Ephesians 1.3-14 4 January 2009
“THE CONTAGION OF JOY”
I sense that I’m not alone when I say that I have been battling a virus for the past week or so. It has not been an easy week, what with back spasms thrown in. I only thank my lucky stars—or maybe it was Jesus’ birth star—that it didn’t hit me until after Christmas. But today I want to talk about another virus, a better one.
Last month I heard of a study on NBC Nightly News. The essential point grabbed my attention and resonated ever since. Researchers from UC San Diego and Harvard University tracked 4700 people for 20 years. It seems our well-being is dramatically affected by the tone and tenor of those around us. For example, if you have a happy friend living within one mile of you, you’re 25% more likely to be happy. If a happy friend is within a half-mile, it jumps to 42%. If your next-door neighbor is happy, you are 34% more likely to be happy. Vaguely, we sense the well-being of one links to others; as one of us goes, so go us all. But more than that, the study shows that joy is radiated; happiness spreads; gladness is viral.
Interestingly, these same positive trends were not noted for marriages or the workplace. Being in regular proximity to a happy spouse or coworker did not impart the same glow. This shows that if we seek the elusive fullness of joy God intends for us, we need circles bigger than job and family. Circles like the church.
We have all heard church friends say in dark times of bereavement, “What do people do without the support of a church community through a time like this?” It seems we should also say the same about our light-filled, glad days, “How do others access the deep wells of joy without the glow of God’s gathered people?” Joy is never solitary; it is communal. Joy cannot be hoarded; it must be shared.
I said before that our Conference Minister Dale Hempen described Dennis Union Church to me as a candidate 3 ½ years ago as a “happy, healthy congregation.” He was saying more than he knew at the time. Joy is possible here in a way not possible apart and alone. The joy of this place sustains us because it goes deep-er than the shallow optimism of every day in every way life gets better and better.
Paul the Apostle had a happy, healthy relationship with the church in Ephesus. You can see it written all over the text. His words bubble up with giddiness at be-ing in relationship with them. His happiness for their life and witness spills over and outward. Did you notice the entire lesson of 11 verses is one big sentence? It’s the breathless kind of greeting of one wound-up preteen telephoning another.
Joy didn’t radiate out of all of the churches Paul founded. But clearly it did there. And the foundation of this joy was a sense of shared blessing. The text itself is really nothing more than that, an extended blessing. In Christ, we learn here, God has provided the entire cosmos—what Paul calls “the heavenly places”—with a reason and rationale for hope no matter what countervailing opinions and immediate circumstances say. The incarnation, death, and resurrection of Jesus has embraced the world like a heat wave in the middle of winter. The renewing and refreshing benefits of our life in Christ have the power to change everything.
But let’s break this blessing down into three parts. In vv. 4-6 Paul writes that “before the foundation of the world” we were chosen to be the children of God. What that means to me is God has put a bigger plan into motion that I am able to sense in a week when I have been moaning and whining and feeling a bit down.
Do you have questioning moments when your water heater quits or your shingles return or someone creases your fender in a parking lot? My first response is, “Now how is this part of the divine plan?” I utter that prayer all of the time, not as a way to test God but to exclaim my befuddlement at one step forward, four back.
In such a moment I am usually not drawing the circle broadly enough. I mean, I am generalizing about life going down the tubes based upon my little clusters of misfortune. But we will always have bunches of nasty breaks. In Ephesians, Paul gives us a bigger compass. For as we kneel before the Cosmic Christ, we regain the confidence that all the bigger, most important promises remain intact. And that perspective is worthwhile as we launch into a new year as a community.
In vv. 7-10 Paul reminds us God has redeemed “this plan for the fullness of time” by the blood of Christ. We might think about that today as we come to this table. What does that mean to us? It means the promises embedded in this plan are not like a memo from a distant corporation who doesn’t know or care about us. No, with the coming of Christ, it means God is taking all of this very personally. Do you know how, when you have a grievance, and you eventually get to the top of the organization, if that boss sees the bigger plan, she will say, “I am going to see that this gets put right. I will take care of it—personally. Please, don’t worry.”
Similarly, by launching this vast plan to reclaim us, and by making it personal in Christ, God wants to remove our burden. God hopes to diminish our fear. God means to take our worry. God cancels the slavery of our misfortunes. Wrap your-self in this assurance, for it is trustworthy and true. And it makes joy possible.
Finally, in vv. 11-14 Paul insists that in Christ’s loving sacrifice we receive an in-heritance. God gives a gift that makes all the difference in the face of our dismay. We have something good coming, if we will wait for it. Faith gives us the power to access joy. Once we tap into the wellsprings of joy, it refreshes and spreads from one of us to the next. And the more joy surfaces, the more joy there is. For the economics of scarcity don’t apply to joy, only the economics of abundance.
Paul wrote to the church in Ephesus of the foundations of joy because he saw that unlike many churches they had the chance to become a contagion of joy. Friends, I see the same thing in Dennis Union Church. Dale Hempen saw it before I met all of you. Isn’t there far too little joy in the world? Isn’t it a delicious prospect to become an outpost of joy in a historical moment of depression? This is not only our identity, it is our God-given mission: to radiate joy to others, to become a contagion of joy. In sharing joy, no one will know more of joy than we.
I thought about proclaiming the promise of joy as the last strains of our bright Christmas celebration fade. I thought about preaching this message of joy after a week of wheezing and ice packs on my lower spine. I thought about sharing joy on a Sunday without the glad tones of a choir. How can it ring true? I wondered. But isn’t that the point of joy, and where it parts with happiness, in its ability to sustain us from within despite all manner of struggle and hardship from without? I don’t want to hear about joy from someone who has lived a charmed life. I want to hear about joy from the person who has faced into the wind and is undaunted.
I decided to forge ahead with this theme as I remembered that Paul’s cheerful blessing to Ephesus might well have been written as he was in chains in Rome. That is the joy I want. That is the joy God gives. That is the only joy worth having. It’s the joy that no one can ever take away from us. It’s the joy only God can give. Amen.
