Joy Is What Happens When Grief Is Lived Well

Welcome to the First Love Church podcast.

This is a collection of Sunday teachings inspired by the revised Common Lectionary and recorded weekly in Ocala, Florida.

It's with a lot of joy that we greet you this morning in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

I was doing some reading this week, as one does.

And I came across someone describing joy in a way that I had never heard it.

And I am fascinated by joy and need to be a student of joy.

C.S.

Lewis reminds us that joy is the serious business of heaven.

But joy, according to this ancient thought, is grief well lived.

And I thought grief well lived.

That's what joy is.

And I thought, oh it sounded like something like a little chamber's clicking in and makes sense, right?

To be able to say there has been pain.

I'm not negating the sorrow, but I am telling you there is something worth living for.

I am telling you there's something worth savoring, that there is still watermelon to eat, that there are still friends to have conversation with, that there is still sweetness and good and mercy in the world.

And so I invite you this morning, by the power of the Holy Spirit, to open your holy imagination and for you to consider that joy, the joy that you're looking for, might be grief that is well lived, that you might be able to live fully even in the grief, that you might be able to find things to savor and to enjoy.

And we read this week in Matthew's text, and this is the 11th Sunday after Pentecost.

And we as a people, as a church community who are a part of the larger body of Jesus Christ, I remind you that you are part of the movement of Jesus in the world today, all over the world, believers coming together, reading the text, reminding ourselves of the miracles, reminding ourselves of the parables.

The past few weeks we've been studying the parables of Jesus.

And the parables are really meant to unnerve us.

I don't know if you knew that.

They're meant to unsettle us.

And if you haven't been reading the parallels that way, maybe you could allow yourself to read them and be um uncomforted by them.

The parable that Jesus told of a vineyard owner who hires people in the morning and gives them a certain wage.

And then people come in five minutes before closing, and Jesus pays them the exact same thing.

And everyone says, Well, that's not fair.

Some people worked harder, some people worked longer.

And the invitation is to change your idea about how God's mercy and his unending love are for all people in all spaces at all times.

You know, there's that sense that, you know, uh, that any of us, uh, if we've been following after Christ for a long time, we've been trying to do these things, I've denied myself, I've done these things, and now someone's getting away with something.

And uh I noticed uh um a few years into being a pastor, um uh when Heather and I started the church, uh, we thought it'd be a good idea to just say, whoever God sends will take.

And then uh, God, if you just give us a church, just whoever you send will.

And then he started to send us, and not you guys, but it was somebody that was here before you, but we send us some knuckleheads and some people that were difficult.

And we I wanted to renegotiate my contract with God, you know.

And uh, you know, did was I not faithful, God said.

You know, did I not send you people in the ass?

You know, and then we start getting, you know, we want we want a little uh and instead of looking back at just, you know, in that beginning, we're just just wanting to serve, you know.

And and that's what changes is our attitude towards uh the things.

And so allow God to challenge you on maybe that thing where you've uh you know, you you said, well, if I just could have this job, or or if you just let me have this apartment or this house, I and now you have it, and we're complaining about all the work there is taking care of this, and and this job wasn't all it's cracked up to be.

And you know, yeah, I tell you that it's as easy as realigning ourselves and looking for the place where we can be joyful and we can be grateful.

Amen.

One of the things that we do during this season is remind ourselves to be grateful, to practice gratitude.

It's a great way to realign ourselves with the presence of the Holy Spirit, with God's own source giving us the things that we need.

We're gonna read in Matthew chapter 14.

Matthew 14 · chapter mention

Immediately after this, Jesus insisted.

In some of the other translations, it says Jesus compelled.

In a couple of other translations, it said Jesus made them.

So I want to encourage you to read this story with fresh eyes this morning.

I'm sure you've heard this before.

And I want you to look for not just one miracle, but I want you to look for the many miracles that are here.

But I also want you to put yourself in the story where the disciples are made to get into a boat.

Now I want to remind you, they are disciples.

They have followed the teachings of Jesus, they have seen miracles, they have heard him speak to them in particular, not just to the crowds.

And then Jesus says, get in the boat.

I don't know if they could already read the weather, if they already saw the sky.

I don't know if they were hesitant.

But I want to tell you something that sometimes the storm is our teacher.

And we don't ask for storms.

We don't sign up for them.

And so whatever it is in your life that has happened that you didn't sign up for, that you didn't ask for, I ask that the Holy Spirit this morning would open our eyes to see something that will illumine the path before us.

Jesus insisted, I looked at this point, and I've never in my years of studying Jesus thought he was a little bossy.

And here he was.

Jesus was a little bossy here.

You will get in the boats and cross to the other side of the lake while he sent the people home.

Wait just a second.

To the other side of the boat, while he sent the people home, so he's sending them on ahead.

He's not in the boat with them.

So I just also want to ask you, how many times have you thought to yourself, I am the only one who suffers like this?

I am the only one who has had this kind of thing happened.

Because Jesus is not with them in the boat, they're there with other people, and they have to go, they're compelled to go cross to the other side.

But they didn't ask for this.

You know, uh, they were uh fishermen, and so they would have certainly been able to read weather.

And so when there's a hesitance there, it's not, you know, the disciples uh just maybe decided not to be disciples that day, but there's there's a natural concern, and and uh for for many of us, uh there's going to be natural concerns.

You can look at your bank account and know that those numbers don't add up, or you you know, you can look at situations and know that they're dangerous or scary, or or it seems to be difficult.

But the thing that I um uh would would remind them to hold on to, and the thing for you is Jesus said, we're going to the other side, you know, and so the circumstances would say otherwise.

But you know, what has God promised you that he will take care of you?

But yeah, but my bank account doesn't look like it.

My circumstances certainly don't look like it.

But if I can, you know, really just remind myself of that promise, and where is it for you that God has promised, uh, you know, we're gonna you're going to the other side.

After sending them home, he went up into the hills by himself to pray, and night fell while he was there alone.

We see a pattern of Jesus is retreating and going to pray, to have a lot of people around, but also leaving the crowds and going to pray, to center himself, to speak to his father, to hear from his father.

But Jesus is in the place of centering himself.

And while Jesus is praying, the disciples were in trouble.

Put yourself in their situation.

Far away from land, strong winds had risen and they were fighting heavy waves.

Fighting heavy waves and people who are around boats doesn't sound that traumatic.

But in the actual Greek language, it uses a word that says terrorized.

The only other time it's used in the scripture is when it talks about a man who is terrorized by a demonic spirit.

So this is so horrifying for these people that they are terrorized by the storm.

And I want to remind you, they didn't ask for this, they didn't sign up for this, but they found themselves being terrorized, being mentally accosted, not I'm sure physically as well.

Um, they were fighting the heavy waves.

About three o'clock in the morning, there's many times in the scripture where it tells us about this time.

This is the darkest time.

This is the night watch between three and six, when your resources are done, when you are exhausted, all you want to do is sleep.

And now we're out here fighting the waves.

When the disciples saw these things, they were fighting the heavy waves, and then they see something that startles them.

About three o'clock in the morning, Jesus came toward them walking on the water.

And when the disciples saw him walking on the water, they were terrified.

They were already terrorized, and now they are terrified.

This is just scary.

Now we have gone from just the insanity of things around us to now we maybe are seeing a ghost.

And and we have to be mindful not to look at these people and think, well, they should have known.

Should they?

You should have known.

I should have known.

Like this idea if uh it doesn't make any sense that someone is walking on waves that are terrorizing someone, that the waves are coming into the boat.

They feel like they're gonna drown, and then they see Jesus on the water.

And I'm thinking about seeing Jesus on the water.

In some translations, it just clearly says it's a ghost.

Another translation says, we don't know what this is.

So beyond terrorizing, but I was thinking about the idea of it's a ghost.

I'm not sure Jesus had an appearance of a ghost, but what your mind does to you in remembering, like if Jesus was here, you see something and you think it's gonna be a way out, or maybe it was just a glimpse or a hope or a memory, and they're like, it has to be a ghost.

There's no way that this is what I'm actually experiencing.

I think uh a neat thing for us to remember is Jesus is literally walking on the thing that was terrifying them, you know, and so what a what a cool way to show dominion, you know, and and I would just remind you that God has your problems under control.

He has a handle on it.

There's not uh anything that, ooh, that got out of hand there for God, you know.

I don't know what I'm gonna do, Jesus.

You know, there's there's there's a calm there that we don't understand because we're in the middle of that storm.

But I I just want to remind you that that there is a place where we can trust and we can relax.

We don't have to be afraid.

In fact, the first thing that Jesus does here is addresses that fear because that fear torments you and it uh and it's it's juxtaposition to us really trusting and believing, isn't it?

And Jesus spoke to them at once.

The screen is going ahead, but you I'll read it to you.

Jesus spoke to them at once.

Do not be afraid, he said, take courage, I am.

That was startling to the people listening because God introduced God's self to people by saying, I am.

They knew that Moses meant the I am.

I am.

There is an invitation here where Jesus said, Take courage, be courageous, consider, live from your heart, be courageous.

He said, I am, and then he said, I am with you.

Again, we hear this repetition.

This is what Emmanuel means, God with us.

Jesus announcing, I am, I am here, and he speaks words of courage.

And then Peter called to him, Lord, if it's really you, you have to love Peter, don't you?

Well, this is one verse ahead.

Can you help me with this, Nathaniel?

When Peter called to him, Lord, if it's really you, tell me to come to you walking on the water.

So Peter says, if the test is just trusting that it's you, that's great.

I want extra credit.

Tell me to get out of the boat and come to you.

I want to walk to you on the water.

This is not what Jesus asked anyone to do.

Jesus didn't say you have to get out of the boat.

Jesus didn't say try harder was the test.

Jesus just said, take courage, recognize I am, and recognize I am with you.

And Peter said, Oh, if it is you, prove yourself and tell me to get out of the boat so that I can walk on water with you.

Peter called to him, Lord, if it's really you, if it's really you, tell me to come to you walking on the water.

Yes, come, Jesus said.

I hope you hear the beauty of that invitation.

Yes, come.

So Peter went over the side of the boat.

I wonder if the other disciples were like, don't do it, don't just stay in, stay in the boat.

You know, I wonder if people questioned his sanity.

You know, we saw it too, but don't get out of the boat.

We were we're trying so hard to stay in the boat.

And Peter is wanting to get out of the boat.

If it's really you tell me to come walking on the water.

Yes, come, Jesus says.

So Peter went to the other side and walked on the water toward Jesus.

But when he saw the strong wind and the waves, he was terrified.

And he began to sink.

He shouted.

Try harder is not the test.

Not even keep your eyes on Jesus is not the test.

The test and the answer to the test is save me.

Save me, Lord Jesus.

It is this recognition, I cannot do this alone.

One of the steps that people take when they find sobriety is recognizing or acknowledging I cannot do this by myself.

And it is one of the things that makes us neighbors.

It's one of the things that we're reminded of, that we are not just supposed to white knuckle this life, beloved, that we're invited into surrender, into resurrection, into renewal, into transformation.

And the invitation is not only yes, come, but the invitation is when I come and it's not working, save me, Lord.

Recognizing the power that comes from asking for the help.

You know, I think if we're not careful, you know, we can characterize things and really miss some truths in there because, you know, Peter sank.

So was his walking on water experience successful or a failure?

Some would say, well, that was a big, that was a big failure.

He sunk.

But I would ask you to consider he did walk on water.

The rest of the disciples are still clinging to the edge of the boat, watching the whole thing.

He got to experience that and the rescue of Jesus, you know.

Uh, and I and I uh I don't know if you've ever done this, but you've gone to Disney or something, and someone says, Well, did you eat at this restaurant?

No, I didn't know about that.

Did you ride on this ride?

Oh, I missed it.

Well, when you spend all that money at Disney, don't you want to experience the whole thing?

And I want to remind you that there is some walking on the water time with God.

We can experience this thing.

Or we can stay clinging to the side of the boat in fear.

You know?

And I just want to encourage you to step out.

And it might be uh there might be some singing for you and you're stepping out.

There might be what some would characterize, and maybe you in the past have characterized as failure.

But I wonder if we can look at Peter and and see that that bold spirit to just say, yeah, I mean, if if this is a chance that this could happen, I don't I want to be a part of it, you know?

And and are we just gonna cling to the side of the boat?

Don't you wanna get up to heaven and have some experiences that you could tell people about?

I've heard people a lot of times say when they get up to heaven they want to run up and ask Paul what it was like to, or ask Peter what it was like.

What if we could change that where you get up to heaven and those guys run up to you?

What was it like when you when you trusted God, you know, and you stepped out in your place, you know?

So I just wanted to uh just remind Jiv that the beautiful opportunity is to really trust God.

Heather and I have an amazing experience that's lasting our whole life of deciding to start this church.

And just those times were scary when nobody showed up and when the offering was laughable and when, you know, we didn't know where we were gonna meet, and uh, but then we've seen time and time again, out of that stepping outside of the boat, we've seen God meet meet us and pull us out of the water again and again.

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The invitation is not to live your life with a collection of stories that just tell people how terrible it has been.

All right.

Boy, that's good.

The invitation is to live your life in the miracle, to live your life remembering and rehearsing and retelling and finding ways to retell the good and the joy and the mercy that you have seen and the miracles that you have experienced.

When we talk about waves and storms, sometimes it feels very ambiguous, but what is it like when someone in your family betrays you or does something to you that breaks your heart?

That feels like a shipwreck, beloved.

That feels like I don't know how I am going to live.

And I want to remind you that shipwrecks in Jesus are always together.

There is such a beautiful thing.

And sometimes I was thinking about shipwrecks.

Um, my grandfather was in a shipwreck in the Navy in World War II, and there was a story told about him too, or just hanging on to something for days until you are rescued.

Sometimes it is just one word that you hang on to for days until a rescue happens.

But what is it like for you to understand that heartbreak is sometimes a lot like baptism, where you feel like you are going under, where it is going to be too much for you, but then you are raised to a new thought, a new life, a new hope.

And sometimes we have these ideas of nobody understands what it's like, but beloved, you are part of the human story, and humanity has this story of heartbreak, but of resurrection, of renewal, of transformation, this beautiful alchemy that says that the story that you have been handed does not have to be told that way.

In fact, Jesus invites us to tell a better story.

Come and unlearn all of the things that you have been told.

Come and learn how good God is.

Taste with your own mouth and see the Lord is good.

And stepping outside the boat might look like forgiving someone, might look like saying, I'm not going to hold your sins against you.

That doesn't mean that you're foolish and you step again into the line of fire or do something that puts you in harm's way.

But there are ways that you can outlive a storm, that Jesus can come and be in your boat with you when you practice this way of forgiving.

And Peter cries out and says, Save me, Lord.

Jesus immediately reaches and grabs him.

You have so little faith, Jesus said.

Oh, the salt in my mouth made me doubt you.

The fact that the water is splashing, I have a circumstance that tells me that I was drowning.

I know what drowning is, and I felt it.

And Jesus's invitation is I have you.

I see you.

I am here.

I am.

And when they got back into the boat, the wind stopped.

Let's go back just for a moment and think about all we're waiting for the miracles, spoiler alert.

Everyone's okay.

But they didn't know that a few minutes ago.

Their adrenaline is still really high.

They already have a full on nervous expan expression in their body.

Where is the miracle?

Is the miracle in seeing Jesus in the storm?

Is the miracle in the fact that we lived through the storm?

Is the miracle in the fact that Jesus announces I am?

But they climb back into the boat, Jesus getting in the boat with them, and the wind stops.

And then the other disciples worshipped him.

You really are the son of God, they exclaimed.

Astonishment when they actually got their wits about them.

You really are the son of God.

The other time that this is written in the exact same words is the centurion who stands at the cross of Jesus while he is being crucified.

Another storm and says, You really are.

Sometimes the storms are our greatest teachers.

I want to ask you for a moment to consider something.

Please don't say it out loud, the answer.

Say it in your head.

But I want to ask you what is the greatest lesson that you have ever learned in your whole life?

What is that piece of wisdom or that thing that you did that you treasure, and you're like, this is good.

I will hold on to this forever.

And then I'm gonna ask you, did you learn that lesson at ease?

Did you learn that lesson on a cabana on a beach with a book and a lemonade?

Or did you learn a lesson that you consider so beautiful now in the middle of a storm?

Very often the things that we glean and that we find are complete treasures are things that we have suffered through.

It is the heartbreak, it is the well-lived grief of walking through something.

And this invitation for us, this hope for us, is that we too, as disciples of Jesus, would be able to see Jesus in the midst of a storm, in the midst of political unrest, in the midst of a world that is changing, that we would be able to fix our eyes and find the source of love, that we would be able to find God and say, I see Jesus here, and that gives me comfort.

I see Jesus in these things.

And it's one of the reasons why we get together, because we gather together.

The church has ever since Jesus was resurrected.

We gathered together and the spirit came and it gave us this information that we could live things differently.

But your experiences and my experiences together, we see Jesus in a more beautiful and a bigger way.

And that's the invitation into this life that we would recognize Jesus is the Son of God.

You know, what um or how do you arrive at the definition of what a miracle is for you?

Or what a miracle would be, you know, because we probably all assess our situation and tell God how he should rightly fix it, right?

We can design an idea of what the path of escape would be.

Um, and I and so I I wonder if maybe the problem is, you know, we only could see a miracle coming one way, you know, where the path is smooth.

You know, and so Heather's challenging us to think about, you know, maybe the greatest things that you've learned were when the when the path was rough.

So so maybe, you know, many of you may know, and maybe some of you don't know, but Heather and I and the family were homeless.

And uh so people talk to us uh a lot and ask us how things are going.

And and and Heather and I are uh uh we've been living in a in a motel for uh about a month now.

And they and just yesterday I was talking to somebody and they go, Oh my god, that must be awful.

And I mean, I just I go, well, no, the We're together.

We get a that's a beautiful thing.

Well, I mean, uh that's good and bad.

But the uh not skip.

Uh the beloved, there's so bad in our togetherness.

Dennis and I celebrate tomorrow 36th year anniversary.

Okay.

Philip and Sarah just had one there at 37, and Lee and Carroll hit us.

You're gonna 36.

I'm sorry.

I gave you an extra year at 36.

But Pastor Lee and Carroll, 67?

I'm giving everybody an extra year.

It's a bonus year because of COVID.

66 years they've been married, and and that to us is a testimony, beloved, all of us.

A testimony that there is a power in forgiveness.

There is a power in saying, I uh invite grace and mercy here today.

I wasn't finished with my point when you lovingly interjected.

Okay, we're so we're at this hotel, which is super great.

And um, no, but in all seriousness, they were saying that must be terrible.

And I was, and I thought to myself, we we wake up and there's a breakfast down there, and then when we come back, the beds are made and there's new towels.

I have a we have a maid service.

This is, you know, so but according to the person I was talking to yesterday, it should be terrible.

And so uh I you know, I can say, well, there's no miracle because we don't have a house.

Or there's a miracle because I have maid service.

No.

I'm 35 years married, I couldn't get maid service.

Uh everyone knows you're in with me.

Lord have mercy, Christ have mercy, Lord have mercy.

So, can we find the miracles?

What I'm trying to say before I dig myself any deeper.

Yeah, I just I want you to know that like uh sometimes when people ask me, how's it going, I have to calm my mind and think, well, do I have to dig up something negative?

And and I guess I could if I sit and dwelled on, uh, you know, this is too bad.

You know, but everybody lived, and we're and we're and you know, we yeah, we stay at the hotel, but we just go there when we're exhausted, fall asleep, we get up, and um, and then we hang around here most of the time as a family when the kids are out working, but when they get together.

And so we're we're still, you know, there's a kitchen that works, and so we'll have a meal at night together as a family, and we're even using these uh holy TVs to watch regular shows at night.

Regular shows.

Um, and so it's just been um incredible.

Uh, and I would say that I could say that's a miracle, but but if your only definition is there had to be no problems, right?

No trees never fall through your house.

Well then you know, maybe you live life with no miracles.

But I feel like I'm living a life of miracles.

We're we're together all the time, and and we're laughing, we're not mad at one another, we're joking now because we can.

I don't have to be afraid of saying something, and then I'm gonna be tortured for the next two weeks.

We're we're in love and we love our family and we get to be with them.

So don't you see that's a miracle?

And even in the spite of a of a circumstance.

So I wonder if it's just us.

No, it is absolutely not.

I wonder if you were to look and see all of the miracles that are around you now.

But if I if I have that definite in my my definition might be skewed, then I could, then it would cost me to never see them, maybe.

The invitation by the Holy Spirit is to use your prophetic imagination and to imagine a world like Jesus told us could be.

We prayed a prayer this morning, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

It is the prayer that followers of Jesus have been praying for thousands of years.

And the invitation to us, beloved, is to bring that kingdom to pass.

In God's good kingdom, there are no hungry children.

I know that.

You know that.

By the spirit in you, you know that greed that prevents children from being fed is not how God wants the world to be run.

That there is an invitation for all of us to say, what does it look like?

That we would be agents of equality and equity, that we would open our tables wide and say the kingdom of God looks like this.

The invitation is to find the miracle where we are and say, where is Jesus here?

And I want to tell you, beloved, I am Jesus with you at all times.

Be encouraged, whatever storm you find yourself in, look for the Christ, look for the hope that comes to you and allows us to not only see things differently, but to have a different story.

I don't know who the disciples were, what their stories were a lot beforehand, but I know now they had a better story.

I know now they were like, let me tell you, somebody asked, you know, who are you?

And they're like, let me tell you the one time I was in the boat and I thought I was gonna die.

And they could tell the story, they could give the details, they were shucking out the water, you know, this one wasn't doing enough.

And they could tell the story and then we saw Jesus.

Beloved, what will it look like in your life when you see Jesus?

And not in the metaphorical faraway sense, but what does it look like when you see Jesus in the neighbor, when you see Jesus in the enemy, when you see Jesus in every situation because you recognize I am God with us.

You truly are the Son of God.

We are about to practice together holy communion.

It is one of the things that Jesus told us and instructed us to do, and it is the highlight of our service.

It is at the end of the service, so if you don't remember anything we said, that's fine with us.

Remember the mystery.

Remember that you were welcome to the table of the Lord.

Remember that forgiveness was offered to you.

Remember that your belovedness was affirmed to you at God's table.

But I would like to pray over us this morning.

If you would allow me, never-ending one, wild elemental one, creator, Lord Jesus.

Many of us are tired.

The winds have been strong and the waves are relentless.

And we carry this morning grief for our communities, our churches, our nation, and our world.

We carry sorrow for those who are suffering.

And we often fear about what will come next.

We carry disappointment in leaders, institutions, and sometimes we wonder how much longer we can keep rowing.

This morning we ask that you would meet us in the storm.

Remind us that you have not forgotten or abandoned us.

And when the darkness feels overwhelming, help us to hear your voice above the wind.

When we are exhausted, strengthen us.

When we are discouraged, encourage us.

When we are afraid, remind us that you are still Lord over the waters.

Forgive us when we place our trust in power rather than love.

Forgive us when fear shapes us more than love.

Forgive us when despair convinces us that goodness cannot prevail.

Teach us to trust your presence even when we cannot yet see the shore.

And when all we can pray are the simple words, Lord, save us.

Remind us that these words are enough.

Give us courage this morning to keep showing up.

Give us compassion to keep loving.

Give us wisdom to keep discerning and give us hope to keep believing that your kingdom is still coming among us.

For you are the great I am, still present, still faithful, still carrying your people through the storm.

In the name of Jesus, who is coming for us.

Amen.

We hope you've enjoyed this week's sermon.

If you would like more information about us, visit us online at firstlovechurch.org.