Complete Joy

 

Rev. Molly F. James, Ph.D.

St. Matthew’s, Wilton, CT

May 9, 2020

Acts 10:44-48; Psalm 98; 1 John 5:1-6; John 15:9-17

May God’s Word be spoken. May God’s Word be heard. May that point us to the living Word who is Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. 

I was always that kid who needed to do their homework first before they could go out to play. And I like to work ahead. Always wanted to be sure I had an assignment done early and handed in on time. Procrastinating made me nervous. I wanted to have all my tasks completed, and then I could have fun. This strategy worked well until about middle school. Once there started being long term projects, where there was always something I could be working on, it became much more difficult. Once I hit college and grad school, where part of the learning was about discerning priorities - I was assigned more work than could be accomplished and needed to sort out what was essential - it really became impossible to try to finish work before I could play. This was a struggle. I really wanted to be able to have a completed to do list I could put down, relish my sense of accomplishment (yes, I am an achievement oriented Enneagram 3 for those of you are into that), and then celebrate with time outside with friends, a good book, a movie, a special meal, etc. 

I thought I could keep those things nicely separated. Work and tasks over here. Fun and celebrations over here. And I thought real fun and joy were only possible when I finished my work. “I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete.” That your joy may be “complete.” I know that complete joy. It’s what would be possible if only I could have that magical fully completed to do list. It would be what is possible when all the tasks are done, and I have nothing left to worry about. 

That’s not how life goes. We do not live in some mythical universe where all the tasks can actually be accomplished. There will always be more to do, more that could be done. 

That realization, that truth could have been the source of great stress and anxiety (and some days it still is!). Instead I am learning (slowly), thanks to wonderful people in my life who are kind and patient teachers who care deeply about my well being, that joy is not contingent. 

Joy is not something I earn when I finish my tasks. It is not my reward. It is not dependent on my productivity. It just shows up. It shows up with the beauty of springtime blossoms. It shows up with the embrace of a loved one we have not hugged in far too long. It shows up in the laughter of children. In the first bite of a delicious meal. It shows up in the sound of a voice or a smile. A surprise phone call or text - just to say someone is thinking of us. A favorite piece of music. A card in the mail. A few extra minutes to put our feet up and breathe deeply. 

Except, how can we talk about joy being “complete” in this time? How do we talk about joy when our news headlines are so full of suffering? How do we talk about joy when we are all grieving all that has been lost in the past year? How do we talk about joy when we are this tired, or maybe weary or exhausted would be more accurate? How can we talk about joy when even some of the most joyous moments of our lives are tinged with sadness - for that loved one who is not there to celebrate with us, for the what ifs of the path not taken, for knowing it won’t be like this again? 

Here’s the thing though. If joy is not contingent on my completion of tasks, then it is also not contingent on how much energy we have or what the news headlines say or whether we have been able to fully compartmentalize our grief. The joy is not contingent on anything. And joy being “complete” is not about the absence of grief. Like so many things in our faith lives, when we would like clear lines and tidy boxes, God is inviting us into abundance. 

I think Eugene Peterson’s Message translation is helpful here. In this passage, he does not call joy “complete,” rather he calls it “fully mature.” Yes. Fully mature. Like a delicious cheese that allows for complexity and depth, for a fullness of texture and flavor. It’s okay for it to be complicated. Life is complicated. Our experiences, our feelings, do not fit in tidy little boxes. It is not as though we do grief on Mondays, so we can have joy on Tuesdays. 

Life is messy. Life is wonderful. God is inviting us into the fullness of it all. The joy is a gift - one that will just show up in our lives, if we are paying attention. It is not contingent on anything. And the thing is, if we can open our hearts to the joy, if we can let it in to sit alongside the grief we feel, something remarkable will happen. Our joy will deepen because our grief reminds us how precious, beautiful, and fragile life is. We can pay attention more fully to the joy because we know the realities of loss. And the grief will lessen because the joy has come - we have again been reminded that Easter is real - pain and suffering never have the last word. Love is stronger than death. Today and always. Amen. 

Finding More Mary Moments

View from cliffs of Monhegan Island in Maine

Rev. Molly F. James, PhD

DFMS Noonday Prayer

Feast of Mary and Martha

July 29, 2020

May God’s Word be spoken. May God’s Word be heard. May that point us to the living Word who is Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. 

It is not possible for me to read this Gospel lesson and not think of my college roommate, Michelle. Truly you could just swap out Mary and Martha in this lesson for Michelle and Molly. I had always been the kid who had to do her homework before playing. I often worked ahead, starting a paper weeks before it was due. Michelle, on the other hand, could wake up early the morning a paper was due and crank out a brilliant piece of writing. I marveled at this ability. 

Multiple years of living together and decades of friendship have meant that both of us do a bit more of both. Michelle has become a successful lawyer and does a lot more advance work and planning. I have discovered that as a grown up it is not possible to complete your “to do” list first or do everything in advance. I have even written a sermon on the day I preached it! 

But the lessons that Michelle taught me are far more significant and powerful than just about when we do our work or how we manage our time. The important thing wasn’t about planning vs. procrastinating. It was about priorities. Michelle reminded me of that all important truth (which I have the tendency to forget when I get focused like Martha on all the tasks in front of me) that time and relationships are far more valuable and meaningful than achievements.  

The Holy Spirit has a way of showing up and providing the lessons when I need them, as long as I am paying attention, of course! I feel like I needed this Mary and Martha reminder this week especially. Perhaps it is that I am just back from vacation trying to hold on to that sense of peace and serenity I found sitting on the cliffs of Monhegan Island in Maine staring out at the vast expanse of ocean and sky. It is so easy to just dive right back into all the things, all the tasks. Particularly in the midst of a pandemic when tasks are so wonderfully useful for keeping the stress and anxiety of this time at a relative distance. If I just focus on my “to do” list - on sending more emails and writing more documents, making more phone calls, I can forget for a few minutes about all the headlines of rising infection rates and rising death tolls, I can stop thinking about all the what ifs for our work life, for our families, for our children - what are the next weeks and months going to look like? 

Now of course there is value in accomplishing tasks. There is a certain joy and creativity that comes with losing ourselves in a piece of writing or a project. And it is good to have things to keep our anxiety at bay. Of course, we all have jobs to do. We have important and meaningful work, which requires us to complete tasks. I am not dismissing our tasks or our work at all. 

I am just taking a cautionary tale from our Gospel (mostly because I need it today), and I hope it is a helpful reminder for you as well. There are dangers if we live on the Martha end of the spectrum, if we pour ourselves into work, something that is especially easy to do when we are all working from home. Our work is always right there. It requires a particular kind of self-discipline (and the blessing of compassionate and smart supervisors) to leave something “at the office” when “the office” is only a few feet from where we make dinner, play cards, read for fun, watch tv or do our morning exercise routine. It is all right there. We have to choose to be Mary. 

It takes work on our part. But my friends that “work” is so completely worth it. That is what we need to remember today. Jesus tells Mary that she has chosen “the better part.” Indeed. We need that part. We need those times where we sit, we pause, we reflect, we learn. We need to put aside the tasks and the busyness from time to time. We need time that feeds our souls and fills our hearts. 

It is becoming increasingly clear that we are going to be in this mode of living and working for the long haul, and so we need to sustain ourselves. We cannot rely on grit or willpower or the rewards of achievements. We need the kind of inner strength and fortitude that comes with having reoriented ourselves to God. 

That is the gift of today’s Gospel, that is the gift of having friends like Michelle in our lives. It is the gift of being reminded that being present to each other, that pausing to reflect, to learn, to listen is a balm to our soul in troubled times. 

Sitting at the feet of Jesus likely looks a little different to each of us, depending on our circumstances or our spiritual journeys. And also what time of day or day of the week it is. Whatever that might look like in your context today and this week, I hope you will carry Mary and Martha with you as you go about your life. I hope you will honor your Martha moments for the good and meaningful work you accomplish. I hope that you will also be sure there are plenty of Mary moments (at least one a day) where you find a way to sit at Jesus’ feet and receive the gift of his grace that is so abundantly offered to us. Amen. 

Mary and Martha or Michelle and Molly?

Molly & Michelle in college

Rev. Molly F. James

Chapel of Our Lord, Episcopal Church Center

Mechtilde and Gertrude 

November 19, 2019

May God's word be spoken, May God's Word be heard, and May that point us to the living Word who is Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. 

So, if we just changed the names, today's Gospel story of Mary and Martha could easily be about my college roommate Michelle and me. I am definitely a Martha. I get easily distracted by all the things I have to do. I get thinking about all the things I am supposed to do, and I often feel like I can't relax until I have done all the things on my “to do” list. I often like to work ahead. This meant in college that I would often write a paper days or even weeks before it was due. My roommate, Michelle, on the other hand, was quite adept at waking up early and cranking out a very good paper the day it was due. I marveled at this skill. To me that seemed like a very stressful way to do things. Yet the interesting thing was, my roommate did not seem very stressed. And although I know her mother would have preferred that my study skills inspired on Michelle, it happened the other way round. Mostly Michelle inspired me.

I learned that it was in fact possible to leave one's work behind and go have fun. Michelle helped me to remember that time having fun, time building relationships is important. Just as, if not even more important, than homework. Michelle showed me that life is much more fun if you learn how to forget about the “to do” list on occasion. It may be possible to do all our homework first in elementary school, but as we get older our to do lists get longer and longer. It just does not work to try to always work first and play later. We have to develop a balance. We have to learn how to incorporate play time and sabbath time in the midst of our busy lives.

The Gospel story today reminds us that what really matters is sabbath time. There will always be things to distract and worry us. Always being a “Martha” is a recipe for burnout. We need to cultivate our Mary moments. We need to cultivate time to slow down and rest. Time to be spiritually fed. Time to listen to what God is saying to us.

This is a counter­cultural idea. As any glance at a newspaper or a television will tell us, our culture is continually offering us ways to do more. The internet, email and cell phones allow us to be “at work” wherever we are. Stores expand their hours and encourage us to shop online at any time of the day or night. Now, of course, when we have a problem or need something fixed, we're glad that a repair person is willing to come out on a Sunday. We are glad when we can talk to customer service person at 11 o'clock at night. But if we are making a regular habit of doing “work” at those late hours or on what should be our sabbath, we ought to be asking ourselves whether this is really the best use of our time.

We need to slow down. We need to take a break. Now, I am not advocating throwing out our cell phones or disconnecting our computers. And I am not saying that we should never do work on the weekend. Nor would Michelle say that. She has gone on to become a successful lawyer and has put in many over­time hours. But if we find ourselves feeling tired and overwhelmed, we need to check the balance of Mary and Martha time in our lives. If we feel exhausted, chances are we have let Martha take over. We have forgotten the importance of slowing down and taking sabbath.

Because if we do that, if we slow down and take time for ourselves, we will actually be more productive in the time we do work. We need time to just sit, as Mary does. Time to sit and listen to Christ. Time to listen to who God is calling us to be. We can be assured that God is calling us to be whole, healthy, happy people. God is not interested in seeing us overworked or burnt out. As Christ reminds Mary and Martha, the fruits of the sabbath are something that cannot be taken away. The gifts of a deeper relationship with God. The fruits of listening to Christ, of taking time to “sit at his feet” and absorb his message are everlasting.

I am sure we have all met people who seem to possess an inner peace. They do not seem harried by the affairs of the world or the challenges of everyday life. This is not a unique gift that is only given to a select few. It is a gift freely given by God to us all, if only we are willing to cultivate it.

As Michelle, my roommate, showed me, it is not a gift that is cultivated by doing more work. It is a gift cultivated by slowing down, letting go and putting things aside. It is a gift that is cultivated by valuing relationships more than tasks.

It is also about filling our spiritual reservoirs up, so that we have the strength, courage and abiding faith we need to be God’s people in the world. And the world is very much in need of faithful people. There has been far too much violence in our news headlines, in California, in Syria, in our own cities and towns. Too many communities are divided. We seem far more aware in recent weeks of the realities of human sinfulness and how much pain and suffering there is. There is much work for us to do in the world. The world needs our hope. It needs our story of how God can bring new life out of humanity’s darkest moments. The world needs our conviction that God’s beautiful, restoring, reconciling love is at work in the world. The world needs to hear our belief that transformation is possible. 

And in order to do that holy work in the world, we need Sabbath time. Sabbath is meant to be an integral part of our lives. Just as we care for our bodies by eating well and drinking water everyday, so to are we to care for our souls by observing sabbath. Sabbath does not necessarily mean that we have to withdraw from the world for one day every week. But sabbath does mean that we must be sure that we do not let days go by without taking time for ourselves to be with God. Especially as our hearts are breaking at our news headlines or at events in our own lives and communities, we need sabbath so that we have the strength and the courage to live out our faith in the world.

Time for prayer and Bible study are wonderful ways to deepen our relationship with God, and those are not the only ways. Sabbath time is time to do whatever it is that is restorative. That may be time to read a good book just for fun. It may be time outside. It may be time with loved ones or a phone call to an old friend. It may be watching a movie or playing a game. It may be time to work on a favorite craft or hobby. It may be time to just sit and do nothing. Whatever it is, it needs to be an integral part of our lives. We all need time for the things that help us to breathe easier, the things that make us smile. I think those two measures are a good way to test ourselves as to whether we have enough sabbath in our lives. How's our breathing? Is it slow and deep? Do we feel relaxed? And are we smiling? How many things have we done today that have made us smile?

If the answer is zero or only one or two, if our breathing is fast or shallow – those are telltale signs that we do not have enough sabbath in our lives. And we all know that each of us, and the world as a whole could use more hope and transformation, which will only be possible if we all have a little more sabbath. 

AMEN.