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| A member congregation of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America | ||
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December 2002
Some years ago, Pastor Harold Skillrud, who was then bishop of our Southeastern Synod, told of a trip to Africa he had made. In Nairobi he visited the worst slums he had ever seen. Home for many people was an 8 X 10 shack made of tin or cardboard in which as many as ten people would live. Sanitary conditions were awful. There was little fresh water and disease was rampant. The adults and children he saw had nothing. They were the poorest of the poor. The Bishop gave a Catholic nun, who worked with the families, a packet of inexpensive devotional booklets to distribute to the children. The nun said the children would be ecstatic. They would treat them as precious gifts, she said, so little did they have and so rarely did they receive any gift at all. When the Bishop saw for himself the reaction of the children as they were given the booklets, he was amazed. The children were overjoyed. What stunned him was that these children who had nothing could express great joy. They had the capacity for joy. The Bishop then told of returning to the United States and spending Christmas with his son's family. His grandchildren were surrounded by gifts on Christmas morning. The day after Christmas, he took his grandchildren to a store to exchange a gift for his grandson. When his little granddaughter saw her brother seemingly get an additional gift, she asked the Bishop, "What are you going to get me, Grandpa?" The Bishop tried to explain to her that her brother was not getting another gift, only exchanging one for the other, but it was no use. His granddaughter kept asking, "What are you going to get me?" The Bishop commented that as much as it hurt him to say it about his own grandchildren, or any child, it seemed that many children in the United States had little or no capacity for joy, but primarily a capacity for envy or jealousy over what someone else receives. "It's not just the children," the Bishop said. "It's the adults as well." What about that? In our culture, in our society with its never-ending emphasis of getting, gaining, and having more, do we still have the capacity for joy? Joy is not happiness. Happiness is something we do for ourselves and often depends on what others do. Happiness is what we feel when we accomplish something, when everything goes smoothly, or everyone cooperates and does what we want. It is something we deserve, we say. On the other hand, joy is not a reward but is a gift. Joy is what we experience when we receive an unexpected, wondrous gift. It is when we realize that we are loved in all our beauty and our ugliness, or when we are able to fully love. Joy is what we experience when it dawns on us that life itself is a gift and ultimately it is only God's to give. To have the capacity for joy is to have the capacity to see that the most precious things in life cannot be gained, bought or earned. They can only be given. Perhaps that is why those who have little often know joy best. They understand unexpected gifts. According to the hymnwriter, the proclamation of Christmas is: "Joy to the World!" Then he adds why we should rejoice: "The Lord is come." In the deepest sense, joy happens when God is present. Joy does not depend on others or things going well. It can happen anywhere, at any time. It happens every time we are open to the surprising presence of God, God's unexpected love, or the gift of God's love. The proclamation of Christmas is not: "Be happy" or "Make me happy" or "Make everyone else happy." Perhaps what many of us need to do this Christmas is to stop trying so hard to be happy or give enough to make others happy. What we might need to do is just stop - stop amid all the commotion and let it dawn on us that the Lord is come, that God is present, that we are loved and that God graces us day after day with gifts of love and hope. Just stop, and let joy happen, and then: REJOICE!
God be with you, Jeff
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