Plymouth Congregational Church of Fort Wayne, UCC
December 13, 2009
Third Sunday of Advent

Scripture Lesson: Luke 3:7-18

 Proclaiming the Good News

"... John proclaimed the good news to the people ..."
 (Luke 3:18)

Prelude

Our children's musical,

"The Grumpy Sheep,"

serves as reminder:

amidst this season of hope and wonder

there are people in our lives

whose outlook on life is ensconced in negativity;

whose read of the world has been jaded,

whether by time, experience, or attitude;

whose state of soul, condition of spirit,

while possibly not fully explicable,

not easily definable,

is readily identifiable

as grumpy.

When Dickens scripted Scrooge,

the great spoiler of the season,

he certainly had a grump in mind.

Grumps aren't simply relegated to

age or gender, regardless of the

stereotype of "grumpy old men."

When Snow White (1937) took refuge with the Seven Dwarfs,

it wasn't hard to figure out whose name was Grumpy.

In the 1980's I spent time with a child watching episodes

of a cartoon that featured a fictional group of small blue

creatures called Smurfs.  They lived in Smurf Village,

in little Smurf huts, with Papa Smurf; the menace and threat

to life was the evil wizard Gargamel, and one of the Smurfs,

among many, was a grump named Grouchy.

There existed at the same time, I recall, a cartoon world of

Care Bears; one was cynical, surly, rarely happy,

possessed with what was call "Battitude,"

whose name was Grumpy.

Now - let's be careful in rendering a hasty judgment

upon the "grumpy."  Hoosier native, Kurt Vonnegut,

commented: 

"I used to be funny, and perhaps I'm not anymore.

It may be that I have become rather grumpy

because I've seen so many things that have offended

me that I cannot deal with in terms of laughter."

Vonnegut reminds us laughter is a protective grace,

and without it, emptied of mirth, we can fall into

the same state as that which afflicted the sheep

in our nativity.  And Vonnegut also suggests:  laughter

has limits; there are some episodes, some experiences

in life, where it simply can't serve, doesn't work,

as a remedy for the low estate into which we

may have fallen.

More than once I've been labeled the family grump,

so I offer expert testimony on this topic:  Grumpiness.

It is a response, often unconscious, of walling off

the world, of creating a distance;

often it is a protective measure;

without high hopes, there is never great disappointment.

Grumpiness is life of low level complaint,

which caps any commitment that would

drastically alter the state in which one is grumpily mired.

There are swings in the grumpy-grounded life,

but they don't swing exceedingly high.

I came across a quote this past week I haven't been

able to fully shake.  "If don't like the news, go out

and make some of your own."

A grumpy response?  Any news I make isn't going

to make any difference, and if did, they wouldn't run it,

and if they would run it, no one would read - or watch

as the case may be. 

It is not easy to break this "battitude;" the grumpy

have remarkably thick skin.  But it is possible. 

The breaking, the altering of state,

the discovery that life isn't locked in place,

that God hasn't quit, hasn't checked out in disgust,

is what we saw at work in the pageant,

and it is what we heard in our lesson.

John came preaching, worked exceedingly hard to gain

an audience, then worked to convince them to seek

the change they wanted to see at work in the world.

People, long stuck in their grumps, but considering

the possibility they didn't need to stay that way, asked:

"What should we do?"

Luke took time to broadly sketch the variety of folks

impacted by John preaching:

The crowds ... (v. 10);

even tax collectors ... (v. 12);

soldiers also ... (v. 14).

Each asks:  what should we do?

It is as if everyone is included, regardless of status and station;

a spell has been broken by the possibility of something new. 

John projects the rough and tumble image,

the tough guy, in-your-face approach.

Jesus comes in a cradle, disarmingly simple.

Both serve the divine purpose of

breaking the grip of despair

into which we often sink;

both serve to lift us

in a state of joy. 

This is grace working on our behalf,

to transport us

from being grounded in grump

to taking flight into glee.

While we may not constantly gleam with delight,

we are accustomed to expecting periodic flights into

rarified air of joy.  Hope and peace serve as

combustibles - when they spark from within,

then there is joy in us.  And if in us, then in

the world. As Anne Lamont once quipped:

"Joy is the best make up."

And John Cheever adds:

"The deep joy we take in the company of people

... we ... love ... is undisguisable." 

You can't buy it at Macy's or Target,

and you won't find it at Walmart.

It flows, rather, from soul to soul,

and it is beauty to behold.

And the beauty glows, it glistens, it gleams,

the more and more we are engaged with God,

the closer and closer we draw to the cradle,

the more we willingly, wanting-ly, align our lives

with the stars, with the Star, of the pageant in

which we all play a part.    

          *****                   *****                   *****

Ponder this with me.

Last Thursday I participated at First Presbyterian

Church, in an interfaith service, the 61st anniversary of

the UN Declaration of Human rights.  In the chancel,

I was seated between a Hindu and B'hai.

A lot of traditions were present -

Sikh, Buddhist, Jewish, Muslims,

a few flavors of Christian faith, not enough variety but

some, and still more others.

It struck me, from what I heard and what conversations

I had, how void of joy we can be.

And it strikes me how often me misspend our days,

to grasp what God desires to give.

And it strikes me further, how central joy is to this season,

and how profound a descriptor it can and should be to our faith.

And finally, I found myself eager, waiting, wanting, to break forth,

to sing "Joy to the World."

Others may claim it; others may display it, and in as much

as they do, thank God!  But let us be clear as we seek to

understand our own tradition:  joy is central to grasping

the revelation of God in Christ.  Joy is central in knowing

Jesus.  What joy is gift, the world can't give, and the world

can't take it away. 

Would our witness, our credibility, our reputation,

be different if we talked and nurtured a life of joy,

as equally as we have of sin and guilt and shame? 

I sometimes wonder. 

I don't know. I do know this:  there is no season like

Advent/Christmas, where we are clearly admonished to

unleash the sweet song, to proclaim the faith, to share

the love, that brings joy to the world.  My goodness,

I believe this could be sufficient test for our each and

every endeavor:  does it bring joy to the world? 

Undisguisable joy, without make up? 

Try this, see what comes of it as we make way for the Star Child,

through the nativity, into the new year. 

Amen.