Where is Joy?
Glory be to the one, holy, and undivided trinity, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.
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What brings you joy? [pause]
And I’m not talking about “happiness”. Not merely a good mood. I’m talking about that irrepressible, chest- or gut-filling feeling that comes with the recognition of that which is good, present in your life. For me, it feels like my whole being is resonating with the beat of some divine drum.
What fills you with that kind of feeling, with deep joy? [pause]
Now that we’ve all had a moment to think of an answer or two to that question, I’m gonna go out on a limb here and guess that not many of us in this room thought of the word “obedience” anywhere in our answers.
Fair enough. Most of us are Americans, after all. The people of independence! Liberty! Freedom! We associate being bound with oppression, responsibility with tedium, and, all too often, commitment with fear of missing out.
As a culture, we are definitely the people of being self-sufficient and keeping options open.
So what on Earth are we to do with this morning’s scripture readings?
Who wants to have laws tattooed on their hearts, like the prophet Jeremiah? Who delights in decrees and statutes, like the psalmist? Who wants to pay the price of falling into the earth like a grain of wheat, and dying in order to bear much fruit?
And yet. Jesus says, “Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. Whoever serves me must follow me.”
And we in this room all know where Jesus is going: to Jerusalem, and to the cross.
And what does he say? “‘Father, save me from this hour’?” No. He prays, “Father, glorify your name.”
He is obedient. And he saves us all. What deep goodness. What joy.
This is one of the deep paradoxes of Christian faith, and it is something we must all wrestle with: our egos tell us that we will have joy when we have what we want. But in reality, it is being obedient, saying no to what we want and yes to what God wants, that is the most joyful thing we can possibly do. Even when it is scary, and painful, and hard.
Now, allow me to clarify, because there are some ways that this message, which is at the heart of the Christian faith, has been grievously misrepresented.
So. First, this is about saying no to our own ego in order to say yes to God, not to other people’s ideas about God, or to filling every need of every other person we come across, which is something only God can do anyway. The job of messiah is already taken, there are no vacancies, and applications are no longer being accepted at this time. So if someone is attempting to use this deep truth to guilt and manipulate you, then they are misusing it. And, by the way, that also goes for using it to guilt yourself.
Second, I am not saying that everything we want is bad. In regard to small things: by all means, enjoy life’s pleasures, as long as you aren’t harming anyone. And in the big things, when our desires and God’s will are aligned, it is a powerful synergy that can in fact be a sign from the Holy Spirit that we are on the right track in our ongoing walk of discipleship and discernment.
So that’s what I’m not talking about.
I am talking about those moments, and we’ve all been there, when we have a desire, or a dream, or a plan, and we know God has a different one. I had a crossroads moment like this several years ago. I was five years into a discernment process for monastic life in the Episcopal church.
Some don’t know this, but there are in fact Episcopal monks and nuns, as well as other beautiful varieties of vowed religious in the Episcopal section of God’s garden. My journey with monastic life began when I lived for a year at the Society of Saint John the Evangelist. But, it turned out, they weren’t quite ready for a non-binary transgender member. And then, it turned out, neither was the Order of the Holy Cross. Or the Order of Saint Helena, or the Society of Saint Francis, or the Community of Divine Love, or, or, or… I had a dream of becoming a monk. I truly wanted nothing more. But it seemed to be the one dream I couldn’t quite reach, no matter how hard I tried. No community that I wanted also wanted me.
Finally, in desperation, knowing that while it wasn’t my preference, I could opt for being a solitary monastic, I took simple vows, in the presence of twelve friends, in the summer of 2020.
Thinking that I would simply have to be the founder of the community I had hoped to find, I moved in the fall of 2020 to Sewanee, to begin a Masters of Divinity program in order to gain the education I felt I would need for an undertaking of this solemnity and magnitude.
I moved to Sewanee in the middle of COVID, disheartened, alone, and sad. In possession of a dream, a plan for myself, that I had no idea other than a vague hope, how I would fulfill. And it was a really good dream. Being a monk is a beautiful vocation.
And yet. God had a different plan,
Shortly after I moved to Sewanee, I met the most vivacious and captivating person. She demonstrated love to everyone - seeming to have no end to her capacity for generosity, kindness, and care. She had a voracious curiosity and the intellectual acumen for stimulating conversation on seemingly any topic. She had a passion for justice, and wanted to see God’s kingdom built, and to see the Church do it. And her son was the sweetest, most fun-loving kid, who took after her in the most endearing ways.
I found, very soon, that I loved them both. And I was hopelessly confused. This was completely different from prior moments which had tried my sense of vocation before. Always previously I had felt the Spirit saying to me in moments of attraction, “This person is not yours. You are not theirs. You belong to me.” And that had been that. But when I met Dawn and Declan, everything changed. I heard the Spirit saying like a drum beat in my heart, “Love Dawn and Declan. Love Dawn and Declan.”
And give up my dream? Yes. And love someone in a way I thought I never could, and accept love in a way I thought no one would ever offer? Yes.
And ironically, it was monastic wisdom that gave me the push I needed to accept obedience and enter into the joy God had prepared for me, rather than the dream I had planned for myself. As the rule of the Society of Saint John the Evangelist says,
“Obedience is a path of detachment. We have our own ideas of how best to serve God, our dreams of serving in particular ways. God’s actual call will often be to follow in other ways; as our vocation unfolds we will find that obedience requires us to lay aside again and again the plans we had made for ourselves. Monastic obedience gives us constant practice in letting go of attachment to our individual preferences and learning to trust in the wisdom of the community. It trains us to be resilient and prompt in responding to the Lord in the here and now.”
In the here and now of that time in my life, God was calling me to a whole new way of thinking of myself and my most fundamental relationships.
And now, I am honored to be given daily the continuing task of saying “no” to my own ego, the same as would be required of me in any monastery, and saying “yes” to the awe-inspiring and exquisite joy of being a parent to Declan, and a spouse to Dawn. I have learned to dance to the drumbeat the Spirit still plays in my heart: “Love Dawn and Declan. Love Dawn and Declan.”
And as any parent and spouse knows, this is often no easy task. I am called upon to give up lots of things my ego thinks I want more than that joy. But, as Dawn and Declan lovingly remind me when I all too easily forget, my ego’s selfish desires are also always wrong.
Because in reality, it is being obedient, saying no to what we want, or think we want, and yes to what God wants, that is the most joyful thing we can possibly do. Even when it is scary, and painful, and hard.
So when Jesus says, “Follow me”, and goes to Jerusalem, and the cross, we can follow him with joy. Next week, on Palm Sunday, and throughout Holy Week, we will be given the opportunity (liturgically, rather than literally speaking), to do exactly that. I pray God gives each of us that grace.
Amen.
