Anthony Parrott: Joy in Connection (Advent Week 2)

Hello, my name is Anthony Parrott. I get to serve as one of the pastors here at The Table Church,

and my son tested positive for COVID. He just has a runny nose. He doesn't feel that bad,

but he's COVID positive. And if you are annoyed about coming to church in person and watching

a video of someone preach, let me join you in your annoyance. I've been scheduled to preach

three times now, and each time either I have been sick or, in this case now, somebody in my family

has COVID. And so out of an abundance of caution and wanting to make sure that I don't get anybody

else sick, here I am back in my basement office. So here goes. We are in a series about the season

of Advent. Advent is a word that means coming or arrival. It is about Jesus showing up in the world.

It's also has something to do about the Christian hope that Jesus will one day return and set all

things right. And in the meantime, we are a people of anticipation and hope. And how do we find hope

in a weary world? The world is weary. I am weary. You are weary. The world is exhausted. And yet,

we dare find something to rejoice about. So that's what we're going to explore today. We're in the

book of Luke, the Gospel of Luke, exploring the classic Christmas Advent stories about the first

coming of Jesus. And today we're talking about joy and connection. And I will be the first one to

admit that I am often the last person to find joy in connection. I like my alone time. I'm an

introvert. I like reading and books, as you can see. And sometimes finding joy in connection is

often hard for me. Vulnerability and transparency and being with others who may have things that

annoy you is really hard for me. I was homeschooled growing up, and when I went to college, I had this

really rough transition for about a year of knowing how to be around people, and not just in sort of

like the dorky, like, nerdy way that homeschoolers can struggle with it, but just like emotionally,

of like dealing with other people can be hard. And yet, there is this big idea throughout

scripture and throughout church history, we find joy in connection. And we see that in the

Christmas story. I, my brother passed away tragically in a car accident a little over

five years ago. And when that happened, I remember being in sort of the, you know, grief and despair

about the unfairness of the world. And my brother was only a couple years older than me,

didn't deserve to die. And at the time, we had a small group at our old church.

And I remember one of the first times hosting them again. And in general, though I cognitively

knew I was a pastor, I was a pastor of community formation. My whole job was about helping people

connect with other people for the sake of spiritual formation and finding joy in connection.

And I just remember dreading having to sort of restart our small group. And they came over and,

you know, there's sort of the awkwardness about naming the grief that me and Emily were going

through having lost somebody. And then we watched this really stupid video, really funny video

of a grandmother reading a baby a children's book called wonky donkey. And I'm actually we're

going to pause and you're going to watch the first 90 seconds of this video. So here goes.

The wonky donkey.

I was walking down the road and I saw donkey, a bee,

a donkey, hee haw. And he only had three legs. He was a wonky donkey.

I was walking down the road and I saw donkey, hee haw. He only had three legs and one eye.

He was a wonky donkey.

I was walking down the road and I saw donkey, hee haw. He only had three legs, one eye.

And he liked to listen to country music. He was a wonky donkey.

I was walking down the road and I saw donkey, hee haw. He only had three legs, one eye.

He liked to listen to country music. He was quite tall and slender.

He was a wonky donkey.

Wonky wonky wonky donkey.

The silliness of that video shared in a living room space with friends was deeply healing and

reminded me of a point of joy and connection of sitting in our living room laughing with people.

And actually, that book, we got a copy of that book and shared it with everybody in our small

group. And when we still read it to our kids, it brings me back to that moment of rediscovering a

little bit of joy while being with other people. So with that in mind, I want to bring our

attention to the Gospel of Luke, Gospel of Luke chapter one. Last week, Aaron shared with us the

story of Elizabeth and Zachariah and the announcement of their son who's going to be

born, who's going to be John the Baptist. And we're picking up the story there. So we're just

going to read, it's about 20 verses of scripture. I hope you don't mind. You came to church, we're

going to read a little Bible today. And then I'll share some observations about what we notice about

connection and joy in this Advent season. So this is the Gospel of Luke chapter one, starting in

verse 24. After those days, Zachariah's wife, Elizabeth, conceived. And for five months,

she remained in seclusion. She said, "This is what the Lord has done for me in this time,

when he looked favorably on me and took away the disgrace I have endured among my people."

In the sixth month, the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth,

to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph of the house of David. The virgin's name

was Mary. And he came to her and said, "Greetings, favored one, the Lord is with you." But she was

much perplexed by his words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be. And the angel said to

her, "Don't be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And now you will conceive in your

womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. He will be great, and he will be called the Son of

the Most High. And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David. He will reign

over the house of Jacob forever. And of his kingdom, there will be no end." Mary said to the

angel, "How can this be, since I am a virgin?" The angel said to her, "The Holy Spirit will come upon

you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. Therefore the child to be born will be holy,

he will be called the Son of God. And now your Elizabeth, your relative Elizabeth, in her old

age has conceived a son. And this is the sixth month for her who is said to be barren, for nothing

will be impossible with God." Then Mary said, "Here am I, the servant of the Lord. Let it be with me,

according to your word." And the angel departed from her. In those days, Mary set out and went

with haste to a Judean town in the hill country, where she entered the house of Zechariah and

greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary's greeting, the child leaped in her womb, and

Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit and exclaimed with a loud cry, "Blessed are you among

women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And why has this happened to me, that the mother of

my Lord comes to me? For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb

leapt for joy, and blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was

spoken to her by the Lord." That's our gospel reading for today. Now I want to point out a

couple things. Let's begin with Elizabeth's story. The scripture says something that I did not notice

until this year, thanks to a commentary that pointed this out to me. And it says this,

verse 24, "After those days," so the days that Zechariah went to the temple, he's confronted

by Gabriel saying, "Hey, you're gonna have a son," and Zechariah is kind of dubious, and the angel

says, "You're not going to speak for a while." "After those days," verse 24, "Elizabeth conceived,

and for five months she remained in seclusion." One translation says, "She hid herself." And this

is a fascinating reaction, because in the very next verse, we get Elizabeth's reaction. "All

this is what the Lord has done for me. He looked favorably on me and took away the disgrace I have

endured." And you know, in those days, and unfortunately sometimes still in our day,

the idea of a woman not having a child or a baby or being considered a mother was looked down upon.

It's a cultural thing. I'm not saying that's the way it should be. The Bible doesn't say that.

It's just what was expected. And so Elizabeth is being sort of set free from the cultural baggage.

She now is going to be a mother and have a child, and her reaction is to hide, to put herself in

seclusion. Now, we have to read between the lines. We're not told exactly why she hides,

but I wonder if Elizabeth has some guilt about something good happening in her life. And that

may sound a little counterintuitive, but I think it's a fairly common reaction with folks. I've

known quite a few LGBTQ people who have to come out twice. They come out once to often their

parents as a teenager, and the parents doesn't believe them or tries to convert them out of

being a gay or lesbian. And everybody sort of pretends like it doesn't happen. And then the

child has to come out later in adulthood, and the parent will be like, "You never told me this

before." So there's this coming out twice thing that happens. And in the in-between, everybody

sort of pretends like it doesn't happen. You go back into the closet and you hide yourself because

you tried to become this more full version of yourself as a queer person, and it's not received

well. It's rejected in some way. And so then you close back in, perhaps even smaller than you were

before. There are other instances when you come out of a bad relationship or a bad work situation

or any sort of bad environment, and then you begin to encounter something good, and then you're

struck by guilt. I've known this to be true of people who have gone through divorce. And they

end a marriage that was harmful or abusive or wrong in some way, and then they enter into a

new relationship that's blossoming and flourishing and is bringing out the best of themselves.

And they feel bad about it as if they don't deserve something good. And I wonder, again,

for reading between lines, scripture doesn't exactly say this, we're doing a little midrash

together, some interpretive dancing with the words of scripture. I wonder if Elizabeth is having some

of those same feelings. She was barren most of her life, and then in her old age, she's given a child.

Does she feel guilty? Does she feel like she doesn't deserve it? Are there other people in

her community who are saying, "You're 80 years old. You're super old. What are you doing having

a child? This is not going to work out well for you. Maybe it was a hard pregnancy. I don't know."

But she seems, whatever is happening, she's hiding herself. She's putting herself in seclusion,

and she's not allowing herself to experience the full joy of what is happening. So Elizabeth

hides herself, and then Mary has her encounter with the angel, Gabriel. And the angel says to

her, "Rejoice, you are favored." And Mary's reaction is being confused. She's confounded.

She's befuddled, which again is kind of relatable, I think, when someone can tell us to rejoice,

"Hey, here's good news." And we're like, "I don't believe you." So that's Mary's reaction. She's not

so sure about this good news. And there's so many things we could say about Mary. Unfortunately,

I don't have time to say everything there is to say. But what I love about the, this is called

the Annunciation in Christian history, the Annunciation. Gabriel announces Mary's pregnancy

of the son of God, of Jesus. And what I love about this is that, yes, Jesus, son of God, Messiah,

coming to redeem Israel and the world. Fantastic. And Mary, you should also know, your cousin

Elizabeth is pregnant too. And I love that these are in the same announcement. The angel decided

that it was just as important to let Mary know about her relative who was also going through

a pregnancy. I love that because it's preparing the way for Elizabeth to experience community

and relationship and to be brought out of her seclusion. And it's giving Mary a refuge. Because

Mary is a young, unmarried or betrothed woman who is about to have a bunch of controversy thrust

upon her because of her pregnancy. And the angel, I assume, predicts that this is going to happen

and gives her an out. "Hey, you should know you have a relative who is also going through an

unusual pregnancy. It might be a good place for you to go while Nazareth is all a Twitter with

your controversial pregnancy." I love that the angel does that. Now, let me say just one or two

more things about Mary because we can't we can't spend too much time. But there's so many things

I want to say. There's a couple of phrases that the angel uses. The angel says, "The spirit will

come upon you and the power of the most high will overshadow you." The spirit coming upon you is a

well-worn Hebrew phrase that you'll find in the Old Testament, the Hebrew scriptures. And when you

see that phrase, the spirit coming upon you or coming upon someone, it's the same language used

in the Hebrew Bible about leaders coming into power in Israel. Prophets and judges and monarchs

have the spirit come upon them and then they take charge. When the spirit comes upon someone and

empowers them to speak the words of God and to lead the people of God. And the first person in

the New Testament to have the spirit of God come upon them is Mary. It's a young unmarried woman.

"Overshadowed" is also an important Hebrew word. The wings of the cherubim, so these golden

sculptures of angels, overshadowed the center of the Ark of the Covenant, which was in the most

holy place in the tabernacle and temple. And so these cherubim wings overshadowed the lexus, the

epicenter of God's presence in Israel. And now the angel is saying to Mary, "The spirit of God has

come upon you." Oh, leadership language, prophecy language. "And overshadowed you. The center of

God's presence will be found in you." Found in a young woman in an occupied territory who is about

to be the center of a bunch of controversy. I think there's something to this. So Mary leaves

with haste, goes to Elizabeth, hides out for a while. Mary shows up and pulls Elizabeth out of

her seclusion and pulls her into joy. The child within Elizabeth's room leaps for joy and Elizabeth

is overjoyed to see her cousin Mary. Mary's action to go and find refuge with her cousin is what

brings Elizabeth out of her hiding-ness and into community and fellowship and joy. Author Cole

Arthur Riley of Black Liturgies on Instagram, she also has a book, she writes this, she says, "Joy,

which once felt frivolous as love to me, has become a central virtue in my spirituality.

I'm convinced that if we are to survive the wait for justice and liberation, we must become people

capable of delight and people whom have been delighted. There is so much that is worthy of

lament and rage, but joy doesn't preclude those emotional habits. It invites the lament and rage.

Joy situates every emotion within itself. It grounds them so that one isn't overindulged

while the others lie starving. Joy doesn't replace any emotion. It holds them all and keeps any one

of them from swallowing us whole. Society has failed to understand this. When society tells

us to find joy in suffering, it's telling us to let it go, move on, smile through it. But joy says,

'Hold on to your sorrow. It can rest safely here.'" And so Mary and Elizabeth, they come together,

and there is no sort of like, "Ah, you know, everything's just fine." No, that's not what's

happening. There, I am sure, over the months that Mary is there, the admission of the weirdness and

the oddness of all this, and that Mary's life is not going the way that she planned, and that

probably all the people in Nazareth think that she's a floozy, and Elizabeth, all the people in

her village think that she's weird, like, there's all of that, and yet there's joy in their being

together. Biblical scholar and theologian Willie James Jennings says, "Joy is an act of resistance

against despair and all of its forces." Joy can be a really hard thing to find in the midst of our

own personal weariness and in the weariness of the world, but joy can be an act of resistance.

Joy is not a denial. It's not a denial of what is true. It's not a denial of the pain and all

there is to lament and rage against. There is plenty to lament and rage against. Joy is about

finding that deep, deep happiness and connection, even in the midst of all of the pain, and those

two can live together. Those two can be together. You can have the turmoil and the ache and the

weariness as well as the joy and the laughter. When I was sitting in the living room watching

an Irish grandmother read Wonky Donkey while grieving the death of my brother, those two

mingled together. And so my invitation, my challenge for you today is to find places of connection

in the search for joy. Now, connection can look a lot of different ways. Connection is not

just, you know, a nuclear family, two parents and 2.3 children. No, that is not the definition

of connection. Connection is not, you know, living in a residential college and being able to stay up

till 2am, drinking Mountain Dew and, you know, doing whatever you do when you're in college,

and then once you all move apart, then you never see each other again. No, connection isn't that.

Connection can be found in connecting to ourselves, connecting to others, friends and family,

chosen family, connecting to nature, connecting to God. And this all takes intentionality. It's

really hard to accidentally stumble your way into connection. Connection takes time and effort and

it can be a challenge in a culture and a world that wants to pull us apart from each other,

that gives us all of the tools of the ghosts of connection, the illusion of connection,

while all we get is just a shallow imitation of it. We deserve better. We deserve actual

connection, which means bringing our full selves into a relationship. It means being able to say

no to the illusions of connection and say yes to the real thing. And the real thing is hard,

but the real thing can bring joy. I love that Mary and Elizabeth are cross-generational,

an old woman and a young woman finding something to connect about. It's not just about finding

people who are similar to you. It's not just about finding people with the same story as you. Even

though affinity is important, it's not the only way to find connection. It is sometimes across

our differences that we find the things that hold us together. God is a God of connection. The very

concept of the Trinity is one of an infinite, eternal God that has always been in community.

And then the divine dance in the Greek, the perichoresis, this idea that God is inviting

fellow dance partners with them so that we can all participate in this community and connection

and joy together. Dallas Willard said that God is the most joyful being in the universe,

and what increases God's joy is for the rest of God's creation to join them in that joy. Grumpiness

is not a fruit of the spirit. Now, fighting against injustice and raging against the systems of evil,

yeah, I think that's probably part of the fruit of the spirit. But doing it while in connection

with others, in connection to our deep joy. Joy that is not shallow, that is not a denial of

weariness, but joy that is a form of deep connection and a way of saying all of this evil,

all of this death and pain and suffering will end. I think that's where the good stuff is.

Would you pray with me? Triton God, you are a God of connection. You are a God who invites us

into relationship with you, with each other, with ourselves. God, may we be more and more willing

to bring our full selves into every relationship that we are in, and where there are folks in

relationships who are not ready for that, may we know when to take a step back and find the

relationships that are. God, may we be willing and able and capable and empowered to find joy

in a weary world. May we find connection when there is so much loneliness to be had, and may we

see joy as a form of resistance against despair. Despair will not have the last word, God. We will

make sure that that is the case through your power and your grace active and alive in us. Thank you,

God. Amen.