SERMONS

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Sean Gilbert – 12/7/09

“Leaps and Bounds”
 
Christ Church Uniting - 12/7/09

Many of you would be aware that Ryan Freeman, the youngest son of Roger and Yvonne from Church of the Trinity, accidentally fell to his death in Canada ten or so days ago. It was shocking, saddening news about someone so young, loved and vibrant; a gentle and seemingly uncomplicated soul who helped out at ELC now and then, videoing various events, also known to us as a Camp Out helper/leader.

I dropped in on Roger and Yvonne the other night, Roger keen for me to read some tributes placed on Facebook, as well as a collage of photos and videos Ryan had recently put together with a friend. Basically they were images of him jumping for joy in front of various famous landmarks or at well-known events: the Grand Canyon, Statue of Liberty, and the 2008 Tour de France, just to name a few. It was sad (very sad), yet irrepressible, leaving within me a vision of life and a vision for life, that surely needs to be well-considered, particularly within the context of a Christian faith – a Christian life, no less.

Joy, like so many other great attributes of human experience, such as love, hope and faith, is not something you can simply put on (and off) like a coat. And it’s not just the absence of sorrow or tough times. Joy is the soulful presence of God, the very being of God, stirring within and calling us outward into life. It moves and motivates the most brooding of spirits.

Our Old Testament reading captures that powerfully today, with the Ark of the Covenant being synonymous with the presence of the Unmentionable One, before which King David dances with unbridled joy.  In far less intimidating ways, though, the simple presence of grace (as captured by Ryan’s photos), similarly would have our hearts leap and sing, with our feet moving to the irrepressible rhythms of life.

Why is it then, that the common perception of Christianity is such a joyless, dour affair? And why are clergy often seen as but moral policemen/women rather than conveyors of hope and life in all its fullness? Perhaps it is the legacy of unexamined and negative assumptions about God and religion, so that we’re always to look over our shoulders making sure we’re not having too good a time of it!  Or maybe because we’ve never given ourselves permission to be foolish, a little eccentric, even a little sacrilegious; I mean what would others think - and we do care what others think!

Almost buried within the foundational and best teaching about God in the Christian tradition is the relational notion or recognition of ecstasis: ecstasy – that at the very heart and centre of God – in the very soul of God, if you will – is not anger, not wrath, but a desire for life in its profusion, goodness, and heart-felt joy.

The Christian experience then is to be enjoined to the creative energy of life, to further it no less, so as to be conveyors and purveyors of joy! And that’s not to say we don’t feel stricken, and dismayed by the cruelties and injustices of life, but it is to say something of how we then approach and make our way through such givens.  It seems to me, then, that joy and hope are very closely entwined, something so well captured in this poem by Lisel Mueller writing from the youthful experiences off Nazi Germany.  It is called hope but could as easily be called Joy for the living, I think.

Hope  (Joy)
It hovers in dark corners
before the lights are turned on.
            it shakes sleep from its eyes
and drops from mushroom gills,
it explodes in the starry heads
of dandelions and ages,
                        it sticks to the wings of green angels
                        that sail from the tops of maples.

It sprouts in each occluded eye
of the many-eyed potato,
            it lives in each earthworm segment
            surviving cruelty,
                        it is the motion that runs
                        from the eyes to the tail of the dog,
                                    it is the mouth that inflates the lungs
                                    of the child that has just been born.

It is the singular gift
we cannot destroy in ourselves,
the argument that refutes death,
the genius that invents the future;
all we know of God.

It is the serum which makes us swear
not to betray one another;
it is in this poem, trying to speak.

Joy, like hope, is all we know of God. Indeed, if it was the only thing we knew about life, it would always be enough; so contagious, so enveloping, so empowering it is. It is the very Spirit and essence of God, dancing within, and calling us out of our fearful, self-justifying and all too proper ways. It calls us beyond what other people might think and feel, toward what is most real and pressing - what is most imaginative and creative in us.

Well….. I’m still left with the image of a 23 year old, now so sadly gone from our midst, and yet strangely alive to us within his love and joy for the living.  Ryan’s leaps and bounds call me to this present moment, one always pregnant with possibility and full of potential joy to share with the world.  They need to be seen, felt and practiced, over and over again.
            Friends, in the presence of God and through the presence of God, find your own joy and live it out to the full.  The present moment is too precious and far too fleeting not to.
                                                                                    Amen…