Our Hearts May Surely There Be Fixed Where True Joys Are to Be Found;
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True Joys
John 12:1-8
A
Sermon
by
The Rev. Lynda Tyson
March 21, 2010
Saint Luke’s Parish
Darien, Connecticut
“Grant that“…our hearts may surely there be fixed where true joys are to be found…”Amen
.
In Sunday’s sermon a month ago I invited us all to consider a couple of good Lenten questions: “What can I live without?” “What can’t I live without, and why?” Well, unless you were somewhere other than Fairfield County last week you had a chance to try on those questions. I have heard it called “The worst storm in a lifetime,” or “The worst storm since the 1959 hurricane.” But I will call it “The Lenten Storm of 2010: a great exercise in what we can and can’t live without.”
It wasa week of good,fresh practice living without—without lights, heat, hot water, phone service …basic conveniences we truly take for granted. Well, maybe not so much anymore. Many of you this past week shared with me your heightened awareness of our brothers and sisters in other parts of the world doing without those very conveniences every day.
Can weactuallylive without electricity and the things it does for us? Well, it’s important to acknowledge that not everyone can. But the majority of uscan survive without electrical power, even if we might not call that living-it-up. Saturday evening while the storm was at full throttle Charlie and I managed to pull together what turned out to be a lovely small dinner party for our weekend houseguests, even without a working oven or electric lights. But Saturday evening’sfeeling of accomplishment didn’t last long, as the novelty wore off and the week became an exercise in not taking anything for granted. I am such a creature of routine that still, on day number four without power, I caught myself touching light switcheswhen I entered dark rooms. It was just muscle memory in action, reaching without thinking for something that’s just always there. Ah, so t wasn’t just me; I see smiles and heads nodding.
Maybe some of you remember the refrain from the Joni Mitchell song Big Yellow Taxi: “Don't it always seem to go that you don't know what you've got ‘til it's gone?” Sad, but so true, sometimes we have to lose something before we pay attention to how good that something (or someone) really is, before we really appreciate what we had.
Where does gratitude come from? Wendy Mogel is a clinical psychologist and parent educator. In her book The Blessing of a Skinned Knee she says, “No one is born feeling grateful.”[i] Gratitude, Mogel says, is something we learn. She writes about a scene most (if not all) parents have experienced—the child who can’t live without the latest fad toy and then, once received, the toy is abandoned after less than a week and the child begins hankering after the latest fad music CD. In a culture that prizes and practices instant gratification Mogel says “Everything carries the same weight, and none of it weighs very much.” [ii] Eat candy bars every day, and before long they aren’t a celebration anymore. She writes about “The Blessing of Longing,” how not having our desires satisfied immediately gives us a chance both to appreciate what we already have, and an opportunity to wait and dream in a way that adds value to our possessions, and experiences, and relationships. [iii]
Mogel tells a story about her young daughter Emma, who lingered alone at the table for 15 or 20 minutes one Friday night after their family’s Shabbat dinner. Mother looked in on daughter and asked Emma what she as doing there, practically in the dark. Emma showed her mother the poem she had just written about the tray of still burning candles on the table:
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Come here
come here and stay for awhile
to look at the beauty of the candles
to see the candle burn away
and to see their beauty burn away
Come here
come here to look at the light
to see its brightness
to see the happiness in the light
to see it grow and
to see it burn away
Come on before it’s gone![iv]
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Today’s Collect talks about fixing our hearts “where true joys are to be found…” So, what are “true joys?” True joys, as opposed to untrue joys—is there such a thing as a false joy? The definition of “true” in my old Webster’s dictionary is a full 3” deep, in little tiny type; it says things like, “firm, as in a tree; faithful, loyal, reliable, constant.” So, true joys are those deepest delights and sources of pleasure that we can count on—joys that are faithful, loyal, reliable, and constant—not just passing fancies, the latest toys, impulsive flings. True joys versus shallow joys. It’s a good prayer: that “…our heartsmay surely there be fixed where true joys are to be found…”
True joys are woven into John’s story of the dinner party at Bethany: The true joy of life itself—Just days earlier Jesus gave life back to Lazarus, who had been entombed 4 days after a fatal illness that Jesus hadn’t gotten there in time to cure. Maybe that’s the reasonthey give adinner for him. The true joy of friendship—Lazarus and his two sisters, Mary and Martha, are long-time cherished friends of Jesus. Theirs is a home where he feels safe and welcome, more true joys. The experience of sharing lovingly prepared food around a big family table is a true joy in this story. And what about the loving, undivided attention Mary devotes to Jesus, moments that feed both her soul and his? Selflessly and overtly she pours out upon his feetwhat had to be her single most expensive possession—a full pound of imported perfume that would have cost the equivalent of a year’s wages—poured outin the name ofhumble and shameless love.
Deepest joy, true joy goes hand-in-hand with gratitude. The things, the experiences, and the relationships that give us true joy are also those for which we are profoundly grateful. Mary has ever been the grateful student, sitting at the feet of Jesus. And now, she is all-the-more indebted to him for restoring her brother’s life. How poignant that she anoints Jesus with heavily perfumed oil as he approaches his own death.
As for what we can live without, by the way, at the dinner party at Bethany theywould not have missed a working oven or electric lights. Maybe the distinction between joy and “true joy” is a difference between simplicity and complexity. I was certainly doing a happy dance when the lights came on at our house Wednesday night. But that was simple joy and gratitude—different than the deepest truest joy and gratitude. True joys are infinitely greater than the likes of restored electrical power. They are joys that are faithful, loyal, reliable, constant—the things that make our lives worth living. And, we can’t manufacture true joys, or purchase them with money. True joys are where we are called to fix our hearts. The true joy is the thing that is most important.
The perfume would have been a simple joy. Mary’s true joy, the thing more important to her than the most expensive perfume money could buy, more important even than what her friends and family think of her, her true joy is living at the feet of the Son of God.
“Leave her alone,” Jesus says. “She bought it so that she might keep it for the day of my burial. You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me.” True joys may be faithful, loyal, reliable, and constant, but they have a finite lifetime. So, we make a mistake if we don’t find and celebrate our true joys every day. The world’s troubles will outlast all of us. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t have compassion for those who struggle; where is there a better example of a compassionate individual than Jesus? But where are our hearts fixed? We can miss the most important gifts in our lives if we fail first to identify them, and then to celebrate them…before we lose them.
In this last week of Lent, how about joining Mary at the table in Bethany? How about using this time to identify the true joys in our lives, and then to fix our hearts upon those things: the precious experiences and the relationships money can’t buy—life itself, family, best friends,places ofsafety and welcome, shared time around the table, undivided attention we can give or receive, and the opportunity to sit at his feet, worshiping the Son of God.
So, two more questions to ask ourselves: “What are the true joys in my life, and what will I do every day to celebrate each one of them, while I still have them?”
[i] Wendy Mogel, The Blessing of a Skinned Knee, New Your: Scribner, 2001, p. 125.
[ii] Ibid., p. 130.
[iii] Ibid.
[iv] Ibid., p. 235.