The great systematic theologian Karl Barth noted, “Joy is the simplest form of gratitude.” It may be simple, but it is not easy without mindfulness. Let’s face it: we are not hard-wired for joy. We are hard-wired in our animal brains for fear, especially the fear of scarcity—and scarcity and gratitude do not coexist with each other. We have to make a conscious effort to reset our expectations in order to get to joy rather than anxiety. We have to reset our lens to look at what we have, and the way those around us enrich our lives rather than see what we don’t have, and see others as competition for scarce resources. Yet we are also made in the image of God, and God’s beloveds. That’s why “don’t be afraid,” is repeated over 365 times in scripture. One for each day of the year.
The readings we hear this Sunday are all about defying expectations. The vision Isaiah gives us this week shows a desert blooming, the weak being strengthened, the disabled made whole, waters gushing forth in the driest of places. It’s the same vision of healing and restoration that Jesus uses to define and describe his ministry in our gospel: “the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them.”
And where does Jesus get the inspiration of this vision of abundance where there was need? From his own mother, whose Magnificat describes Jesus’s ministry even before his birth in the same way: the lowly, including Mary, lifted up, the proud and conceited humbled, the downtrodden lifted up, the hungry filled. The Magnificat begins and ends with identifying God with mercy. Mary’s vision and Jesus’s vision align, and that’s no accident. It’s a reminder of what the gospel really means and what it tells us about living into God’s generous vision for us.
Joy begets gratitude. Gratitude begets generosity. So why are these three things so hard to find in our own lives and in the culture that surrounds us? Perhaps it has to do with our expectations.
One of my favorite shows in the last couple of years has been Ted Lasso. It’s the story of an American college football coach hired to coach an underachieving English soccer club, even though he knows nothing about the game of soccer—not even the rules about offsides. The fans of the team are rabid and also cynical, having seen defeat snatched out of the jaws of victory too many times. Ted’s greatest feature as a coach is his relentless optimism. He inspires his players to believe in themselves, to have faith in themselves as a team. This sunny outlook clashes with the culture of world-weariness of the team organization and the fan base. When Ted urges the fans to keep the faith and have hope, her gets rebuffed repeatedly with the phrase, “It’s the hope that kills you.”
That’s the thing about low expectations. They become prophecy, because they suck the life out of you.
We can almost hear that same world-weariness in the tone of John the Baptist in our gospel today. Sitting in his prison cell, where he has been placed due to his stirring up the discontent of the masses against the most powerful people of his day, he had been preaching the coming of a fire-wielding, butt kicking Messiah, as we heard in last week’s gospel. He had expected the Messiah to join him in militancy.
Last week we saw John proclaiming the coming of the Lord. So much anticipation was imbedded in that gospel, which is of course so perfect for Advent. When indeed Jesus did appear, Jesus was not exactly what John had been expecting.
Isn’t that so often the case? We dream about something wonderful happening in our lives, and then reality ends up being still so random. Not worse, but different than our expectations. John had been expecting Messiah to be obvious to him. He expected Messiah to establish a certain way of justice that would reorder society the way John thought it should be.
And that’s not what he got. Instead, like Charlie Brown trick-or-treating and only getting rocks, in Matthew 4:12, John was arrested. The prophet rots in jail for seven chapters, and now, in chapter 11, he is forced to send some of his followers to attempt to ascertain whether Jesus is indeed the Messiah.
Sitting in his jail cell, John has doubts. To find the source of his disquiet, simply look at his words of prophecy. He has been foretelling doom, and judgment, and punishment. This is not the Messiah John has been expecting. John was expecting someone who would emphasize repentance more, even though Jesus certainly did plenty of that.
John was expecting vengeance!
John was expecting a leader who would be a strong man.
John was expecting some retribution at broods of vipers!
Many people, even today, especially today, expect to see that kind of God and that kind of leadership operating in the world right now. The problem with having a leader or God who is a “strong man” is that the only way he becomes a “strong man” is by taking away agency from everyone else and gathering all the power to himself and maybe his buddies. When Jesus instead focuses on healing the sick, feeding the hungry, and caring for widows John feels like he has been hoodwinked.
John has not gotten the Messiah he wanted or expected. And yet, here is his cousin, Jesus, and he is NOT some warrior king. He is not about restoring the former glory of Israel by having it rise to new military or political or economic power.
What Jesus IS about is moving among those who have been outcast. This God, we see, emphasizes mercy over retribution, in contrast to the God that many people today still seem to expect—a God of retribution and smiting, a sender of earthquakes and famines to punish millions. This God assures us that we are enough—good enough and strong enough to do an amazing thing: change the world by living as disciples and followers of Jesus.
Jesus reminds us that his ministry will surprise us. And since we are called to follow in his path, it will also lead us in ways we did not expect. It will heal us in ways we may not even think we deserve—but that’s the forces of evil whispering in our ear. “Blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me” Jesus says. Blessed are those who embrace and follow Jesus for who Jesus is, radical enough for the best of us, instead of trying to make Jesus fit their preconceived notions of who Messiah will be.
We too live in a culture of scarcity, a culture that celebrates the lowest common denominator, a culture that is suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder with war, climate challenges, and the inability to treat those with whom we disagree not as kindred but as enemies. We are ruled by fear of not being good enough.
We have been convinced that there is not enough, even as this planet just recently welcomed its 8 billionth inhabitant. Take a step back and look at what a scarcity mentality does to us. It has been scientifically proven that living in the fear of scarcity causes us to be unable to care about the future—we cast away planning for tomorrow, even when the investment is small and the reward great when we are in the grip of a scarcity mindset. Scarcity actually bathes our minds in failure, weakening us and immobilizing us, robbing us of any feeling of agency. Scarcity whispers “there’s nothing you can do,” and makes sure that you are robbed of the will to change. Scarcity robs us of having great expectations of ourselves and our power to make a difference.(1)
There is also a scarcity of decency, compassion, and humanity running about among us. We are surrounded by forces of division who gain power by mocking, spitting upon, and demonizing those who are different. We are plunged into feelings of helplessness that leads us to disengage, to believe we have no power to change obvious wrongs, to believe that our voice does not matter. We are told that we are never enough, and that there isn’t enough to go around—and we are often told that by the very people who have hoarded more than they will ever need or be able to use—and they use their excess to keep the rest of us scampering after crumbs and attacking each other.(2)
That was very much the same world Jesus and Mary and John lived in, too. Jesus’s religious opponents controlled people by shame, and the Romans controlled people by brutality and contempt—three byproducts of the scarcity mindset. Yet if you look at how Jesus and Mary define how to conquer the scarcity mindset, they do not propose exchanging one oppressor for another. They describe a vision like Isaiah describes: one in which beauty grows where there was desolation, where there is no longer one group lording it over another, but instead, where all have ENOUGH. And the way we do that is to turn from competing with each other and seeing each other as competitors in a death match of scarcity, and instead see each other as resources.
What if we reset our expectations to quiet the screaming monkey mind drumming between our ears, and instead opened our eyes to see that there is enough? Enough and more to spare! What if we invested in each other—in fulfillment of our baptismal promise to celebrate and give thanks for the potential and worth of every person? We don’t need big flashy miracles. Joining together and making sure each other had enough would be an abundant miracle, in and of itself. And that’s the kind of transformative ministry Jesus practiced among those he encountered. It’s what we are called to do as disciples.
“God is at work in the world, healing the broken paces and inviting us to see it. Live with joy!” both Mary and Jesus urge us. Open your eyes to see the wonders of God all around you, the gifts from God poured abundantly into your life with every breath that you take! The way of faith is the way of joy and gratitude, a life we can only receive once we cast away the soul-killing “certainty” that there will never be enough. It is that certainty that keeps the world at each others’ throats— rather than living by the kingdom values this season of preparation calls us to embrace for our flourishing. It’s there already. Jesus and Mary invite us to embrace abundance, to embrace faithful living, to embrace joy.
This coming week, I invite you to dedicate some time each morning and each evening specifically cultivating a spirit of joy, a spirit of expectation, a spirit of gratitude. I invite you to live in AWE: abundance, wonder, and empowerment. That’s how to live into the joy of great expectations, of gratitude for not only what we have but what we can build with each other.
Preached at the 505 on December 10 and the 10:30 am Holy Eucharist on December 11 at St. Martin's Episcopal Church, Ellisville, MO.
Readings:
Citations:
(1) See this article from the American Psychological Association: https://www.apa.org/monitor/2014/02/scarcity;
(2) See Brene Brown, Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead, 27-29 (kindle edition).
No comments:
Post a Comment