Finally, Joy

Sermon by the Rev. Anderson
The Feast of the Epiphany

O, star of wonder, star of night, star with royal beauty bright; westward leading, still proceeding, guide us to thy perfect light. Amen.

What is your guiding star?

On this celebration of Epiphany, we meet once again the exotic “wise men” from the East. We’re not sure who these figures are (they could be astrologers, philosophers), or where they’re from (they could be from Persia, Babylon). But it doesn’t really matter.

Whoever they are and wherever they’re from, they are mystic figures who burn in our Christmas imagination. They’re seekers. They’re questers. They’re on a journey. They have little to go on, yet they trust the star.

These mystic figures are icons, partially veiled in the mists of history and sacred story. They are heroes of the quest. They teach us how to follow the Light—and they bring us to the place of overwhelming joy. I love those words, you’ve heard them a thousand times. “When they saw that the star had stopped they were overwhelmed with joy.”

Think now. When was the last time you were overwhelmed with joy? You don’t feel that unless you lose your old, tired-out controlling self (do you know the ‘self’ I’m talking about?). We can’t feel joy unless we lose that old self, and then we’re suddenly free to enjoy (notice the action form of the noun)—to enjoy life as it really is, not as that old controlling self needs to have it. Free to enjoy people as they really are, and not as that old ego-self needs desperately to have them—the perfect spouse, the lovely mother or affirming father, the achieving, successful child.

Where have you been? There aren’t any perfect spouses! There aren’t any lovely mothers and affirming fathers! There aren’t any perfect children who clean their rooms and get A’s and kiss us in the morning and thank us for being such amazing parents! And yet that’s what we’re waiting for to feel joy. But joy comes precisely in the midst of suffering.

That’s what the poet Wendell Berry meant when he wrote. “Laugh. Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful though you have considered all the facts.” You can do that if you’re following the star that leads to the Light of Light.

Yet every morning we get up and follow the star of this world, the belief that happiness is just out of reach, but if we keep reaching and working and climbing we’ll grasp it one day. We live in a world fixated on stars, icons of those who have achieved what we all seek. What are the stars doing? What are they wearing? What are they weighing? We’re gazing at icons of unreality. We’re fixated on a death star. We can’t enjoy the life we have—right now—because we’re waiting for all the people in our lives to shape up and become what we need them to be; we’re working like dogs for the brass ring we’ll grasp in some gauzy future. The we’ll be stars!

Finding joy turns out to be a function of the star you’re following. The beauty of the wise men is, they follow the star that leads them out beyond the boundaries of the world they know to a new place. And—think of it—it’s not some great destination, studded with the “stars” of this world. They don’t find a pot of gold. They don’t find celebrity—there’s no one there to get their video with the king and post it on YouTube.  All they find is a child eating his oatmeal at the kitchen table when Mary answers the door. But it’s right. It’s true. And when they find it they’re “overwhelmed with joy.”

It’s the simple things that bring us joy, isn’t that right? All the big things either never get here, or when they do we’re under whelmed. When we follow the star that leads to life, when we find God, we can finally let that old self go, the one that needs to make everything in our own image, get everything right! That’s why Jesus keeps saying, “You must die to yourself.” Only when that monster is dead can a new self be resurrected within us, one that can simply love the world for what it is as God’s creation, love people for who they are as dim bearers of the divine light.

Then even our problems and our pain—it’s all okay. You know, the magi didn’t find the “answer” to all their problems and that’s why they’re overwhelmed with joy. No, it’s so bad, with Herod breathing down their necks, that in order to avoid death they have to return home “by another road.” But once they find the source of life, then nothing can suffocate the joy.

That’s what I pray for you today. I tell you, it’s what I seek every day.

I was listening to the radio on Thursday afternoon and I heard Merle Haggard interviewed. I thought he was dead, but he’s 70 and he has a new album out in a bluegrass style. I listened to a sampling of songs, but the last song he discussed was called “Learning to live with myself.” The interviewer said, “What’s that about?” And old Hag said, “I've learned how to live with my spouse and I've learned how to live with my beautiful children, I learned how to be friends with everybody and do everything. The only thing I hadn't learned how to do was to learn to live with myself. I think that's probably the hardest thing we all have to do. We can lie to everybody else, but you can't lie to yourself."

That’s pretty simple, isn’t it? Doesn’t get much leaner than that—to say hello, finally, to the self that’s buried under all that fear of how I’m doing and how I look and what all those other people think of me. Merle Haggard spent a lot of years following the death star. Remember his old song, “I turned 21 in prison doing life without parole”? That’s autobiographical. He served 15 years in San Quentin. After all that, finally he makes friends with himself.

What is your guiding star? And where is it leading you? I wish for you what I wish for myself. To find the star that hovers over the place where Christ is, to follow that every day. To find your true life, plain and simple, and to know that it’s enough, no matter what. To be, like the wise men, “overwhelmed with joy.”