Be Merry in God

Be Merry in God! Rev. Karen Pidcock-Lester First Presbyterian Church, Pottstown, Pa. Bright Sunday, 2012

John 20:19-23 I John 1:1-4

How many Presbyterians does it take to change a light bulb? None. We Presbyterians don’t do ‘change.’

How many choir directors does it take to change a light bulb? No one knows because no one ever watches the choir director.

Have you heard the one about the old Presbyterian pastor who was dying? One day he sent a message for a doctor and lawyer known for their lavish lifestyles, both members of his congregation, to come to his home.

When they arrived, they were ushered up to his bedroom. As they entered the room, he held out his hands and motioned for them to sit on each side of his bed. Then he grasped their hands, sighed contentedly, and smiled.

For a long time no one said anything. Both the doctor and lawyer were touched and flattered that the old man would want them with him during his final moments. He had never given them any indication that he particularly liked either of them. His sermons in the past about greed and various other behavior had made them squirm in their seats many a time.

Finally the doctor asked, "Preacher, why did you ask us to come and see you at this time?"

The old man mustered up some strength, and then said weakly, "Jesus died between 2 thieves... and that's how I want to go." http://jokes.edigg.com/Easter/Just_Like_Jesus.shtml

What did the cabbage pastor say to the people? Lettuce pray.

Let us pray.

For centuries, in the long history of the church, it was tradition on Easter Sunday for even the most solemn, formal preacher to begin his sermon with a joke. The day after Easter, Easter Monday, was ‘hailed as God’s laughter day.” (Paul Thigpen, “God Has Given me Cause to Laugh: Toward a Theology of Humor,” www.starofthesea.com/humor

People would gather on Easter Monday to tell jokes and funny stories, to dance and eat…Churches in Bavaria in the 15th century used to celebrate the Sunday after Easter as Risus Paschalis (God’s Joke, or “The Easter Laugh”). They would play practical jokes on one another after the service. It was their way of celebrating the resurrection of Christ – the supreme joke God played on Satan by raising Jesus from the dead.” (http://re:Worship.blogspot.com)

In the words of the Irish poet Patrick Kavanaugh, the resurrection of Jesus was truly “a laugh freed forever and ever.” (quoted in Thigpen) And so this day has been called Bright Sunday, or Holy Humor Sunday, or Holy Fools Day.

People didn’t just make this up to have fun – though there is nothing wrong with having fun. Thomas Aquinas said there is a time for ‘playful deeds and jokes.” Even John Calvin said “we are nowhere forbidden to laugh.”

Bright Sunday can claim its roots not just in church tradition, but in the Easter story itself, in the text we read a few moments ago, the account of what happened after Easter morning.

The text does not begin with laughter. The disciples are locked in a room in fear. And who can blame them? They have a lot to be afraid of. Jewish leaders, Roman military…I imagine a risen Christ was something to be afraid of! That would be enough to make a man run and hide. The last contact they’d had with Jesus was when they were participating in his murder. There’s a lot to be afraid of in this world for disciples. So the text opens in fear and confusion.

And the text closes with work to do. Jesus breathes on them his Holy Spirit, and commissions them with a job, a big job: to carry on, and carry out his mission of carrying grace into the world. Jesus has a purpose for these guys – a high, and broad, and deep purpose which will upend their life, and set them on a new course which will demand their soul, their life, their all. And they will give it, willingly, freely.

But between the fear from what has passed, and the work which is to follow, there is this verse: “ the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord.”

Let’s not skip over that. The disciples rejoiced.

What did that look like? How long did that rejoicing last? Was it only a moment, over as quickly as we can read those three words, “the disciples rejoiced?”

I doubt it. I imagine the account consists of only three words because words could not convey what that time of rejoicing was like… did the moment start in silence, with Jesus waiting for the reality of his presence, of his aliveness to sink in… did he stand there, with his arms and hands outstretched, smiling, his eyes bright and gleaming? was he chuckling at their confusion, at the looks on their faces as they stared at this hands, stared at him? And then, when they started to sputter “Wh-h-h-at? is it you?! Is it really you?” did he beam “Yes, yes…it’s me…no, you’re not crazy, it’s really me…I did it!!! Remember I told you? remember I showed you with Lazarus?”

“Oh. my. God.” I can hear them say, reverently…they were speaking to God…”you did tell us! you did it!! You did it!”

What were they doing then --fist pumping the air? wrestling, pounding, smacking each other up side the head like middle school boys? (circling hips and arms…) “He did it! He did it!” and laughing, laughing, a laugh freed forever and ever?

The scriptures say he “showed them his hands and side”, he showed them who he was.

And who was he? He was the one who had suffered horribly, inexplicably – but he wasn’t suffering anymore. He was the one they had laid in the tomb – but here he stood, alive. He was the one they had walked out on, betrayed– but here he was saying “Peace.” He was the one who had made them strong and courageous when he was alive, but when he died, they hadn’t been brave anymore …and here he was, and their fear was dropping away. He was the one who had made everything make sense, they had hoped so much, left everything to follow him, and without him they were paralyzed with the pointlessness of it all …and here he was! everything was worth it, and all they’d hoped for was true, and real.

This was who Jesus was, and the disciples rejoiced when they saw him.

G.K. Chesterton wrote, “The laughter of the heavens is too loud for us to hear.” Maybe the disciples heard the laughter of heaven, too loud for us to hear, and it silenced them… with joy.

It had all been about joy, after all. Jesus’ coming in the first place, as a baby in a manger (how funny is that, by the way?! ) his teaching, his preaching, the mocking, the suffering, the dying, and the rising – it had all been for joy, for their joy… for Jesus’ joy.

“I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy, my joy may be complete.” Jesus had said that, again and again. God wanted us to hear the laughter of heaven.

And now that Jesus was here, alive, and nothing could ever separate them from him— now the disciples’ joy was complete. A great deal lay ahead, but before the work, and the sorrow, and the pain that would follow, before it and beneath it, there would always be this joy because Jesus stood among them and said “Yes it’s me. I am risen. I’m here.”

From this moment on, they could live lightly in the world.

How can we not take time (the liturgical calendar sets aside 50 days!) to celebrate, to laugh, to hoot and holler, to pump the air and say “He did it!” to listen for the laughter of heaven and take this joy into our very being ?

He is risen! and he shows up where we are locked away, afraid of what’s out there, and he shows us who he is, and when we see him – maybe not with our eyes, but with our spirits, our fear drops away… we hear him speak, and his peace settles upon us… when we know he is near, it makes us brave, and it’s all worth it, and hope is fresh and strong…

Christ is risen, and he shows up! We, too, can live lightly in this world.

Now if you know me, you know that I, as much as any of us, need to remember to live lightly in this world. I have a heavy tread – literally, I have a heavy footstep. I am told I walk pitched forward, ready to take on… what? I don’t know, I guess the world, and life, and sin, especially my own. These are heavy things, and they are real.

Jesus took these things seriously. Enough to die for them. And Jesus left us with a lot to do!

So I try hard. I try hard to figure out what God wants, I try hard to get things right, to teach and preach without misleading anyone, to get the bulletin printed without a typo, I try hard to take care of the earth and vote for the right candidate and eat my vegetables – the dentist even tells me I brush my teeth hard. And you try hard too. You are earnest. It’s one of the reasons I love this congregation so. I imagine God loves your earnestness too.

But God help us if at the end of the day we cannot laugh -- at ourselves, at life, even at the world. God help us if we cannot rest in the grace of the world, and know we are free. God help us if we take life, or ourselves, too seriously! What a pity to go through this life heavy, heavy of heart and soul, after all Jesus went through so that we could live lightly in the world.

Sir Thomas More was a man of Easter faith who lived in Henry VIII’s England. Some of you will recall that he fought Henry VIII over matters of faith, and multiple wives, and so he “languished 15 months in the Tower of London, in the shadow of the scaffold where he finally met his martyrdom. In those terrible days, he wrote some of his finest works, among them his treatise entitled Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation.

“What is startling about these works is the sense of freedom, even a kind of lightness, that characterizes them…” observes one writer. “Such lightness… appeared one last bright time as the saint joked with his executioners.

“Weary and stumbling from long ill treatment, and with his hands tied behind his back, More feared that he might not be able to negotiate the shaky steps up to the scaffold to be beheaded. So he turned to the lieutenant beside him and quipped, “I pray you, see me safely up, and for my coming down let me shift for myself…

“The key [to More’s ability to live lightly in the face of tribulation] lies in the last two words of an exhortation that [appears] throughout the More’s personal letters. He never tires of urging his family, friends, and acquaintances: “Be merry in God.” (Paul Thigpen, adapted)

Without God, “there can be no true merriment. There can be only the shallow giggle of flippancy or the hollow mockery of the cynic.” (Thigpen)

But with God, with what God has done in Christ as Easter, we can be merry…even when the career is shattered, even when friends betray us, even when we [struggle with pain or hardship], even when death stares us in the face…

“To be truly merry…is to live lightly in this world, to be unburdened with cares about things that are … passing away. …For those who take God and His will with appropriate seriousness, nothing else need to be taken seriously.” (Paul Thigpen, adapted)

What God did in Jesus Christ was all about joy – our joy, and God’s – for what loving parent’s joy can be complete if their children are wretched?

If we take what God did in Christ on Easter seriously, then we can live lightly.

Like Jessica today, and the Erikson babies, God has breathed into us the same Spirit that raised Jesus Christ from the dead! and it can lift us ‘above the anxieties and even the horrors of the moment…’ or the past… lift us high enough to behold the glory that is promised, and which even now has begun to shine in the world.

It is said that he who laughs last laughs longest. In Christ, at Easter, God has shown us who has the last laugh.

So go ahead… live lightly in the world.

Be merry, in God.

Christ is risen! He is risen indeed. Alleluia! Alleluia!

Amen. Affirmation of Faith

“I Danced in the Morning…” I invite you to practice living lightly with this hymn. You may feel a bit foolish, but so what?

Since this is a hymn about dancing, will you try this? Let’s dance – where you are! – to the last verse, which is about resurrection. “They cut me down and I leap up high” take four steps to the center… “I am the life that’ll never, never die “ take four steps to back again… “I’ll live in you and if you live in me…” step right foot, left foot, right foot left foot I am the Lord of the dance said he” turn in a circle where you are.

Refrain: repeat that!

Come on…let us be merry in God…live lightly in the world.

Charge

Go easy, be filled with light, and shine in the world.

Benediction

The God of peace who brought back from the dead our Lord Jesus be with you this day, and every day, until we enter the merriment of heaven

Christ is risen!

He is risen indeed!