Liberating Joy

Sermon preached Sunday, March 3, 2024, the Third Sunday in Lent, at Lutheran Church of Our Saviour in North Chesterfield, VA. 

Persistent Joy. That was two weeks ago.

Expectant Joy. Last Sunday.

And today? Liberating joy. How is joy part of liberation? How does God liberate us? What does it mean to be liberated?

Let’s start with the temple.

The Temple in Jerusalem was a key part of life for a first century Jew like Jesus. It’s hard for us to understand just what it represented and the incredibly important role it played.

The temple, at least the first one, was built by King Solomon, son of King David, because God required a permanent home. Since the time Moses came down the mountain with the Ten Commandments, the Israelites has carried the commandments and, in essence, the presence of God in the Ark of The Covenant—a name that might sound familiar if you’re an Indiana Jones fan.

They carried God’s dwelling place around with them, until finally God said that it was not right that he had no real place to call home. And so, Solomon built a great temple. It took lots of special offerings and years to build, but it was lauded for its beauty and design. Unfortunately, it was not to stand forever. It was destroyed by the Babylonians nearly six hundred years before Christ was born.

It was eventually rebuilt, after the Israelites returned from exile enforced by those same Babylonians. After years of having no place to properly worship God, they were able to rebuild God’s house. It was bigger now, the temple complex was spread out, containing a series of areas that eventually led to the Holy of Holies, where God’s presence was. The Court of Gentiles (or non-Jews), The Court of Women, The Court of Israel for the men, and the Court of Priests. This was the temple Jesus knew, the temple Jesus and his disciples walk into at the beginning of John’s Gospel.

Since the temple was God’s house, it is where Jews would offer sacrifices to God, or come to pray on special festival days. It wasn’t that God couldn’t be found anywhere else, but one was guaranteed to find God at the temple. Up until this point, this was the common thought: if I want to encounter God, I need to be there.

But, as usual, Jesus has more to say. When we hear this story about the money changers and the merchants selling animals, we picture all of this happening in the heart of the temple. We might imagine animals being placed upon the altar, or the sounds of coins clinking overshadowing the practice of worship. But these things would have been happening in the court of the Gentiles, in the outermost part of the temple complex.

If we were to compare this story to our own churches, this is not Jesus acting in the Sanctuary, or even in the Admin or Education wings. This would be Jesus our in the parking lot, maybe even standing out by the entrance sign. Jesus has left the building.

And that’s the point. Jesus speaks on this day about how the temple will be destroyed and raised up again in three days. He is obliquely referring to himself, but no one else understands that—no one else understands that he is now the temple. He is now where God is present, where people can be sure to encounter God.

This was scary sounding to his disciples and to everyone else who was listening. All of a sudden, the world has been busted open and the rules don’t seem to apply the way they did before. That is a scary proposition! God gave the Israelites the law as a gift, as a sign of love…does the law even matter anymore?

When our way of understanding the world is upended, we can fall back into rigidity and legalism…or we can lean in and embrace a newly discovered sense of freedom and liberty. While being held in a loving relationship with God, there is openness and joy in what new things we might soon encounter.

God dwells wherever Jesus dwells. God goes wherever Jesus goes.

We might call a church a “House of God,” but God is not exclusively located there. Jesus spent time in local synagogues, interacting with the local people of the established religion. He didn’t ignore them; he spent time with people like Nicodemus, a Pharisee who came to Jesus in the middle of the night to learn.

But because of Jesus’ actions, God can be found in so many other places.

Jesus often went to the edges, to the borders and crossed them. He engaged in a conversation with a Samaritan woman at a well. If you remember anything about the relationship between Jews and Samaritans, you know it wasn’t good. Each group believed the other to be worshipping God at the wrong place, to be unclean, to be, at their core, bad people where were to be avoided at all costs. And here Jesus is, inviting a Samaritan into dialogue and bringing her and her entire village to faith.

Jesus heals a blind man, who many believed was blind because he or his parents had committed some unpardonable sin. Jesus restores his sight, even though it is the Sabbath and some might think he is “doing work on the Lord’s day.”  He does not let human rules get in the way of God’s grace. Time and time again, Jesus can be found with those whom society often overlooks. The poor, the hungry, the outcast, the ones who live on the fringes.

God is not kept in a box, God has been taken free-range of our world and we get to join in! We get to encounter God in the world and let the joy of that encounter break us open in ways we can’t imagine, let the joy of that encounter fill us with new passion for the gospel and enthusiasm for God’s mission and work.

Maybe that’s something to think about this week. Maybe we can keep our eyes peeled for where God might show up. And maybe we can use that to discover where we might be most called to do the work of God.

If we spot God in the midst of an interaction with someone living on the street, what can we do to join God there? If God is advocating for justice and peace in a public forum, can we add in our own voice? If God is offering care to the sick, can our hands help? If God is comforting the grieving or consoling the bereft can we provide our own shoulders to lean on as well?

It’s a deceptively simple formula: find where God has already decided to dwell and foster joy, and take up residency there ourselves. But it takes courage on our part, and creativity. We cannot limit ourselves to what we have always done or where we have always gone. It means expanding our ideas of where we can encounter God. It is taking the joy God has given us and allowing it to liberate us.

God has left the building, abounding in steadfast joy and love. Let’s go find out where God’s gone!

Amen.

Vocational Joy

Sermon preached Sunday, March 17, 2024, the Fifth Sunday in Lent, at Lutheran Church of Our Saviour in North Chesterfield, VA. 

We’ve come to the Fifth Sunday in Lent and the last of the Sundays we’re focusing on a particular kind of joy. Today, it is vocational joy.

The word vocation can be a tricky one. Oftentimes, it is used as a substitute for “occupation.” Certainly, sometimes our vocation plays out through our occupation, but that is certainly not a requirement. Sure, we may be a teacher and our vocation is to share knowledge and to help people grow. Or we may be a healthcare worker and our vocation is to help people heal or feel their best physically. They don’t have to be connected, by they also don’t have to inhabit completely different silos in our lives.

My favorite understanding of vocation comes from Frederik Buechner—maybe you’ve heard it before: “The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.”[i] If that is our framework, then our vocation is so much more than what we do to earn a living or support ourselves or our family.

Our vocation is a calling from God that leads us deeper into discipleship while, at the same time, blesses us with a sense of purpose and joy. Sometimes our vocations seem to appear easily in front of us, ready for us to take them on. Other times, they may require some searching, both within ourselves and in the world around us. In any case, our life can present us with a string of consecutive vocations, or more than one vocation at a time that we need to balance.

It is tempting to hear Buechner’s words (“…where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.”) and believe that this is an easy thing or believe that once you have discerned your vocation everything you do in service to it will be smooth sailing. And not only will it be easy, but because it is where our deep gladness leads us, it must always be a place of unbridled happiness.

This just simply isn’t the case. The deep hunger of the world is a yawning chasm of pain and suffering and, frequently, literal hunger. It is where people are vulnerable and tired and rarely the best versions of themselves, displaying anger, selfishness, and distain. Our gladness certainly helps encourage and energize our work, but it doesn’t make everything simple and cheerful. Meeting the world’s needs in this way requires bravery and tenacity, not to mention abundant compassion energy. It requires faith and trust that God will not call us to a place where God will not accompany us.

…and God has already gone anywhere we might go.

This morning’s Gospel reading takes place after Jesus has triumphantly entered Jerusalem. I love the way a colleague sets the scene:

“The whole city is talking about Jesus. Just before this Sunday’s verses begin, the crowd that witnessed Lazarus’ raising was testifying, and their story was compelling. Now, these Greeks want to see Jesus! Everyone wants to see Jesus! It’s all very glorious and shiny. But Jesus can perceive the cross in the near distance. He recognizes that he has arrived precisely where God has called him to be. Here, he will be led into pain, suffering, and even death. The world’s deep hunger is about to gulp him down.”[ii]

Jesus and his disciples are approached by a group of Greeks. “Sir, we wish to see Jesus,” they say to Philip. And what is Jesus’ answer? He tells them how they will see Jesus: “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life.”[iii]

Jesus goes on to say that his heart is troubled but that he cannot turn away from the path laid out before him, the path that will lead, inevitably, to the cross. “…it is for this reason that I have come to this hour,” he declares.[iv]

Could this be Jesus’ declaration of vocation? Could this be an asserting of God’s vocation?

Where deep gladness and deep hunger meet…
God’s greatest desire throughout scripture is reconciliation with creation. To have renewed relationships, to have lasting covenants, to love humanity as deeply as love can go. Is it too much of a stretch to say that God’s deep gladness is found by being in relationship with the world God created?

…and the deep hunger of our world is a resounding echo of that desire, or maybe its mirror image, only separated by a chasm of sin, of stubbornness and pride and an inability to not make idols out of wealth and power. The world has a deep hunger and deep need for God’s grace and salvation, but we just keep pushing it away, favoring instead all the ways that provide instant gratification or individual comfort at the expense our neighbors.

And so, for God, where else could this lead but the cross? Where else could this all lead but a symbol of humanities depravity, of the ugliness we inflict on ourselves, on each other, and, now, on God? This instrument of execution used by the Romans stands in for every way in which humanity rebels against God…and by meeting humanity’s hunger for love and grace and salvation there, God turns it on its head.

In Christ’s passion, we see highlighted the just some of the foibles and deep sin that God came to overcome:

• Judas and other Zealots unable to see a God who doesn’t not rule by force.
• The religious leaders unwilling to cede their self-important power.
• The Roman authorities subjugating through violence any threat to their farce of peace.
• Masses of humanity that shout “Hosanna!” one day and “Crucify him!” another when things get hard or didn’t happen the way they expected.
• Disciples who are quick to doubt and forget what they’d learned and experienced while they were with Jesus.

And so, God goes to the cross because it is through the cross, through confronting death and rising to new life, that God responds to the deep hunger of our sin, and responds, finally, with the deep gladness and joy of the resurrection. It is not easy, but it is who God is, who God is for us. Where we might say God finds vocational joy.

Not simple. Not easy. Not always cheerful and happy…but needed. And real. And for our sake.

Amen.

[i] Frederick Buechner, Wishful Thinking: A Theological ABC (New York: Harper and Row, 1973), 95.

[ii] Barn Geese Worship Sermon Notes.

[iii] John 12:23-25. NRSV.

[iv] John 12:27b. NRSV.

Transformative Joy

Sermon preached Sunday, March 10, 2024, the Fourth Sunday in Lent, at Lutheran Church of Our Saviour in North Chesterfield, VA.  

Let’s talk about Transformative Joy. This morning’s readings are such great examples of the ways God can take something and turn it on its head, transform it into something else completely. In the story from Numbers and in the Gospel reading, we see death transformed into life.

The stories about the Israelites wandering in the desert for forty years are relatively well known to many of us. You may remember the story of God providing manna for the people to eat when they didn’t have food, or God providing water from a rock when they didn’t have anything to drink. The ten commandments? That happened during this time. The worship of a golden calf? That happened here, too!

Chances are, though, if you start naming stories about what happened, today’s reading from Numbers isn’t in the top five. Despite the fact that this story is always the first reading on the Fourth Sunday of Lent during year two of our three year reading cycle, it’s one that we’re prone to forget about.

I think part of the reason for this is that it comes across as supernatural in a superstitious and almost magical way. The serpent on the staff becomes a totem, something that will provide a cure for the poisonous snakes just by looking at it. What we forget, though, is that the healing does not come through the action of gazing on the snake itself. Looking is the act of repentance—healing only comes through God.

The Gospel reading refers directly to this Old Testament narrative and Jesus compares himself to this serpent…but there’s a difference. Whereas the snake is the object of fear and danger, Jesus is the representation of salvation and healing. Instead, the cross itself is the thing we wish to be saved from.

In both cases, we are asked to look at things that are killing us: the poisonous snake and the cross, which represents all of the ways we harm one another and seek to destroy the things we don’t understand, namely a God who defies our expectations. The cross embodies our unwillingness to accept and embrace justice and love over power and violence. It contains all the ways in which we refuse to listen to God’s Word, all the ways we actively work against it.

Why is this the case? Why are we called to look here? Why were the Israelites asked to look at the snake? Why do we make the cross the focal point in our worship space? It’s not magic. It’s not superstition. It is a recognition that only by identifying the things that hurt us, the things that are slowly killing us, can we move forward. The Israelites faced the source of their death and God healed them. We face the cross, the symbol of our own death, the symbol of our sin, of all the things that keep us from new and abundant life with God, and God reminds us that even this horrific tool of death can play a role in our salvation.

It’s like going to the doctor. You can go and have blood drawn and your heart and lungs listened to, and tests taken, but what would happen if you just left? What would happen if you never got the results back? What would happen if you never faced that you had high blood pressure, or diabetes, or cancer? Would refusing to look at your illness make it go away? Of course not. We have to face the diagnosis in order to know how to address it.

It’s like having a conflict with a spouse or a friend or a coworker. You can pretend like it never happened, paste a pleasant, if fake, smile on your face every time you see them. But what would happen? Would things actually get better? Or would resentment seethe underneath the surface until it came out sidewise and your relationship was ruined beyond repair? It takes courage to confront conflict, to decide to work through it and address it—we have to face it in order to transform it into something else entirely.

It’s like thinking that, as a society, problems like racism, sexism, homophobia, xenophobia, economic disparity, and education gaps will all sort themselves out if we’d just stop talking about them, as if the only reason these things happen is because we keep bringing them up.

But think about that for a minute. Would slavery ever have ended in this country if abolitionists just decided to stop talking about it and waited patiently until slave holders came around to their way of thinking? It never would have happened. Would women have been given the vote if they never marched and demanded that their voice be heard? Would we have weekends, safer working conditions, and a minimum wage if workers assumed that their employers would choose fairness and employee welfare over profit?

We don’t like to have the boat rocked. We like the status quo because we know what to expect. We are tempted to keep things the way things are if “the way things are” is working for us.

We know from history that talking about our societal and systemic problems don’t actually make them worse, rather they highlight and bring into the open all the things that live in the shadows. We have to face the ways in which sin manifests itself if we want to participate in dismantling it. We have to face the ugliness of ourselves and our capacity for destruction to be transformed into participants of God’s new creation.

This work is hard. This work is sometimes painful. This work can also be incredibly rewarding. And this is work we do not undertake alone. We face the things that hurt us—hurt our bodies, hurt our spirits, hurt our society, hurt our world—always with God by our side, and only through God’s grace and strength.

The central verse in the Gospel reading today is perhaps the most well-known and well-loved verses in the Bible: John 3:16. “⁶For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.” It’s a verse you’ve likely heard a lot. Maybe you have it memorized. But when you really think about it, what does it mean for you? How does it influence your life? Does it provide comfort? Or hope? Or inspiration? Or courage?

For me, when I hear these words or read them, I am reminded that God’s love is ever-expanding and abundant. It sticks with me. It will never leave me. This love is so incredible that God chose to inhabit our world, inhabit our bodies, and endure the shame and pain of the cross. Through this incredible act of irrevocable love, we are given healing, wholeness, salvation…and freedom. Freedom from everything that hurts us, everything that kills us slowly from within and without, everything represented by that instrument of torture, the cross. We face the cross, we look to the cross, and we are transformed, because we know that Christ has triumphed over it and, through Christ, so have we.

This is God’s doing, not ours. It is God’s power, not ours.

God tells Moses to put a bronze serpent on a pole to be lifted up, so that everyone who looks on it may life. Jesus tells all who will listen that he will be lifted up, so that everyone who believes will have eternal life. Elsewhere in the Gospel of John, Jesus goes further and says that when he is lifted up, he will draw all peoples to himself. This is God’s act of reconciliation and new life and transformation.

We know that God’s transformative joy finds us every time we courageously face those things that threaten us, both from within and without, and embraces us with love.

Amen.

Expectant Joy

Sermon Preached Sunday, February 25, 2024, the Second Sunday in Lent, at Lutheran Church of Our Saviour in North Chesterfield, VA. 

Our Lutheran Tradition likes to hold things in tension.

Saint and sinner.

Law and Gospel.

Already and not yet.

It’s that last one that we’re drawn to today. On this second Sunday in our Seed of Joy series, we’re exploring the notion of Expectant Joy, joy that perhaps has not yet arrived in full, but is waiting just beyond in the wings.

I imagine you’ve experienced this kind of joy.

As a child, it’s that feeling when you go to bed on Christmas Eve or the night before your birthday, giddy with excitement and happiness because you know the next day has wonders awaiting you.

As we grow, maybe we’ve felt that joy before a graduation, or before moving into a new place you’ve been looking forward to living in. If you’ve gotten married, it’s likely you’ve felt this in the time between your engagement and the wedding day itself, the planning and preparation tinged with joy because you knew that special day was coming.

There is expectant joy when ourselves or a loved one is planning to add to their family, whether by pregnancy or adoption. Expectant joy, though tempered by worry, when a promising treatment is undergone for a scary diagnosis. Expectant joy when we make plans to see friends or family or just a trip to relax.

It’s something that I think is pretty well baked into our lives, this notion that we can feel these early precursors of joy even if the joyful event or moment or experience is still far off.

A friend of mine put it this way: “…This is joy that we know is coming, but it is not here yet in its fullness. Expectant joy trembles with shimmering possibility that has not yet come into being but will, and that sheer potential is enough to lighten loads, strengthen hearts, unbind minds, and stir hopes. Practicing expectant joy might look absurd: it’s an act that resists rationalization and believes six impossible things before breakfast, à la Alice in Wonderland. Expectant joy invites our faith, and on the grayest days, it demands our trust.”[i]

This joy is present throughout scripture, as God’s people wait for relationship, wait for deliverance, wait for a promised land, wait for a messiah, wait for the return of Christ. It is also especially present in the readings assigned this morning.

Abram is promised a multitude of descendants, too many to count. The joy he feels at this is immediate, in some ways, because God is enacting this covenant with him, even going so far as to adding God’s spirit to his name…but it is also expectant. Abraham will not live to see all of these descendants come to pass.

Paul echoes this, reminding the listeners in Rome that they are heirs of this covenant…and what are heirs but expectant recipients of a gift? A gift that is still not fully realized and so their joy—and ours—inhabits that in-between space of already and not yet.

The Gospel reading gets at it a little more directly. Jesus is preaching about what the disciples can expect…and it certainly doesn’t seem to joyful, does it? Suffering, rejection, death…no, these are things that anyone would want to avoid.

And Peter does. He tries to correct, to redirect Jesus, to keep him from saying these horrific things. But Jesus knows that it is only through this process, this struggle, that true and full joy can come in the moment of resurrection, in the moment of reconciliation with God. And so Jesus’ response comes quickly: he rebukes Peter, tells him to get behind him.

I have to admit, I’ve always heard this in a “get out of my way” sense. Like, “Get behind me, Peter, get out of my way, fall in line, back off.” But, this year, for whatever reason, every conversation I’ve had about this text, everything I’ve read, has made the same point that is now so obvious to me I can’t believe I ever missed it.

Jesus says, “Get behind me.” Not to leave Peter behind or to shut him out, but because it is only by getting behind Jesus that Peter can follow. He is still very much part of this community and Jesus still very much wants his presence and participation…but Peter is confronted with his own need to learn how to follow.

Isn’t it the same for us? Peter has to learn to follow Jesus because he wants, more than anything, to avoid the path of the cross, for himself, for his friends, for Jesus. Why would he ever choose that? But in following Jesus, we see that the cross is where God meets us: in suffering, in the pain and need of the world, in the place where all pretense and performance and pride is stripped away. And when we meet God there, we see the joy waiting on the other side: the resurrection, the hope of new life, the restoration of relationship and community and identity.

To borrow a little more from my friend again: “Christians live in between the right now and the not yet. The present moment is often fraught with grief: neither the world nor we ourselves are as God desires. Creation is rife with violence and division, suffering and hate, and we don’t know if we will see it change in our lifetimes. But God will fulfill all that God has promised. That joy is with us even in the midst of the not yet, and it has the power to shape our encounter with the right now. Through this complexity, God invites and equips us to cultivate expectant joy, a persistent trust in God’s future promises that empowers us to work toward God’s vision immediately.”[ii]

How do we attempt to live in that expectant joy? This is not an easy task, I know. The temptation is to put on rose-colored glasses and lean into empty optimism that simply brushes aside or seeks to minimize our hurts and pain. This is not the way.

No, instead, we are called to lean into honest trust—not because we are naïve, but because God is faithful. I turn again to my friend because she just puts it too beautifully: “In this Lenten season, we might begin by embracing joy even when there’s no good reason to feel it; by trusting God’s promise even when the world thinks it’s a foolish thing to do; by hoping against hope that everything God has offered to us is on its way, and may even be arriving now, in us, around us, and through us.”[iii]

In your moments of pain and hurt, where have you been reminded of God’s promise? What has enabled you to feel expectant joy? May we seek to be the face, the hands, the feet, the words of that promise for one another.

Amen.

[i] Victoria Larson, Barn Geese Worship, Seed of Joy, Preaching Notes.

[ii] Ibid.

[iii] Ibid.

Persistent Joy

Sermon preached Sunday, February 18, 2024, the First Sunday of Lent, at Lutheran Church of Our Saviour in North Chesterfield, VA. 

On Wednesday we began a new Lenten series. Throughout the weeks of Lent and up through Easter Sunday, we will be reflecting on the idea of Joy. Where do we experience joy? How do we experience it? How is the complexity of joy like the complexity of God and our relationships with God and with others? Each week we examine another facet. Today? Persistent joy.

With that lens in mind, we approach this morning’s text. We began with a familiar story, the story of Noah. Noah and the Ark is one of those stories that the church teaches even very young children. Every time we see a rainbow in the sky, we remember this account!

But how often, really, do we take the time to think about what’s really happening here? Yes, God promises to never flood the earth again—but it’s bigger than that. The bow in the sky is a reminder of the covenant that God makes—not just with humanity, but with all of creation. God makes a covenant to be the God of this earth and to stick it out, through thick and thin. God promises persistence.

There’s a phrase that I’m going to sound hopelessly uncool for saying, but this is God’s promise to be the ride-or-die divinity for this world. Come what may, God will not abandon us, God will not wipe us out and start over, God will do whatever it takes to stay in relationship with us.

And this first covenant is one that God proves over and over again throughout scriptures. When things get tough, God adapts and finds new ways to reach us. God makes new covenants, but they never erase this primary one.

And this primary covenant finds it’s most fitting confirmation in the person of Jesus.

The lengths that Jesus goes through to evidence how much God loves us are incredible.

His ministry begins with forty days in the desert. Forty days without food, or water, or company, aside from wild beasts and angels, or a comfortable place to rest his head. And, if that wasn’t enough, Satan tempts him—adding even more difficulty to an already trying time.

The following weeks and months are full of conflict and trouble and constantly highlight how much easier it would be for Jesus to just capitulate. To give up. To leave humanity to our own devices.

And, of course, in this season of Lent, we know that the most trying days of all lie ahead. Jesus will be betrayed. Arrested. Mocked. Tortured. Convicted in a sham trial. Executed by the state.

Do you see? God is even more than “ride or die.” God is “ride and die.” Not only will God go to any length to be reconciled to us in life—but God is willing to go further, even to death.

From the first book of the Bible to the last, from Genesis to Revelation, we learn of our God who makes a covenant with us and never relents. Not when Jesus dies. Not when we die. We are God’s, in life and death. There is nothing we can do about it and nothing God will do about it.

In that, there is our salvation. In that, there is deep and abiding joy because we know, deep down, that nothing can separate us from God.

That’s what the rainbow really says. In the end, God hangs up the bow, God hangs up a weapon. God hangs up a promise. A promise of relationship, a promise of salvation, and a promise of persistent joy.

Consider so many moments in human history when the main theme was struggle. In battles against oppression, in the face of poverty, in the midst of grief and loss, in natural disaster devastation. Somehow, someway, even in heartbreaking and bleak times, glimmers of joy manage to shine through.

I think about the civil rights movement of the 1960s and the songs that rang out loudly during marches. I think about Dr. King who leads into his famous lines about his dream with the words, “Let us not wallow in the valley of despair…” and then paints a joyful image of justice and equitable life for all.
I think about the pandemic, especially those early days when we knew so little about COVID-19, we didn’t know exactly how it spread, we knew even less about the long-term impacts, and the medical field was struggling to provide help at the large scale required. We were isolated. We were scared. We were worried: about our health, our finances, our food supply, our toilet paper supply. …and yet, joy persisted. We discovered new ways to stay connected with loved ones. (In my household, we started doing Zoom happy hours with friends who lived across the county and wondered why we hadn’t thought to do that before now!) Actor and director John Krasinski even did a whole show from inside his house highlighting good news stories that were coming out from around the world, helping us all laugh and smile and not feel quite so alone.

And I think about my own growing up in California and the wildfire threats that came around, that still come around with increasing frequency. The worst part about wildfires, in my opinion, is that they can last a while, they can move and shift and change directions quickly and can last weeks. A tornado, a hurricane, a mudslide, a flood, all can be catastrophic, but usually don’t linger.

On year when I was in high school, we were out of school for two weeks due to both direct threat from the fire and from the poor air quality. (In southern California our classroom windows were slats, our hallways all outdoors and we had no central air.) It was always an anxiety producing time and I have very distinct memories of being glued to the news coverage when a fire was raging while I was in Ohio at college. I couldn’t look away, so worried I was that the fire would take my family’s home or threaten a friend.

And one day, a friend posted a story on Facebook. She worked at Starbucks at the time, in the area of the fire but not so close that her store was closed. She posted a selfie of her and who else but the then-Governor of California, Arnold Schwarzenegger, who had come in with his team for coffee while taking a break from touring the devastation.

Obviously, none of us wanted the fire to happen, we would never trade a celebrity selfie for the horror of a fire cresting over a hill and hopping a freeway…but it was a small moment of persistent joy that came through nonetheless.

Joy, persistent as a weed that continues to pop up no matter how many times you think you’ve gotten the last of it. That is God’s promise to us: even in the bleakest moments, God’s love, light, grace, salvation, and joy is there with us.

Amen.