Psalm 63:1-8; Matthew 13:44
“So what’s your concept?” Patrick had seen my puzzled look and came over to help. “I had an interesting conversation this week about joy,” I said, “and so I want to paint joy. But this is the wrong green.”
I was at the final paint party led by Open Spirit’s Artist-in-Residence, Patrick St. Pierre, before he and his wife Samela moved to San Diego. At the previous party, we had each painted a flowering garden scene, copying from a model. At this party, we were invited to create abstract art. Patrick hadn’t suggested that we start with a concept, but he knew me well enough to guess I had one in mind.
I was clear I wanted to paint joy; I just couldn’t figure out how. I knew what I didn’t want it to look like. It didn’t want bright, cheery, whimsical colors. Joy is not the same thing as cheeriness. Joy is not a mood, not a response to happy external circumstances. It comes from something deeper within us.
My instinct was to start with green as the background. I wanted to convey that joy is connected with the natural world, that joy emerges from the ordinary beauty of real life. But no matter how many little dabs of other colors I mixed in with the green Patrick had given me, I couldn’t get it to look right. I explained my dilemma.
“Oh, I get it,” Patrick said. “We’ve got the wrong green. There’s a cool green and then there’s a warm green. You need a warm green.” Joy is warm.
He was right. My new warm green evoked leaves and grass and forests, the starting point for flowers and the resting place for birds. I began to paint a green background, using curved strokes. I didn’t want to use straight lines. Joy rarely takes the shortest path between two points.
Patrick helped me find my other colors, taking me out to the edible forest garden and matching the colors of a flower that caught my eye–a sort of coral-orange and a yellow. I used the orange to make more curved lines, moving out from the green but in a different direction. I didn’t like it. I called Patrick over again.
“I think I know what I’m trying to convey,” I said. “Joy bursting forth and joy flying free. But how do I paint that?” He showed me a technique for splashing paint on the canvas, which was fun and even a bit joyful.
My painting neighbor, Fran Graveson, said she thought my finished project evoked joy, but I was not–and still am not–satisfied. No matter how hard I tried, I could not capture joy.
Maybe that was the lesson of the night. You can’t decide to paint joy; it’s possible, though, that joy might emerge in your painting. You can’t manufacture joy. It is a mystery. It is a gift. All we can do is treasure it.
I bring my memory of that evening to my thoughts on our focus for today. As I announced in the newsletter, our theme for this fall is “A Celebration of Music and Ministry.” Each Sunday, we will pair some kind of special music with reflections on the ministry of our church. Last Sunday, On the Fence inspired us as we focused on our ministry of Caring for the Web of Creation. For today, as the choir returns with an anthem called, “Sing with Joy,” I decided I would talk about our ministry of sharing joy.
Even as I wrote it down in my newsletter article, the theme felt a bit unusual. All the other ministries I will talk about this fall emerge out of our awareness of a need. We offer healing because too many people we love are grieving and suffering. We bring diverse groups together because there is too much hate and misunderstanding. We focus on caring for God’s creation because we need to repair the damage we have done. Next to that list of urgent needs, especially on a weekend when we are stunned and saddened by explosions and floods, joy seems somehow self-indulgent, or out of touch with reality.
Our scriptures, though, remind us that joy is not an extra, nor is it a reward once we have fixed all the problems. Joy is at the heart of our faith, in good times and also amidst trouble. Psalm 63 begins with an awareness of deep need: “my soul thirsts for you, my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.” Life is filled with longing, with thirst, with fainting, with loneliness and grief. In the midst of all that pain, the Psalmist looks up to behold God’s glory and looks within, to the depth of his soul. He claims his trust in God’s steadfast love, trust in the promise that, no matter what, God is like a mother eagle whose wings shelter us. Out of that trust, the Psalmist sings for joy.
The gospel reading offers an equally vivid image for joy. This brief parable calls us back to that central message of Jesus’ ministry: the kingdom, the kin-dom, the realm of God’s love, has come near. Yes, all around us there is pain and injustice. Yes, natural disasters and unnatural tragedies remind us of our vulnerability. All of that, Jesus acknowledges, is real. And, he proclaims, there is a deeper reality. In the midst of suffering and loss, God’s love is breaking in. There is a spirit of hope that cannot be destroyed. There is a healing power at work in our lives. There is potential for community that can tear down the walls that divide us.
This deeper reality, Jesus says, is like a treasure hidden in a field. When you stumble upon it, when it breaks through in the midst of your pain and despair, the only possible response is joy.
The ministry of sharing joy is neither self-indulgent nor out of touch with reality. It is the starting point for everything else we do. If we start from the reality of brokenness in our lives and our world, our efforts to make a difference lead to exhaustion and despair, for we can never do enough. If we start from that deeper reality, from a choice to trust in God’s steadfast love, in God’s kin-dom breaking in, then our efforts make us part of something beyond ourselves, something wondrous and awe-inspiring and ultimately joyous.
My painting reminds me that we cannot make joy happen. Whether we envision joy as a wellspring that resides deep within us or as a waterfall that flows over us, joy is not something we create. It is a gift we open ourselves to receive. So maybe this ministry is not of sharing joy but of making space–in our lives, in our church, in our world–for joy to emerge.
At breakfast yesterday morning, as Fran and I pondered this elusive sermon-theme, she invited me to think about when and how I experience joy emerging in this church. There was a long list.
I experience joy when I recess out during the final hymn and end up standing next to a tenor or bass choir member. I hear the different notes we are singing blend together, and I know I am part of creating something beautiful. Music creates space for joy to emerge. I experience joy when I pray with someone: even as we lift up grief and pain, I feel the healing power of human connection. Prayer creates space for joy. I experience joy when the Bible Study group wrestles with a tough passage and suddenly we all get it, when I try to speak Spanish with a new friends, a local asylum-seeker and we laugh together at our mistakes, when I bake for someone or someone brings me a favorite kind of tea. Shared questioning, shared laughter, shared food–these create space for joy to emerge.
I asked Fran for her list. She experiences joy in being among people of all ages, in sharing communion together, joy in sitting quietly in church feeling the presence of all the people who have worshipped here for the last 190 years. She experiences joy in seeing her friends. Intergenerational community, ancient rituals, a sanctuary filled with holy memory, friendship–these create space for joy.
Jeannie jumped into the conversation with a few well-placed barks. I couldn’t swear by it, but I think she was telling us she experiences joy when kids give her cupcakes in coffee hour, when Chuck or Len or Norma or Jane pull out a treat they brought especially for her, when we run in circles in the playground.
What would be on your list? What is it we do that creates space for joy in your life? I invite you to ask yourself these questions, and to make space for joy to emerge.
If making space for joy is a ministry, then it is not only for us. This ministry is for the world. We are called to create space for joy beyond this church–in our places of work, in our neighborhoods, in our city, our nation, our world. As individuals, we do that when we take time to meet our neighbors, when we talk to a stranger, when we persist in countering hate-filled words with words that value each person’s gifts. As a community, we make space for joy when we bring diverse groups together for conversation and friendship, when we share a meal at Worcester Fellowship, when we receive an offering for survivors of hurricanes and explosions, when we open our campus for people to sing and dance, stretch and pray and heal. Over the coming weeks, we will reflect on the many ministries of our church–all of them begin with the ministry of making space for joy.
I still don’t know how to paint joy. A wellspring? A waterfall? A choir? A prayer? A meal? No picture can possibly capture this wondrous gift. So I will give up on trying to paint it. Instead, I will try to make space in my life and my world for it. I will sing and pray and study the Bible and try to speak Spanish and bake cookies. And when joy breaks through and flies free, I will give thanks to God. Amen.