Pursue Joy

It may be an odd way to talk about joy, but let me begin with the oft quoted quip of John Lennon. He once said: “Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. It’s them twisting it that ruins it for me.” Indeed, that’s the cloud that has hung over the church ever since Jesus ascended to heaven in a cloud. Yes, Jesus has left the likes of thick and ordinary people to be his witnesses. And Lord, over the ages, we confess that we have made some pretty devastating mistakes: the crusades; anti-Semitism; antagonism toward science; justifications for slavery and white supremacy; attitudes of privilege deaf to Jesus’ urging us to community and compassion. 

Finding Joyfulness

Today, the Apostle Paul invites us to pursue joy. Well, literally he said, “Make my joy complete … by being of the same mind, having the same love … that was in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 2:1-2). Wow, that is a beautiful passage! I can see that Paul would be happy to have a church unified in love imitating Jesus. But, I don’t think that it would be misreading him to say that he elevates joyfulness as a pursuit that is more than just an emotional expression. I’d say he wants us to pursue joy!  I’ll go even farther and say that joyfulness was Paul’s measure for how the church lives out its witness to the world. 

I love the Acts of the Apostles, but you may not have thought of it as a place to find joyfulness. Acts is a treasure trove of stories demonstrating joy time and again. Joy is in their witness. It’s in their community. It’s in the way they walk! In Acts we read stories that tell of joy, not by explaining it, but Acts demonstrates.  There are stories of miracle and wonder, but more compellingly, there are stories where joy bubbles and overflows. In Acts, we find that joy is in our jobs and this frees us from an attitude of servitude. We find that joy can connect us to one another.  Joy can strengthen our resilience and be a companion as we encounter deep sorrow in life. And so, we will find ourselves enchanted by strange but compelling stories in Acts. 

Joy Marked Their Way

Acts starts with the story of Jesus’ ascension. The disciples were joyful at Jesus’ ascension? (Acts 1:6-12) Intriguingly, Luke writes about Jesus’ ascension both in his Gospel and at the beginning of the Book of Acts. One should notice that he tells the story with a slight difference. As the Gospel ends, Luke describes the disciples seeing Jesus “carried up into heaven.” At this point, they “return to Jerusalem with great joy.” In Acts, no such joy is mentioned. New Testament scholar, N. T. Wright captures the gap between the two tellings of the same event. “Why would they be so joyful if Jesus has been taken away from them? Ought they not to be sorrowful? Might not his departure signal the start of danger, of fear, of the loss of a sense of direction? What is this ‘joy’ that they now have? And what is the reason for it?”.Yes, Luke uses the word joy, but Acts demonstrates it.

Before it was church and before they were called Christians, early believers were defined as belonging to “The Way” (Acts 9:1-2). That they were called “the Way” signified something more than a road or a path. It signified movement, a participation in the Spirit of God that wasn’t so much following any longer, but heading out. Yet, whether the “sent one” walked with others or alone, joy marked the Way taken. 

Their journey invites us to a question: Is this joyfulness still accessible today? These travelers on the Way didn’t understand Jesus’ resurrection as just a miracle of a dead person becoming alive again. For these disciples, the resurrection gifted them with a joy. Joy that would show as courage and imagination to see the world not just as it is – full of injustice and cruelty, privilege and tyranny – but as it could be transformed. Author Mary Clark Moschella says about them that “God’s gift of joy, experienced as deep awareness and aliveness, became for them a calling to compassion that would light and create pathways towards human flourishing.” 

Human Flourishing

The term human flourishing is intriguing. Today, we live in a secular age that became that way through a slow set of changes that have sometimes blazed and sometimes meandered over the last 500 years. But, I want to change your thinking about this phrase secular age. Don’t look at it as a subtraction equation which writes God out of the script. Rather, see a change in priorities. 500 years ago, society saw its primary goal as entering communion with God. 

Today, we have moved away from communion with God as the primary purpose to that of being attentive to human flourishing. That flourishing came about by and brought innovations like democracy, science, strides in human health and well-being, and the personal freedoms that give us unique and individual identity and worth. Those things are not in themselves bad. Look at it this way. God came down from the divine heavenly throne before which the saints cast their golden crowns. He moved into our neighborhoods, into ordinary lives and our human concerns. Maybe this was all a way for us to regain what the 2^ndcentury church father Irenaeus sought: that “the glory of God is the human being fully alive.” Now that is a goal our neighbors could buy into. 

John Lennon Missed Joyfulness

Maybe John Lennon missed that lesson on joyfulness when he learned in Sunday School days about Jesus’ disciples so “thick and ordinary.” Certainly, we have “twisted” their truth. The church “ruining” so much of our history… and yet, deep down I find myself longing to live with joy, to “make it full,” as Paul exhorts us. I wonder if there is a joy that is at once a way of having communion with God and a means toward human flourishing. This is my desire. I pray that is your desire as well.  

© 2019 David Milam All rights reserved

Also, see Gratitude Grows Joy.