Joy

This week we played JOY Bingo, giving you all the chance to write 1-9 in whatever order you'd like in your Bingo squares. As we pulled numbers out of the jar and you worked towards "BINGO!" and your corresponding candy prizes, we had the following discussions:

1. Joy is the serious business of heaven (said by none other than C.S. Lewis)- it's the emotion that best reflects the message of the Gospel, and it's emphasized in scripture:

 I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full. - John 15:11 (Jesus teaching had one goal- joy)

We are writing these things so that our joy may be complete. - 1 John 1:4 (Jesus apostles shared this same goal)

We are workers with you for your joy, because you stand firm in the faith. - 1 Cor. 1:24 (Paul's ministry was also driven by one thing)

 Joy is something deep within our faith tradition- it's not something superficial and unimportant.

2. Joy is deep, substantial and lasting. It doesn't fade with overexposure, and it's re-energizing rather than exhausting. This makes it different than pleasure and happiness- ice cream can make us happy, but it's an easy come, easy go feeling and too much of it can make us sick and tired (same with casual sex). Endless shopping can turn into boredom and it never truly satisfies- though it can give us the temporary high of happiness. Joy has to be something more!

3. Good news of great ________. Happiness? No- The very wise C.S. Lewis once said, "I didn't go to religion to make me happy. I always knew a bottle of Port would do that. If you want a religion to make you feel really comfortable, I certainly don't recommend Christianity." Pleasure? Fun? No, not really. Joy is the only one that truly fits. We had two quotes to go along with this one:

But fun is not what joy is about. Indeed the real enemy of joy is that self-absorption that seeks to be endlessly entertained, constantly distracted, always busy. The pursuit of happiness is a hard taskmaster and like most tyrants is suspicious of anything resembling Sabbath rest, much preferring the 24/7 economy of convenience, a consumer culture that is on all the time.In fact, the disappearance of Sabbath in our culture and the corresponding passion for "amusing ourselves to death" should offer us a clue as to why joy is so difficult for us today and why our desperate activity has such a nihilistic edge to it. (Currie)

Feast means joy. Yet, if there is something that we-- the serious, adult and frustrated Christians of the twentieth century-- look at with suspicion, it is certainly joy. How can one be joyful when so many people suffer? When so many things are to be done? How can one indulge in festivals and celebrations when people expect from us "serious" answers to their problems? Consciously or subconsciously, Christians have accepted the whole ethos of our joyless and business-minded culture. They believes that the only way to be taken "seriously" by the "serious"-- that is, by the modern man-- is to be serious, and therefore, to reduce to a symbolic "minimum" what in the past was so tremendously central in the life of the Church- the joy of the feast. The modern world has relegated joy to the category of "fun" and "relaxation." It is justified and permissible on our "time off;" it is a concession, a compromise. And Christians have come to believe all this, or rather they have ceased to believe that the feast, the joy have something to do precisely with the "serious problems" of life itself, may even be THE Christian answer to them. (Schmemann)

 4. Quotes:

I think God will forgive everything except a lack of joy; when we forget that God created the world and saved it. Joy is not one of the components of Christianity, it's the tonality of Christianity that penetrates everything- faith and vision. Where there is no joy, Christianity becomes fear [and guilt] and therefore torture. (Schmemann)

We need a "joyful spirit of festivity" because "it is an occupational hazard of devout folk to become stuffy bores. They should not be. Of all people, we should be the most free, alive, interesting. Celebration adds a note of festivity and hilarity to our lives. (Foster)

5. Joy is a choice, rather than something we "receive."

Some people become bitter as they grow old. Others grow old joyfully. That does not mean that the life of those who become bitter was harder than the life of those who become joyful. It means that different choices were made, inner choices, choices of the heart. (Nouwen)

6. Joy withstands all trials. God's love is the only thing that is eternally stable- he loves us no matter what, during the easy times as well as the hard. And in that, there is joy in doing the Father's will; joy in our Father's will is what gives us the motivation to do hard things- Jesus endured the cross for the joy set before him. Joy and suffering can co-exist, and joy in the midst of suffering is the clearest possible meaning of joy (because there can be no question of it being confused with happiness or pleasure).

7. Joy is an abiding, God-given reality. It's a fruit of the Holy Spirit that we choose to express, characterized by a profound serenity and inner peace. It flows from allowing oneself to be embraced by God's love, and because it rests on relationship rather than circumstance, it can withstand all the trials and tribulations of life.

Authentic joy is not something flippant, transient, or superficial, nor is it a mere feeling of euphoria that can be generated at will or by engaging in the various forms of pleasure or entertainment that today's world has to offer.Rather it is an abiding God-given reality, a "fruit of the Holy Spirit" (see Gal. 5:22), characterized by profound serenity and inner peach, which flows from allowing oneself to be embraced by God's love and is capable of withstanding all the trial and tribulations of life (Murphy)

8. Mary is an excellent example of embracing joy in the mist of less than perfect circumstances. She knew that accepting God's will would make her ostracized and potentially even condemned to being stoned to death. Following God's will would cause her even more suffering- and yet, we have her Magnificat, an explosion of rejoicing over the impending birth of her child and savior:

And Mary said,

I’m bursting with God-news;
    I’m dancing the song of my Savior God.
God took one good look at me, and look what happened—
    I’m the most fortunate woman on earth!
What God has done for me will never be forgotten,
    the God whose very name is holy, set apart from all others.
His mercy flows in wave after wave
    on those who are in awe before him.
He bared his arm and showed his strength,
    scattered the bluffing braggarts.
He knocked tyrants off their high horses,
    pulled victims out of the mud.
The starving poor sat down to a banquet;
    the callous rich were left out in the cold.
He embraced his chosen child, Israel;
    he remembered and piled on the mercies, piled them high.
It’s exactly what he promised,
    beginning with Abraham and right up to now. (Luke 1:46-55)

9. What is the opposite of joy? It's not sadness- that's the opposite of happiness. The opposite of joy is apathy, despair, boredom, ennui, and emptiness.

5 Minutes of God Time: Mary, did you know? by Pentatonix