Sunday, December 17, 2023 - Defiant Joy

This sermon was preached for the Third Sunday of Advent, Sunday, December 17, 2023 at St. Mark's Episcopal Church in East Longmeadow. The texts for this sermon were: Isaiah 61:1-4, 8-11, 1 Thessalonians 5:16-24, John 1:6-8,19-28, and Canticle 15 (The Magnificat). 

My first semester in college my roommate Raffie got me into this blog that was popular at the time called 1000 Awesome Things. Every day the blog will feature a short description of an awesome thing. My favorite example is #624 “the flavor pocket.” A flavor pocket is when you are eating a bag of chex mix and you bite into that one piece with all the seasoning packed on, or the fat glob of guacamole at the center of your burrito, or the spoonful of ice cream with the giant cookie dough chunk - just that extra, surprising mouthful of flavor. That’s a flavor pocket. And it’s awesome. 

Here’s a few more examples from the blog, which is now a book: #623 The sound of snow crunching under your boots, #622 When the dog’s really excited you’re back home, #621 Staying up past your bedtime when you were a kid. Like a lot of college freshmen, I was pretty lonely and homesick and uncertain of myself that first semester and following that blog gave me a daily reason to smile. 

The author of the blog was just this guy named Neil Pasricha. He started it in 2008 and in 2008, you may remember, the world was falling apart, and Neil’s marriage fell apart, too, and then his best friend died by suicide. So for Neil, updating the blog of 1000 Awesome Things every day was not just a heart-warming list to make people smile. It was a discipline. It was a commitment he had with himself to find reasons for joy in the smallest things, his collection of miniature love letters to life and why it is worth living. Defiant joy. 

This Sunday is Gaudete Sunday, the pink candle Sunday that’s set aside to remind us to make room and space for joy in the shadowy, waiting days of Advent. The joy we celebrate today is not the superficial cheeriness of the season, but deep, defiant joy, of the sort that resonates all through the song of Mary, the magnificat. 

My soul magnifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my savior, Mary declares. She proclaims this birth that is coming, this child growing inside of her, this isn’t just an awesome thing - this is THE awesome thing that’s going to change the world. My favorite image of Mary is by artist Ben Wildflower. It shows Mary with a raised fist, stomping on a serpent, surrounded by the words of the magnificat: “Cast down the mighty, send the rich away, fill the hungry, lift the lowly.” To fully appreciate the defiance of Mary’s wild joy, we must remember her context. She is a young girl, a teenager, about to be married to a much older man, and living in the precarious nightmare of being pregnant out of wedlock. She lives in a village under foreign occupation, amidst rumors of war and revolt.

Magnificat by Ben Wildflower

 Mary’s declaration is spoken in response to her older cousin Elizabeth. Elizabeth has just said to her: “As soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leaped for joy.”

My spirit rejoices, Mary replies. Mary knows better than us all: this is how joy breaks in, this is how salvation emerges into the world: a tiny, fragile newborn. 

I kept thinking about this climatic scene in the second book in the children’s book series, Harry Potter. Stuck in an underground chamber, alone and facing down the villainous embodiment of evil, the boy protagonist receives a gift from a powerful good wizard headmaster. It’s the tattered old hat that greets schoolchildren on the first day of school with a silly rhyming song and it’s delivered by the wizard’s flamboyant pet bird. When the villain sees the hat hanging limply in the boy’s hand, he laughs mockingly, "This is what Dumbledore sends his defender! A songbird and an old hat! Do you feel brave, Harry Potter? Do you feel safe now?"

At moments like this, in dark days in our personal life or the larger context of terrifying world events, it can feel so foolish to be going about the work of Christmas joy. As if God has armed us only with weak and insignificant items: pink candles, Christmas carols, brightly colored wrapping paper, and hand-knit stockings, in the face of evil and death. Here, God says, have the sound of snow, the exuberance of a dog, and a burst of flavor on the tongue. Tiny everyday awesome things. What is all of that in the face of bombs and cancer, injustice and dementia? What good are these tiny small sparks of joy in the face of all this crushing darkness? What are they to make us feel brave or safe?

My Episcopal priest friend, Father Lizzie McManus-Dail reminded me on her podcast this week that joy is a spiritual discipline.* She referenced a line from one of our nighttime compline prayers in the Book of Common Prayer: “Tend the sick, Lord Christ; give rest to the weary, bless the dying, soothe the suffering, pity the afflicted, shield the joyous; and all for your love's sake.” Shield the joyous.

This prayer became particularly important to me one Christmas season half a decade ago, when my entire community was anxious, stressed, and despairing about local and national events. At the same time, my now-husband and I had just gotten engaged - we were on cloud nine, giddy and in love. I fretted about the discrepancy between what I was feeling and what I saw in folks around me. My spiritual director at the time reminded me of that prayer, “shield the joyous.” It’s a holy thing to shield your joy, she said. A spiritual discipline that benefits not just you, but the world. 

From the tattered old hat, Harry Potter pulls out the glittering sword that appears to faithful people in their hour of need, and with that sword he slays the Dark Lord’s monstrous serpentine servant. For the moment, evil is vanquished. 

When it feels like the tools of joy are so feeble in comparison to the weapons of despair and sorrow, remember that there is great power concealed within them - within the jingle bell and the Douglas fir and the tinfoil star at its top. Their power comes from our renewed commitment to shield authentic joy whenever and wherever it bursts upon us. Their strength comes from the discipline of seeking and finding and celebrating all that there is to love about being human, no matter what. We may not brandish the sword that can defeat all this evil and death, but we can build a shield out of beautiful, fragile, awesome things. 

After all, if healthy relationships are built on the small gestures of love: the nightly bedtime stories with parent and child, the morning peck on the cheek from a spouse, the silly little jokes that arrive randomly over text from a friend, why not your relationship to God, God’s creation, and life itself? 

The first Sunday of Advent we prayed, “almighty God, give us grace to cast away the works of darkness, and put on the armor of light.” Today we read, “I will greatly rejoice in the Lord, for my whole being shall exult in my God; for he has clothed me with garments of salvation, he has covered me with the robe of righteousness…”

The spiritual discipline of joy is no small thing. It’s not about feeling better in the moment or a cheesy reason to smile. It’s the defiant, holy work of keeping ourselves, each other, and our faith alive. 

Perhaps you have plenty of joy to shield this season. Perhaps you are working hard to create joy and wonder for small children, even while your own worries abound. Perhaps you are still searching for joy for yourself in the midst of grief. 

Whatever your relationship with joy this season, shielding it or seeking it, know that it is all holy work. Know that you are in good company in that holy work of joy: you are joined by proclaiming angels, astonished shepherds, and majestic astrologers, you are bound up in the defiant, wild joy of a teenage girl who changed the world. 

*"What is joy?" And Also With You Podcast, Episode 13, December 11 by the Rev. Lizzie McManus-Dail and the Rev. Laura Di Panfilo.