What is Stealing Your Joy

And what is it that we should do?

This last week I was walking and

I came across a brother and sister playing and frolicking in the rain;

just jumping around in a big old puddle.

We do not get rain that often in California,

but it was raining heavily this weekend.

They were absolutely having a blast, absolutely soaking wet.

They were just frolicking around

and they were having so much fun.

It was hard not to smile as you looked at them;

whether externally or internally, I was smiling.

I laughed out loud

because I remember the days we used to play in the rain.

But what was even more beautiful was that every now and then,

the two of them would look over at their mother

and you could see them waiting for her continued approval.

Then she would smile brightly and laugh,

and then they would go back to playing again.

The reason I bring that image up is

I think that is a beautiful image of God because

I believe that God looks on us like that,

in the frolicking of our life, enjoying our life, and approves.

If we just look up every now then he will smile brightly at us

and assure us that we are just fine.

That we are loved just the way we are.

It is a great image for me

because I think sometimes life has a way of stealing our joy.

Stuff comes in life and stuff happens!

It is hard to, in a sense, frolic and enjoy life.

Joy is not about circumstances.

Joy is not about what happens to us.

Joy is about what we choose when stuff is happening to us.

Joy is a response that we have,

regardless of what is happening to us.

Now, look, I am not naive enough

to think that life is always a sunny day.

I get that.

But stuff happens in our life and it can be hard,

but joy is still a choice.

It is a response to what happens in life.

When things go wrong and

either we suffer ill health

or somebody inside our family suffers ill health or even dies.

It seems like empty words to say “we can choose joy.”

But what we do when we choose joy

is choosing to look on what we have or had

than what we have not or had not.

That is a critical choice difference.

I know stuff comes in at us,

whether it be ill health or whether it be life events,

difficult stuff at work or in personal life,

when things starts to fall apart.

It is definitely a hard choice.

But I think for most of us, most of the time,

our joy just does not leave us because of a life event.

It sort of leaks out.

It just sort of leaks out in our life.

We do not attend to it,

we do not pay attention to the gift of life.

And as a result, slowly and more slowly,

the joy seems to leave us.

And we hardly even notice it.

It often comes about by busyness,

where we are just too busy to be joyous,

too busy to frolic around in the rain,

too busy to take a sample of the gift of life.

And we go churning along from day to day and week to week.

And even, God forbid, year to year,

just chugging along with no joy in life

because we have never chosen it.

That is the more dangerous

or more nebulous version of the joyless life.

The reading today from Paul

is the letter to his beloved community of Philippi.

He tells them, “Rejoice, rejoice in the Lord. I say it again, rejoice.”

And so what is it that the disciples ask John the Baptist?

What should we do?

It is to rejoice. Be joyful.

Look at our lives and find out how we can choose joy?

That is what we do today on this Gaudate Sunday.

Despite the circumstances of our lives,

we are called to choose joy.

I am going to give you two instances

which might help break this open for a second.

One is a life incident, and then the other one is a busyness.

Life events that happen to us can set off controls.

I get that and I had one of those this week.

It is not that big compared to what some of you are dealing with,

but I have been struggling with my hearing for some time.

It is been a bit of a nuisance for me.

And so eventually I had to give into it

because it was really getting to be too much.

I went to the audiologist this week

and they confirmed that I have lost over 50% of my hearing.

That was hard to hear, no pun intended!!

I did hear that!

I knew it was coming.

The good news is they have new technology to aid

and fortunately, it is addressable.

A lot of you may not know this,

not all hearing loss can be enhanced by hearing aids.

Some hearing loss falls outside the scope.

Fortunately, 90% of my hearing loss

will be addressed by hearing aids.

I will have to choose to get those hearing aids

in the next couple weeks.

I know many of you are dealing with

far greater health issues than that.

In the midst of it, we still have a choice

of how we respond to what happens to us.

I still have 50% hearing.

I have lost 50%, but I have still got 50%!

So it works out even, right?

If I can just get my hearing aids,

then I might pump that back up to where I need to be.

Now, the other one is something that my spiritual director always asks.

Every month, he will always ask,

and I go through all this stuff that is going on in my life

and he will pause me saying,

“Wow, that sounds like really a lot of stuff going on.

That is great. Brendan, I have one question for you.

What is stealing your joy?”

And I know the answer.

The answer is always the busyness.

I could be doing all the right stuff,

but the busyness is stealing my joy.

Because if I am not doing it joyfully,

then there is no witness that what I do at this altar

unless I have that joy in my heart.

And the same is true for you

if you have allowed the busyness in your life

in this season to steal your joy.

Then it is time to steal it back.

It is time to steal it back.

That is what we do this Gaudate Sunday,

when we pause and we say rejoice in the Lord.

Now if you are like me, it, it is hard.

The busyness sort of creeps in on us

and suddenly we are spinning and

all of a sudden we are too busy to be joyful.

Be mindful of that.

That is not a movement of the Lord,

that is not a movement of the good spirits

because our busyness is stealing our joy.

Now, there may be other things stealing your joy in your life,

but understand that for all of us, it is a choice.

We choose to respond to what is happening in life.

We need to be mindful of where we are.

If we do not have joy in our life,

then we are not hearing the powerful message of the Lord.

We are not responding to the powerful message of the Lord.

The Lord’s message at Christmas is

that he became one of us so that

we would know the Father’s love for us.

And that there is a way we are called to live in this world.

And the way is Christ.

So my friends, the disciples asked John the Baptist,

“What should we do?”

And we ask the same.

What should we do?

We should steal back our joy.

Rejoice in the Lord. Rejoice always. I say again, rejoice!