on Wall Street, the loss of jobs, the dismal economic outlook – I say to you: there is cause for great rejoicing today. Because whether you or I feel like it or not, the joy of God is with us, and always with us. We really have nothing to do with that joy, other than to find it at times in the most unlikely places.
So, what does it mean to rejoice? It seems rather obvious. But things need sorting out in the harried euphoria of this season, when we sing about joy but many face staggering depths of depression. Our culture generates a kind of frenzy, and the church can do some sorting out.
We may observe that joy spoken of here is not the same as pleasure, nor
satisfaction, nor even the emotional high we call happiness. It is rather a steady assurance of the resolution of all kinds of things that don’t seem to “fit”, an assurance that those contradictions may be blown off by what is about to happen. This is not delight in possession of something, but in passionate anticipation for what is not yet.
We may see that joy is not a mark of our culture. We can discern that by watching folks, especially in this season in the pushing and shoving – even the crushing-to-death – of a shopping mall or any other place where people have their guards down. Most people look bored or distracted or just plain tired. And boredom, distraction, and fatigue are not helpful conditions for joy. Joy is an active enterprise linked with dance and song, not an emotion of the bored or exhausted. So, our texts today are addressed to a social setting in which real joy is a rare practice among us.
The community of faith, a minority community, is invited to the scandalous, subversive activity of joy. This community is authorized to do something the dominant culture is unable or unwilling to do. While the large community prefers its sorry weariness, this community is invited to an alternative way in the world. Joy, genuine Christian joy, undermines frantic activity. It shakes us free from the world that controls us by keeping us tired. And the ground for this alternative action is that something special, not yet widely known in the world, has been disclosed to us. There is announced to us a fundamental transformation of reality. That is the reason for joy. That’s really the center of the Gospel, what John announced, what the path was to be made straight for.
And on this Sunday nearest the 38th anniversary of my ordination as a priest in the church of God, it is what makes me joyful. Being an innate pessimist and a “regretter,” I now am invited to look, in the spirit of Gaudete, at what is “good and beautiful and true” in those 38 years. Like John the Forerunner, I have tried to make the path straight for those who followed me in the various places I was called upon to serve God and the Church. While it is sad to hear that one little mission closed its doors, and another parish where I served as assisting priest and musician suffered an arson fire, and yet another has “joined the Cone” of disenchanted former Episcopalians, I rejoice that another is doing creative outreach when at one time there was practically none. Another now houses a growing Hispanic mission, alongside the “Anglo” one; my last parish before coming to Oregon is in an interim place now with fine, talented lay people holding forth in the absence of clerical leadership; and Ascension Parish here in Portland continues with a fine music program inaugurated by the musician I hired and encouraged, and their outreach has expanded, and this in a place where one of my predecessors had put it down huffily.
So, in the words of our epistle-reading today, “Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you” (I Thessalonians 5:16-18).
[The preacher, Fr. Phillip, is indebted to Walter Brueggemann for his notes in the Advent-Christmas portion of Proclamation 3, Series B, published by Fortress Press, 1984.]