Let Go Of Your Balloon

"Let Go Of Your Balloon"
1 Thessalonians 5:16

Are you a joyful person?

Do you have a deep sense of indwelling joy?

"I've got the joy, joy, joy, joy
down in my heart
down in my heart,
down in my heart,
I've got the joy, joy, joy, joy
down in my heart,
down in my heart to stay.

Notice, I didn't ask, "Are you happy?"  If I asked that, then you'd be tempted to intellectualize your answer.  You'd respond with questions like, "What do you mean, by 'happy'?"  "Everyone defines happiness differently," you would rightly say.  But that's all just evasion so you don't have to answer the question: Are you happy?

Each of us knows the answer to that question.  It's a yes or no question.  It's not an essay question.  Yes or no—are you happy?  And, more importantly for today's message …are you a joyful person?  Yes or no?  Do you have a deep sense of indwelling joy?  Yes or no?

I'm not going to let you off the hook here.  Mainly because I wouldn't let myself off the hook as I asked myself that question all week.  I am troubled by my answer.  If I were preaching a sermon about prayer, I'd be excited about all I could say.  I know about prayer.

If I were to preach about being thankful in all circumstances, I would be excited to talk about that because I have learned so many lessons about that—the hard way.

If I were to preach about the power of the Holy Spirit, I would be excited about that, because I have done a lot of thinking and reading about the Holy Spirit in the last few years.

But talking about joy, deep indwelling joy, has me a bit nervous.  I'm not really sure if I really know what it's like to be joyful always.

I once attended a conference at a Presbyterian church in Omaha, when I was serving a church in the Lincoln area.  People were given red helium filled balloons as we entered the sanctuary.  We were told to release the balloons at some point in the service when we felt like expressing the joy in our hearts.  It was a very Presbyterian thing to do, since we Presbyterians usually don't feel free to say "Hallelujah," or, "Praise the Lord." Unless you're Alan and Jan Luttrell's granddaughter.  So, all through the service, balloons ascended.  When the service was over 1/3 of the balloons were unreleased.  One third of the people there were still holding on to their red balloon.

Did I let my balloon go?  You're wondering aren't you?  I'm sad to say, No.  I was one of the third who was still holding on to my balloon.

Am I happy?  By all outward circumstances, yes.  Mainly because happiness is dependent on outward circumstances.  Think of similar words:  happenstance, happens.  All are from the same root word, hap.  Hap means lucky, or fortunate.  Happenstance is a combination of the two words happen and circumstance.  Those all have to do with things that go on outside of ourselves that effect us internally.

So, am I happy?  I have two wonderful, amazing kids and their spouses—we have a great relationship.  I have a vocation I dearly love—being a pastor is all I have ever wanted to be.  I think I will always be a pastor, somehow, someway, even into retirement.  I am in a great congregation.  You are welcoming, and embracing, and open to new directions, and take on phenomenal local mission projects like Eagle Wings, and you are forgiving, and loving, and fun and funny.  I could go on and on about how great this congregation is.  It's a jewel, and there aren't many congregations like ours out there.  So, am I happy?  By all means, yes!  Life is good.

But am I joyful?  Do I have a deep sense of indwelling joy?  I'm not sure.  Why did I hold on to my balloon?

The word for joy in the Bible is chara.  It is where we get our English word, "Harrah!" from.  It's an expressive word that has to do with the whole person celebrating the indwelling presence of God.  Chara was a way that the early believers greeted God in the morning—with the utter joy of being alive each new day.  It was a word used when people wrote letters to each other.  The first word of the letter would be, chara!  Joy!

So why is it not my first word in the morning?  Maybe some of you are now asking yourself the same question.

Something gets in the way.  I/we allow something to get in the way.  I think I know what it is, for the most part for me.  If you answered "no" to the joyful question, or you aren't sure, then you must figure out what it is you are allowing to get in the way.  Different historic figures have tried to put their finger on their reason for a lack of joy.

The philosopher, Voltaire once wrote: "I wish I had never been born."  Clearly, though an amazing thinker, his lack of joy came from a miserable self-hatred.

Lord Byron lived a life of pleasure more than most. But he once wrote: "The worm, the canker, and grief are mine alone."  His lack of joy came from letting little things eat away at his life.

Jay Gould, the American millionaire, when dying, said: "I suppose I am the most miserable man on earth."  His lack of joy came from trying to hold on to everything he could, and never found a way to let it go.

Lord Beaconsfield enjoyed more than his share of both position and fame in society.  But in old age he wrote: "Youth is a mistake; manhood a struggle; old age a regret."  His lack of joy came from never finding anything worthwhile to really give his life to.

Or, Alexander the Great, who conquered the known world in his day, wept in his tent, before he said, "There are no more worlds to conquer."  He thought his joy was an insatiable quest for power, but found that way to joy was a lie.

For me, a large part of what has gotten in my way of the kind of joy I am trying to describe is an unyielding loneliness.  Loneliness has been, for me, like a low grade headache that won't go away.

This loneliness for me has had to do with a loss of place.  From the time I left home for college, and then to seminary, and into the ministry, I have made nine major geographical moves.  All of them have been from one state to another.  Three of them were moves half way across the country.  How many have made nine major geographical moves in the past 40 years?  Eight?  Seven?  Six?  Five?  Four?  Three?  Two?  One?  None?

When you think/when I think of place, I think of rootedness and story.  You can build your personal story best when you are rooted in one place for a long time.  I've learned that when a congregation starts telling me stories, not only about the church, but about their personal lives, they are pulling me into the story of place.  They are making me part of who and what they are.  And I am part of all that.  It's immensely embracing to hear, and be included in your story.  It makes me less lonely.  More in touch with what a deep joy is for me.

But there's this occupational hazard in the ministry that no one ever talks about.  In seminary we were taught to not make friends in the congregations we would serve.  I have failed that immensely.  The rationale for such advice was, we weren't supposed to make the congregation feel like we were playing favorites.

And the other hazard I wasn't prepared for was that we are to cut all ties with people in the congregation we are leaving.  I have already been warned by the moderator of the Committee on Ministry that I better have plans to move away from here after I retire, or suffer her friendly reprimand.

So for those nine major moves, I have had to cut off my relationships with all my friends.  At each new congregation I served, I was more and more aware about how tough and how lonely it will be to someday leave.  There is an immense importance of place, and longevity in a place, in creating and maintaining identity.  To cut myself off from past places; to move to a new place, and know it will never be my place, has been very emptying for me.  Very lonely.  And that vocational and geographical loneliness has stunted my feeling of inner joy.  No other vocation is like this, in this respect.

But something is emerging as I get closer to retirement.  Something that I think has to do with joy and not happiness.

As I pondered joy this week, it seemed one thread ran through all I read and thought about—joy comes out of nakedness.  (That got your attention, didn't it?)  Not the rip all your clothes off kind of nakedness.  So let me explain, before you get the wrong idea.

St. Francis of Assisi told about a time in which he was stripped of everything:  physical comfort, shelter, recognition, community, even identity.  He had nothing.  And then St. Francis wrote, "True joy consists in patient acceptance of this nakedness."  St. Francis was trying to make the point, not only vocationally as a priest, but also by the way he lived, "…that there is radical joy in having nothing to lose, nothing to protect, nothing to hide from, nothing to gain."  (Weavings, vol. III, no. 6, page 18)

That may sound a bit weird to you.  I thought about that a lot this week.  I think I will continue to think about it for a long time.

But here's the surprise for me.  The Women's Bible Study has been looking at the letter to the Philippians.  I've been kind of reading along, as a silent partner, in their study book.  Philippians 3:8-9 (Jerusalem Bible) caught my attention.  Verse 8 reads,
For Christ, I have accepted the loss of everything and I look on everything as so much rubbish if only I can have Christ…

I would always stop there because the verse numbering splits Paul's sentence.  This time I read on…
…if only I can have Christ and be given a place in him.  (read whole verse again)

That phrase, "…and be given a place in him…" hit me, not like a ton of bricks, but like a running embrace for which I have always longed.  I have a place!  I felt a connection with Paul—someone who also moved around a lot and was feeling place-less.  I have always had a place.  In Christ.  That loneliness I have always felt simply began to evaporate.  Why did I take so long to realize this?  In the nakedness that both St. Francis and Paul speak to, in that kind of loneliness, I discovered I really have everything!  "…If only I can have Christ and be given a place in him."

In the nakedness of my loneliness, feeling like I had no place, I discovered I really have all places…"if only I can have Christ and be given a place in him."

In the nakedness of my loneliness, understanding more fully how that loneliness blocked my joy, I discovered joy…"if only I can have Christ and be given a place in him."

Are you joyful?
Find your joy.

But I think you are going to have to look where you are most naked, in the way that St. Francis and Paul describe it.  Only then will you find your joy.  In Christ who is waiting there.

When your joy comes, when that day comes, you must release yourself to it, and give it expression.  You must let your balloon go.