NOTICE TO ON-DEMAND WORSHIPPERS
In order to expedite posting the worship services here on our website, we are reducing the transcript to just the scriptures used and the message. Union Grove UMC in partnership with Southland Books & Cafe, began holding Second Sunday Community Church in January 2023. Second Sunday Community Church takes place at 3 p.m. ET the second Sunday of every month, meets in-person at The Bird & The Book, and is also live-streamed on Facebook. Holy Communion is offered at every Second Sunday service. If you are worshipping on Second Sundays online whether during the live-cast or through on-demand viewing, you are encouraged to have bread and juice or wine available as you watch the service and to participate in communion just as if you are present with us.
SCRIPTURE READINGS
God, open us to hear and receive your scriptures today as you would have us hear them, understand them as you would have us understand them, and to act upon them as you would have us act upon them.
In Jesus’ name, Amen.
*Scriptures this morning are from the NRSV.
Isaiah 61:1-4, 8-11
The spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me, because the LORD has anointed me; he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and release to the prisoners; to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn; to provide for those who mourn in Zion– to give them a garland instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the mantle of praise instead of a faint spirit. They will be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the LORD, to display his glory. They shall build up the ancient ruins, they shall raise up the former devastations; they shall repair the ruined cities, the devastations of many generations.
For I the LORD love justice, I hate robbery and wrongdoing; I will faithfully give them their recompense, and I will make an everlasting covenant with them.
Their descendants shall be known among the nations, and their offspring among the peoples; all who see them shall acknowledge that they are a people whom the LORD has blessed.
I will greatly rejoice in the LORD, my whole being shall exult in my God; for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation, he has covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decks himself with a garland, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.
For as the earth brings forth its shoots, and as a garden causes what is sown in it to spring up, so the Lord GOD will cause righteousness and praise to spring up before all the nations.
1 Thessalonians 5:16-24
Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. Do not quench the Spirit.
Do not despise the words of prophets, but test everything; hold fast to what is good; abstain from every form of evil.
May the God of peace himself sanctify you entirely; and may your spirit and soul and body be kept sound and blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. The one who calls you is faithful, and he will do this.
John 1:6-8, 19-28
There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light.
This is the testimony given by John when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, “Who are you?”
He confessed and did not deny it, but confessed, “I am not the Messiah.”
And they asked him, “What then? Are you Elijah?” He said, “I am not.” “Are you the prophet?” He answered, “No.”
Then they said to him, “Who are you? Let us have an answer for those who sent us. What do you say about yourself?”
He said, “I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way of the Lord,'” as the prophet Isaiah said.
Now they had been sent from the Pharisees. They asked him, “Why then are you baptizing if you are neither the Messiah, nor Elijah, nor the prophet?”
John answered them, “I baptize with water. Among you stands one whom you do not know, the one who is coming after me; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandal.”
This took place in Bethany across the Jordan where John was baptizing.
L: The scriptures of God for the people of God.
A: Thanks be to God.
Message – Our Fierce Joy*
Rev. Val
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be pleasing to you, O Lord, my rock, and my redeemer, and may you see fit to use me as a vessel from which you pour out your Divine Word.
In Jesus’ name, Amen.
Are y’all hearing the descriptive words this season? Our “shocking” hope. Our “just” peace … and this week, our “fierce” joy. These are not exactly “all is calm, all is bright” descriptives, are they?
On the first Sunday of Advent we learned that “shocking” hope was the kind where you focus on what is and what should be, what could be, and work toward the could. On the second, we learned that “just” peace is the kind where everyone equally receives peace and that we’re called to be the peacemakers, not peace takers.
And this, our third Sunday of Advent, we’re being told our spirits wait with fierce joy! Say again? How can joy be fierce? Isn’t joy that happy, blissful giddy feeling we get when everything is right with the world? When we get every gift on our wish list? When we’ve paid all the bills and there’s more than just a little money left over? Those are joyful events, but fierce joy?
Fierce, tenacious, refuses to be quelled joy. The kind of joy that we grasp white knuckled when the world wants us to be anything but joyful. That’s fierce joy.
Not only do we need that, we need boatloads of it. We need the original Ghostbusters crew to load up their blaster thingies with it the way they did the pink stuff they sprayed all over the inside of the Statue of Liberty and the Metropolitan Museum of Art to vanquish the darkness of the villain in the movie. As you’ll recall, though, their pink goo wasn’t sufficient on its own. It required that everyone join together with it and strengthen it through a song … Give Me a Higher Love.
In that final scene climactic scene, the goo … we’ll call it “joy juice” and the song caused all of the fighting to stop and the villain … we’ll call him the Deceiver … to be banished back into the pits of the hell he wanted to create here on earth.
Fierce, tenacious, refuses to be quelled, quashed, or otherwise discouraged away joy. The kind of joy that sits in the tension of the now and not yet. The kind of joy with which our spirits wait, the kind of joy we cling to as we anticipate the arrival of the Christ child who we know is coming to remember how to wait for the fulfillment of God’s kin-dom on earth as it is in heaven. A fulfillment we are still waiting for.
The kind of joy we hold with a not unless you pry it from my cold dead hands grip. The kind we refuse to give up, refuse to snuff out, refuse to extinguish no matter what comes. Fierce, stubbornly defiant joy in a world full over everything but.
John, The Baptist, you remember him from last week, right? That guy wearing funny clothes, eating bugs and honey? Well, he’s back this week with the same message. If you listen to his message carefully, he’s a “fierce joy” kind of guy. John is our Advent icon, all that preparing the way and warnings and baptisms. People, wake up, get ready! That’s the song that is always on his lips, beating in time with his heart. “There was a man sent from God, whose name was John.” (John 1:6, NRSV) We’re like the priests and Levites who ask the obvious question: Who are you? Except our question is more complex. It isn’t simply a question of identity, but one of purpose, of intention. What have you to do with us, John the forerunner? The precursor? The crazy “Happy Advent, you brood of vipers” kind of guy? And what are we waiting for?
Of course, we know that it isn’t a what, but a who. And it isn’t a what but a how. John not only points to the who, the one who comes, but he also tells us how. How to wait. How to live while we wait. How to be while we wait. Waiting sounds so passive, until we watch John do it. Until we lean into the vibrant personality, the one who seems so alive in his waiting, in his anticipation. He seems almost gleeful as he shakes off every guess they throw at him.
“Nope,” he says, “not the Messiah. Nope, not Elijah.”
“Then who are you; what are you?” “I’m me,” he says, “I’m the voice. I’m you. I’m us. All of us. All of us leaning into what is coming. All of us knowing that what is right now is not what is going to be. That’s who I am. I’m the one who hopes. Who knows peace. I’m the one who embraces joy with fierceness. A tenacity. That’s who I am. Deal with it.”
Fierce joy. There it is … John tells us exactly what it is.
Did they deal with it? The religious leaders who came out to question him? Who knows? They most likely left as confused as they arrived.
But the crowds knew, or at least sensed something. They wanted something of that fierce joy that he had. They came in droves; they waded into the water looking for the new start, the new hope that John proclaimed. They were clinging to something in John that lifted them up, built them up. They were desperate for a new way of living, a new way of being alive in the world. And John’s words pointed to that way.
John promised that a new way of being was on its way. In fact, read just one more verse from our Gospel text this week and you’ll see it too. “The next day he saw Jesus …” (v.29)
Oh, to see Jesus … that would be not fierce joy, but sweet joy! That would be the blissful, giddy kind of joy. Or would it? For us if we could time travel back to see Jesus there at the Jordan, it would definitely be blissfully sweet joy. We know how the story goes. We would recognize him immediately! But what if he came in our today? Would we recognize him if he came today? And, I’ve got to say, aren’t we just as desperate to see him today as the crowds at the river with John were? Aren’t we?
Isaiah understood the kind of desperation the people in the time of John were feeling. Remember from last week that the Book of Isaiah has two moods – the first half called First Isaiah, when things were going well for the people as a nation, was a mode of warning and judgment. Pay attention, the prophet said repeatedly. Look at what you are doing to one another. Look at how you are living, look at the source of your wealth, look at the foundations of your society. Does your socioeconomic system reflect your status as a people of God?
Second Isaiah, the second half of the book, though, speaks to a desperate people who have lost all, who are hungry, afraid and homeless; they are refugees, without status or rights. Now the mood shifts, the tone of the book is starkly different. There are no prophetic warnings of “shape up or face the consequences.” Now Isaiah is speaking words of hope, a promise. And a call to live, even in desperate times, by a different standard. To embrace the fierce joy of living as the people of God, no matter the circumstance in which you find yourselves.
It’s hard to tell from the small passage of scripture, but things are bad in the second half of Isaiah. You’ll just have to take my word for it until you have time to study it yourself … side note here: never take anyone’s word for something in the Bible. Go read and study it for yourself, ask questions if you need to, but no one is an authority on the topic.
Going on with our story today, though, Isaiah comes to the people and says … what? Do you remember? He says:
Good news! Good news for the oppressed, good news for the brokenhearted, good news to captives and prisoners, good news to those who mourn.
And the people think, “Great! What’s the blessing we’re being given, and where do we go pick it up? What’s the good news? What do we get?”
Garlands, oil, a mantle. Uh. What? Where is the promise of wealth and goods? Where is the promise of vengeance? Where is the righting of wrongs?
Through Isaiah, God comes to people who are desperate and tells them to decorate. It doesn’t seem right. It doesn’t seem enough. Decorations are nice and all, but they hardly serve to make things better.
According to Eugene Peterson in The Message, Isaiah says, “God sent me to announce the year of his grace — a celebration of God’s destruction of our enemies — and to comfort all who mourn, to care for the needs of all who mourn in Zion, give them bouquets of roses instead of ashes, messages of joy instead of news of doom, a praising heart instead of a languid spirit.”
Whether it’s the “decorations” described in the New Revised Standard Version or gifts and upbeat newsletters as Peterson describes, one has to wonder what good it will do. After all, we can’t count on those things to change the world. Can we? Could they, the people Isaiah was prophesying to? Why should we even bother in the end? Aren’t we just shouting in the darkness?
Well, yes, in a way we are shouting into the darkness but shouting in the darkness is a noble profession. A calling. When we shout … when we decorate our homes and our churches, we are not saying that we are unaware of difficulties, that we are oblivious to the bad news in the world. We are saying that we choose to live by the good news. We are saying that we choose to live in hope and not despair, to be peacemakers, not peace takers. We are saying that we will be fiercely, stubbornly joy-filled in anticipation of what we know will come to be through Christ our Lord.
Mind you, now, this is not a bury your head in the sand, rose-colored glasses kind of scenario, but rather a prophetic call to act in hope. Look back at Isaiah’s words. The Lord brings the good news; the Lord, through the prophet, proclaims the year of the Lord’s favor.
The rest of this prophecy is on us. We are the ones who bind up hearts, who set people free, who rebuild. We go about this work because we believe. We build because we hope. And because we hope, we are blessed.
And that blessing is lived out in a fierce joy, an in-your-face kind of joy that says, “No matter what might happen to me, I choose to trust in God.” The fierce joy that says, “No matter what my individual feelings and inclinations might be, I am going to join with the community that is doing good in the world.”
We light our lights and put up the garland not to just look pretty or to win a neighborhood contest, but also so that we can declare that the darkness is not the final answer. It is this fierce joy that will and does sustain us. It is the fierce joy in community – the shared fierce joy that enables us to bring light to a world needing to learn to see again.
And all God’s children fiercely and joyfully shouted …
Credits:
- Unless listed below, all works cited within the text above.
- *Adapted in full from “Our Fierce Joy” Preaching Notes, Discipleship Ministries Worship Planning Series, December 17, 2023.
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