Sunday, October 9, 2005
“Rejoice in the Lord Always” and other Annoying Bible Verses

Philippians 4:1-9

A few years ago I was at a conference where I met an earnest young African pastor who took my hand and told me, among other things, to "Rejoice in the Lord Always." He was very joyful. He told me so several times. He was also rather irritating. I was in no mood to rejoice. I was scared. I was on the edge of my marriage falling apart, my father-in-law was dying of cancer, and my time in the Oregon legislature was coming to an end due to term limits and I had no idea what was going to come next. The last thing I was interested in was happy Hallmark Card bible verses, you know - the kind people hand off because they don't know what else to say or how to listen.

My new friend, knowing none of this about me, babbled on for a few more minutes and then gave me his card with his name and title, his little life motto "Rejoice in the Lord Always" and the address of his home which was located in …Rwanda.

Six years after one of the worst, most brutal genocides since the Holocaust I was now standing in front of a man who had somehow managed to live through hell on earth. A man who's personal bumper-sticker of his life was, "Rejoice in the Lord always. Again, I say rejoice."

Do you have any idea how annoying this is? Without a doubt I was humbled, and I understood that as bad as things were in my life it certainly could be worse, but things were bad in my life and they got a lot worse before they got better. To be joyful in the face of what came to pass would have been a complete denial of the very real grief and anger that every one enters into when life changes unexpectedly. There are some strands of Christianity where everyone is supposed to be Happy in Jesus, and if you aren't happy then you may not be a good enough Christian. I was a cranky Christian and good enough or not, I was going to be spending some serious time over in the cranky part of my faith.

Listen, Grief is real. Grief must have its season. Grief can not be rushed nor willed away. Grief is personal and is not diminished or exalted when compared to another person's loss. My friend, Jon-Paul, irritated me that day, but I have thought about him from time to time since that August in 1999.
I wondered what it was that helped him be able to say so enthusiastically and consistently, "Rejoice in the Lord Always."

Paul wrote these words, the words we read this morning, from prison somewhere in the Mediterranean. We think Philippians was probably his last letter to any of his beloved congregations that he worked hard to establish throughout the Mediterranean basin.

Shortly after Jesus' death and resurrection, Paul was traveling to Damascus, on his way to administer correction to these delusional Jews who were babbling about this risen messiah when he encountered the living Christ in a way that completely changed his life. Once a persecutor of Christians, he became an evangelist for Christ. Paul also became an outsider to almost everyone. The newly forming Jewish-Christian community forming in Jerusalem could never quite accept Paul. Paul was pushing their buttons on who was "in" and who was "out." It does not appear that Paul had a home or a family. He traveled from city to city where he'd start out stone cold preaching in the middle of the market square and out of who responded he formed a congregation. He was shipwrecked and imprisoned several times and in each of those times found a way to point toward Jesus' gracious love for all. He had some physical affliction that he willed to be healed but instead learned to accept. We don't know what it was for he didn't say - these letters weren't written for eventual publication but were personal letters of pastoral concern - but we do know there was an affliction that was a physical burden to him. We also believe he was put to death, probably in Rome. In this last letter, written from prison, Paul is aware that his life is at risk. And he writes, "Rejoice in the Lord always. Again I say rejoice."

How do they do this, Paul and my Rwandan friend? Are they in denial of the facts? Or do they have a hold of something that runs deeper? Is it true that God can sustain us in the face of the most unimaginable?

The writer of the Gospel of Matthew thinks so. He comes straight out in the first chapter and names Jesus as Emmanuel, God-with-us, and keeps it going to the last verse where Jesus instructs the disciples, "Remember, I am with you to the end of time."

Paul thinks so. He writes, "The Lord is near."

Dietrich Bonhoffer also writing from prison in 19944 where he faced a death sentence for conspiring to assassinate Hitler, thought so as well.

" All that we may rightly expect from God, and ask him for, is to be found in Jesus Christ. The God of Jesus Christ has nothing to do with what God, as we imagine him, could do and ought to do. If we are to learn what God promises, and what he fulfills, we must persevere in quiet meditation on the life, sayings, deeds, sufferings, and death of Jesus. It is certain that we may always live close to God and in the light of his presence, and that such living is an entirely new life for us; that nothing is then impossible for us, because all things are possible with God; that no earthly power can touch us without his will, and that danger and distress can only drive us closer to him. I t is certain that we can claim nothing for ourselves, and may yet pray for everything; it is certain that our joy is hidden in suffering, and our life in death; it is certain that in all this we are in a fellowship that sustains us. In Jesus God has said Yes and Amen to it all, and that Yes and Amen is the firm ground on which we stand."

Maybe we have a misunderstanding of "Rejoice." Maybe this works better if we say, "Have confidence in the Lord Always. Have confidence that God is near."

As I prepared this sermon, I spent some time thinking about suffering, It's one of the great questions about God and God's actions among us, God's beloved children. Why do we suffer? What is the point? Many, who want order and purpose somewhere in this apparently chaotic world, want everything in our life to come from God - and that the good is a reward for our good behavior as if we were still in kindergarten - and the bad was either punishment or God's wanting to teach us a lesson.

Can you tell me what lesson God is trying to teach the peoples of Pakistan, Afghanistan, Cashmere this morning where 30,000 lie dead in their beds and schools and work places and markets? What instruction could be worth such loss?

Some say suffering builds character. We learn about our human limits, we learn not to be prideful, we learn compassion for others. Yesterday I sat at a light in San Rafael and watched a man struggle across the street on crutches and with special orthopedic shoes because from birth his legs are mismatched and unusually short. Exactly how much character does this man need?
There are lots of theories, but the only one that I can wrap my hands around is: God is in it with us. God is near. Jesus Christ went to the cross to show us how God is with us. Jesus, being both God and human, endures the absence of God and enters into death. and then returns from death to show us that this isn't all there is.

Nicholas Wolterstoff writes in his book, Lament for a Son, a book of personal meditations he wrote after the death of his adult son in a climbing accident:

"For a Long time I knew that God is not the impassive, unresponsive, unchanging being portrayed by the classical theologians. I knew of the pathos of God. I knew of God's response of delight and of his response of displeasure. But strangely, his suffering I never saw before.
"God is not only the God of the sufferers but the God who suffers. The pain and fallenness of humanity have entered into his heart. Through the prism of my tears I have seen n a suffering God.

"It is said of God that no one can behold his face and live. I always thought this meant that no one could see his splendor and live. A friend said perhaps it meant that no one could see his sorrow and live. Or perhaps his sorrow is splendor.

"And great mystery: to redeem our brokenness and lovelessness the God who suffers with us did not strike some mighty blow of power but sent his beloved son to suffer like us, through his suffering to redeem us from suffering and evil.

"Instead of explaining our suffering God shares it.

"But I never saw it. Though I confessed that the man of sorrows was God himself, I never saw the God of sorrows. Though I confessed that the man bleeding on the cross was the redeeming God, I never saw God himself on the cross, blood from sword and thorn, and nail dripping healing into the world's wounds.

"What does this mean for life, that God suffers? I'm only beginning to learn. When we think of God the Creator, then we naturally see the rich and powerful of the earth as his closest image. But when we hold steady before us the sight of God the Redeemer redeeming from sin and suffering by suffering, then perhaps we must look else where for the earth's closet icon. Where? Perhaps to the face of that woman with soup tin in hand and bloated child at side. Perhaps that is why Jesus said that inasmuch as we show love to such a one, we show love to him."

Rejoice in the Lord Always. Have confidence that God is near. Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.
I am deeply grateful that the ancient songs to God in our scripture, the ones that the children of God have been singing at least since the first temple was built, include the cranky voice, the angry voice, the demanding voice, the voice filled with grief and despair. " How long, O LORD? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I bear pain in my soul, and have sorrow in my heart all day long?" We have the freedom to bring it all to God, even our icky, not-nice emotions. We need this freedom and we have it - for God isn't afraid of us. Our anger, our fears, our grief is a part of how God made us.

"Consider and answer me, O LORD my God! Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep the sleep of death, the writer of Psalm 13 demanded. And the ones who collected and preserved this text as our best testament to God's work in our world, said, this too belongs in our history together.

Again, turning to Nicholas Wolterstoff, "Suffering is the shout of "No" by one's whole existence to that over which one suffers - the shout of "no" by nerves and gut and gland and heart to pain, to death, to injustice, to depression, to hunger, to humiliation, to bondage, to abandonment." When we suffer, we understand that this is not how its supposed to be, that there is brokeness in God's desired creation. Our pain testifies to God's intended goodness. Because we can see where this world falls short, we can refuse to accept the status quo. We can see what should be, we can claim hope - however small that hope may first appear - that it will be as God desires it to be. Because we can claim hope, we can, when we are ready, live toward that hope.

At this conference, a gathering of peacemakers from all over the world - ordinary people actually who had found themselves suddenly doing something extra ordinary, there was also a woman from Rwanda. She was someone who had once been a mother and a wife but who was now a widow and a childless mother. In one of our gatherings she stood before us to tell us her story. She said she had been angry. That she hated the killers of her family. She told us that she was consumed with that rage. Then, someone came to her, perhaps it was my pastor friend, someone came to her and other women like her and said, 'look, let's go feed the men who killed your family. They are in prison and are suffering." In Rwanda, like many countries, people who are in prison are dependent on families and friends to bring them food. She said at first she refused. Then one day she went. She prepared food to feed the ones who had killed her family. At first they were afraid of her and refused to accept her meals. But they were hungry and for reasons she didn't understand in herself, she kept going back. In time, each came to see the other as "human." "Now I am no longer angry," she said. "Now there is peace."

"And the peace that passes all understanding will be yours," Paul writes from prison.

Rejoice in the Lord always is not a Hallmark card verse. Paul was in prison and facing death when he wrote these words to his beloved congregation in Phillipi. It's not an attempt to avoid the pain of his situation, the suffering that came with imprisonment and separation. It is a statement of hope and comfort, a statement we can claim as followers of the one who suffered and died and lived again. Where we are is not all that there is or will be.

Listen, Grief is real. Grief must have its season. Grief can not be rushed nor willed away. But grief is not our fate, it is not our curse, it is not our ultimate destiny and we will not be left abandoned in its depths forever.

The writer of Psalm 13, one of my favorite cranky psalms, claims that truth. "But I trusted in your steadfast love; my heart shall rejoice in your salvation. I will sing to the LORD, because he has dealt bountifully with me."

Rejoice in the Lord always. Again, I say, rejoice.

And let the people say,
AMEN

Sleepy Hollow Presbyterian Church - San Anselmo, CA

(c) Anitra Kitts 2005, please contact for permission to use.