Isaiah 61:1-4, 8-11 Psalm 126
1 Thessalonians 5:16-24 John 1:6-8,19-28
Lectionary Link
The cauldron of the probabilities of what has happened, is happening, might have happened, did not happen, will happen, will have happened, is very full, yes teemingly full. And some happenings are so horrifying that they can monopolize our thinking and energy into neglecting the reality of them being but mere happenings within the totality of everything happening.
What is happening to me right now can easily be generalized to characterize what is happening to all, and everything.
How do we live without generalizing our selfish interpretations of what is happening to me or us, and projecting our small interpretations as being the significant truth of everything?
The third Sunday in Advent is Gaudete Sunday, Rejoice Sunday. It is an invitation to access the deep experience of joy as a way to live in relationship to everything that has and is happening.
But how can I have joy with the senseless war in Ukraine with many dying and a tyrant wanting to overrun a country because megalomanical disease? How can I rejoice with the horrendous events in Israel, Gaza, Syria, and the complete impossibility of exacting precise justice to offending parties in real time resulting in bombing not being very smart but very indiscriminate among innocent people who end up being in harms way?
How can I rejoice in a country of relative plenty where people with a lot get much more and people with a little get much less? How can I rejoice facing my own guilt of having plenty while accepting general helplessness of getting enough to those who need it?
The life conditions of the truly free play of probabilities means that life is always ambiguous in what might actually happen to us and to other people in our world. How do we live best with the actual probable conditions?
Well, practically we adopt the best wisdom of probability living, namely, statistically approximation, which simply means we apply good actuarial thinking of what has happen onto what might happen in the future. But we know that even good wise planning and good scientific thinking cannot guarantee future specific outcomes in our personal, social, and national lives.
What is required is to tap into the two inwardly known virtues of faith and joy to accompany us in our living with the probable conditions of what is and what may happen.
Jesus came to people who were oppressed people, people who were often trying to perform religious duties like the proverbial arranging of deck chairs on the sinking Titanic. How can we live when it seems like the entire world is going down, sinking for me and my people who are living in the distressed conditions?
How can the people of Pauline churches live as tiny majorities within the cities which were dominated by the cult of Emperor? Paul had the audacity to write, "Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances..." Paul are you crazy, how can we do this?
Most of the biblical literature was written by and for oppressed people. Most of white European Christianity has known the legacy of Christendom and Empire Christianity who have been more on the side of the oppressor than the oppressed. And people on the winning sides of Empire Christianity need to be careful in how they appropriate a literature written during time of oppression and for people who were oppressed.
Our American founding documents invite everyone to the life goal of a pursuit of happiness. Happiness is a valid quest if we regard freedom from all manner of pain to be what is normal for us psychologically and socially. But on the pursuit of happiness we know that happiness often depends upon what happens, and so we and many are often unhappy in life. We can hope that the experience of unhappiness builds within us grooves of empathy to help us aid others in their pursuit of happiness, especially when events of unhappiness occur.
John the Baptist, baptized, and so built a community of baptized people who practiced together the pursuit living lives of excellence. John the Baptist predicted that Jesus would baptize with a Spirit and this Spirit would create a community.
How do we reconcile joy and happiness since joy is an underneath condition which can be experienced even when happiness is not our current experience? Joy is the embracing of everything, all at once experience which totally relativizes the power and the effect of any specific thing which might be happening to us. Joy is the experience of ultimate togetherness, and it is poignantly known in the mutual support of being in community together. John the Baptist could baptize people into a community of mutual support during hard times. Paul could tell his flock to rejoice, because of their covenant with each other to be together, no matter what happen to them while they tried to fly under the radar of the cult of the Emperor.
The Gospel, the good news for us, is to rejoice, which means learning to tap into the very native joy of having been born and having consciousness, but also of living in the Spirit with a community of people who share with us the conditions of the free probabilities what might happen to any of us at anytime.
Let us in our spiritual practice today discover how to access the All, of everything, all at once, impinging upon us deeply as the experience of joy. And from this joy, let us go forth to live together with what may happen, and be thankful for the many occasions of happiness which have and will come our way. The Risen Christ within us as the All in all, is our source of Joy. Amen.
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