Reflection on Philippians 4:4-7
Once I entered a church as the choir was practicing the song “Enter, rejoice, and come in!” But my head and heart were elsewhere and what I heard was “enter, read Joyce, and come in!” How very literary of a congregation, I thought, before finding a place to come to rest and quiet enough to actually hear what they were singing.
This is a time of year focused on rejoicing. But rather like gratitude, one doesn’t get to rejoicing without first knowing trouble. The Advent season is with us in grief, in trouble, in pain, in suffering. Waiting for rejoicing, the season builds in fits and starts with first one promise, one prophecy, one faithful person after another taking a faithful risk for love and justice. But let us not forget this truth: faithful risk is needed most in times of terrible trouble.
Paul’s letter the congregation in Philippi understand’s life’s tough stuff. The congregation’s leaders are arguing and mistrustful. Paul himself writes from prison. Folks are fearful and wondering when and if Jesus will return in their lifetimes. They’ve lost touch of their sense of the abundance of the sacred all around and in all of us, wherever we are, carried into the scariest places in the center of our hearts and found in special places and songs and rituals and times and the kindnesses of others.
When our sense of sacred abandonment raises its head, it is past time to seek out the little ways we meet the Holy: our back against a great tree, breathing in and out; lighting a candle and basking in voluntary silence; lifting our voices alone or together in song; caring for those who are mourning and being met gently and tenderly when we ourselves grieve; being more generous than seems either prudent or easy.
When the question in the middle or beginning of our day is, “how long, Beloved, how long must we endure?” then pausing to reconnect with the sacred is even more important. At the end of the day can we answer how we have met the Holy today or found the sacred near? Was it in the birdsong or a book or visiting a friend? Was it in protesting wrongdoing or joining neighbors to help another in need or receiving love, care, and assistance just when we didn’t know where to turn next and felt so alone? These times of meeting the sacred are reasons for thanksgiving and rejoicing, and they are possible in tiny, medium, and big ways every day, wherever we are, wherever we go. I could hardly leave my bed and had no voice for years, and yet each day there was reason for a tiny space of joy. I have had lots of struggles and still, in the middle, there are all these moments to hold onto, to appreciate, to remember I am neither alone nor abandoned, but part of this great being, part of choosing to bring more love, justice, generosity, and peace into this world, one choice, effort, and even faithful risk at a time.
Yes, we will have fear, trembling, hate and adversity to deal with. We may go through decades of difficulty. And yet it is ours to choose, nourish, and be glad for what is good here and now day to day. We choose in our long waiting to make times to rejoice. Tonight, ask yourself and ask your loved ones: where and how did you encounter the sacred today?
Rejoicing is not just for once a year, but our birthright, and for us to claim, create, share, and touch every day.
