Choose Joy

​Emmanuel Episcopal Church, Greenwood, Virginia
Advent III, Year B
December 19, 2021
The Rev. John Taliaferro Thomas
 
When I read Deacon Karulyn’s reflection for the week, it shot me back to clear and vivid memory.  Our daughter, Emily, was a toddler and our son, Sam, was about six months old.  I was serving at St. Luke’s in downtown Atlanta, and Janice at a school-based health clinic in southeast Atlanta.  To say that logistics were complicated is an understatement.  Janice left at the crack of dawn, so mornings were mine to get us all out of the house and to our respective places for the day.  Feed the kids, dress the kids, pack the diaper bag, and bottles, and extra clothes (Sam was a hurler).  Emily also needed extra clothes for something called messy play (which I call daily life), lunch, and a signed off daily report from the day before.  Then we loaded the car buckled the car seat and infant bucket.  Sam went to his child care center, and Emily went to hers, which of course, were not in the same place.  God help us if one or both got sick or I forgot something for the field trip or teacher appreciation day.
 
That is just the context for the memory, and this where Karulyn’s reflection on the ear worm struck a literal chord.  As soon as we were underway, the cry came from Emily: “Nooosic!”  Thus, ours was a singing commute.  The soundtrack came from a cassette tape called Wee Sing.  Wee Sing is a panoply of Bible songs sung by cute young voices.  The first 10 times it is cute… it can get annoying.  The big favorite was the very same song as our Deacon’s.  I got the joy joy, joy, joy, down in my heart, and then comes the call and response.  Daddy: Where?  Emily: Down in my heart.  Daddy: Where?  Emily: Down in my heart.  And on and on as nauseum.  The tune would stick with me all day.
 
I will never forget one warm spring morning with the windows open and pollen haze in the air, at the long light at Ponce de Leon and Peachtree, when we were doing our 4,335th run through of the duet.  Mid joy, joy, joy, I looked to my right and a woman was looking at me, thumbs up, laughing hysterically.  Then, she sang along.  She chose to get that joy, joy, joy, down in her heart.
 
This is a long way of saying that the refrains of our brains can be valuable reminders of our faith.  This is that season.  Lots of refrains echo in our memory:  O Come O come Emmanuel, Hark, the Herald Angels Sing! All the greatest hits.  Even shopping has a holiday soundtrack as market tested tunes nudge us toward jolly generosity.  Not all memories are happy, that travels with us too.  In that way, the season can mix up our emotions.  None of them are good or bad, they just are. 
 
Before we move from joy to love (flip) this fourth season of advent, I am reminded of a helpful quotation.  The Dali Lama gets credit for this, but it is lodged deeply in many wisdom traditions.  It is this: “Suffering is inevitable.  Misery is optional.  Joy is a choice.”  Notice that it does not say happiness is a choice.  Then happiness movement is big business.  And it leans toward something real called toxic positivity.  I find so called self-help mantras to be neither about myself, or particularly helpful.  There are scads of titles about happiness.  For joy, we need to go to the Religion and Spirituality section.  Joy is deeper, and can be experienced even in grief.  Joy is about loving, and loving hard.  Joy and love are the twin engines of whole-hearted living.  Both have verbal roots.  They are actions.  And they are a choice.
 
Today, with the fourth candle lit serving as count down we see that Jesus’ birthday comes next.  Our eyes are set on Bethlehem, but we are not yet there.  In fact, we take one last detour, to Cousin Elizabeth’s house, where Mary goes from Nazareth to Hebron, an 81-mile walk, 27 miles out of the way toward Bethlehem.  Clearly, that is a choice, and given her condition, an inconvenient one, at that.
 
Luke opens with the line “In those days Mary set out and went with haste” to visit her extended family.  Word reached her that Cousin Elizabeth, who was way past her childbearing years, was also expecting a child.  This was the other miracle baby.  In that culture, the expectation of birth was cause for public celebration and in Elizabeth’s case, a sign and wonder of God’s doing.  But for Mary, not so much.  An unmarried pregnancy was the opposite: a scandal bringing shame on her family and her family to be.  By law, her seemingly scorned husband to be could have her stoned to death to save face.  Joseph chose not to exercise that right.  While he is a largely silent character, that one crucial choice is lodged in love for Mary, for the child, and for God.
 
Given that fact, it is no wonder that Mary made haste to get out of Nazareth, away from prying eyes, away from grumbles of condemnation, away from human judgement of what she knew in her heart that God was doing.  When she proclaims the Magnificat (My soul proclaims the Lord… the whole thing), the traditional Song of Mary, she does not submit it in writing, nor are all the words hers.  In fact, they are assembled from Psalms, the Book of Daniel and other radical Old Testament prophecies.  Mary is not doing her own thing; she is connecting her condition with a deeply held belief that God is not finished with the world.  Far from being a potted plant, a holy pawn, Mary despite all appearances and social mores, chooses not to be miserable, she chooses to be joyful.  Her change in geography reflects her decision to move toward celebration instead of wallowing in condemnation.  What better place to be than with family and a fellow miraculous child bearer?
 
Along with John the Baptist in utero, and Elizabeth and Mary and all the other celebrants, despite all appearances to the contrary in a world of pain and suffering, we catch a vision of our own opportunity of choice.  Other more modern prophets riff on this theme as Professor Dumbledore tells Harry Potter “It is our choices… that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.”  The legendary basketball coach, told his players “The choices you make in life, make you.”  And, even, the fictional soccer coach, Ted Lasso, draws on the greats, saying, “choices are chances fellas.”
 
Joy and love are choices, and those abstract words are, really, actions.  If there is any earworm we need in journey of now, it is this: Suffering is inevitable, misery is optional.  Joy is a choice.  With Joseph and Mary and Elizabeth, with shepherds and angels and seers men from the East, with coaches and coworkers, with children and check-out clerks we have every chance to choose what we make this life.  The choice is ours and no matter what we do, or what we do not do, God has already chosen us.  Amen.