Rejoice in the Lord Always

Sermon preached by John C. Hall on October 9, 2005
Text - Philippians 4:1-7

Therefore, my brothers and sisters, whom I love and long for, my joy and crown, stand firm in the Lord in this way, my beloved. I urge Euodia and I urge Syntyche to be of the same mind in the Lord. Yes, and I ask you also, my loyal companion, help these women, for they have struggled beside me in the work of the gospel, together with Clement and the rest of my co-workers, whose names are in the book of life.

Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near. Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

“Rejoice in the Lord Always?” That sounds kind of crazy. What about the people whose lives were turned upside down by the hurricanes or the people whose family members were killed in Iraq? On our prayer list we have a three year old with cancer. Can they, or should they, rejoice in the Lord? What does it mean to “rejoice in the Lord always?”

Normally, we talk about accepting things when they don't go our way. Suck it up, make the best of it, and move on- that sort of thing. But that doesn't seem to be exactly the same thing as rejoicing in the Lord.

Rather than talk about hurricanes or the war in Iraq, I thought I'd use a more commonplace example. Last Tuesday in the Jacob Group, we were reading from the gospel of Luke and Karl Scheibe told us a little story. As many of you know, Karl's long time friend Ted Sarbin died a couple of weeks ago. Ted was Karl's teacher and mentor in graduate school and they remained professional friends and colleagues ever since. Karl flew out to California to be with Ted on the day he died, or the day before he died, and then a week or so later Karl and Wendy flew back to California for the memorial service. Karl delivered the eulogy at the service.

As most of you know, when you buy a plane ticket for an event like that, when you don't have a month's advance notice, you pay more. Now remember, this was Karl's second trip to the west coast in less than two weeks, so Karl, being the prudent person that he is, searched around for the best ticket price he could find on-line and what he came up with was a fare of $830 from Bradley to San Francisco, round trip.

Well, that's a lot to shell out, but as I said, Ted was Karl's dear friend. So, he bought the tickets. What else can you do? When they were on the plane, probably somewhere over Michigan or South Dakota, and Karl got talking with the guy in the next seat, and one of the things they got talking about was air fare. Karl told his fellow passenger what he'd paid for their tickets. $830 apiece. $1660 total for the two seats.

Karl asked the guy, when did you buy your ticket? He answered, “Two days ago.” I can imagine what went through Karl's mind at the moment. Two days ago. Man, he must have really gotten clipped. “So what did you have to pay?”

The latecomer passenger paid $194. The same plane, the same route, the same day, same row. Now Karl didn't say this, and I don't know if he felt this, but if this had been me, paying $1660 for airfare for a two day trip would have hurt a little no matter what the trip was for. But if I was on that plane, having paid $830 each for two tickets, and found out that the guy in the next had bought his even later for $194, that would have made the sting a little bit worse. I would have wanted to say to the flight attendant, “Hey, that guy's ginger ale and peanuts should go on my tray table.

Well, this isn't the worst thing that can happen to a person. But what a metaphor for life this is. You're on a journey. You expect fair pricing. You expect that, if you do your homework you'll do better. At least, you'll do better than the guy who turns in his paper late. That's the way the world is supposed to work.

But the pricing isn't fair. If you do your homework, you don't always get a better grade than the slacker. Life's fortunes and misfortunes aren't distributed that way. How do you rejoice in the Lord in a situation like that?

I asked Karl if I could use this as a sermon illustration to redeem it, so to speak. It cost Karl and Wendy $1300 so I hope you get the point. It's one thing to accept this kind of thing, to put up with it, and be resigned to it, when life isn't fair. It's another thing to rejoice in the Lord in those moments. Why rejoice?

Here is where Christianity becomes a very odd, contrarian, counter-intuitive way of being in the world. At the heart of the Christian way is the symbol of the cross. “Take up your cross and follow me,” Jesus said. This is how you get to the kingdom. For Jesus, and for the Christian faith, the cross isn't just something to put up with. It offers something. It takes us deeper. It leads to something far richer.

I asked myself, if what happened to Karl with the plane tickets happened to me, why might I be glad that it happened? Maybe, when something like that happens it sort drives home the meaning of our baptism. Baptism is part of getting ready to “die with Christ” so that we might “live in him” in another realm

Some people get a raw deal on plane tickets. Some people get a raw deal in who their parents are. Some people get a raw deal by being born in a poor part of the world run by a ruthless dictator. Some people get a raw deal by being born with genes that cause health problems.

Why should I be exempt from all of that? Baptized people are people who take a very sober, realistic view of these things. We're all going to die in the end.

So maybe “rejoicing in the Lord” in this case is for the reminder that we're not that special. I mean, Karl and Wendy are special, of course. The point is: there's a lot of luck spread around - good and bad. Some people get hit by a hurricane. Some people lose a son in Iraq. Some people pay a lot for airplane tickets. In this case, the plane made it to ground safely.

When something goes wrong, it's a reminder that we're all in this together. That's something to rejoice about. Being alive at all is something to rejoice about.

Rose LaBella was a spunky Italian lady who died just last year at age 98. She lived on Hunting Hill Avenue. She always used to say, “I wake up every morning, pick up the newspaper, look at the obituaries, and if my name isn't there, I'm happy.”

One morning, she woke up, looked at the obituaries, and there she was, Rose LaBella, Hunting Hill Avenue. Died. Funeral on Wednesday.” I saw the obituary too, and I was shocked. I called her up. Luckily, she answered the phone. It turned out there was another Rose LaBella on Hunting Hill Avenue. So our Rose missed that bullet by just a hair and had a good laugh, at the other Rose LaBella's expense.

But now Rose, the one we knew, has died too. God's going to get us in the end. We die in Christ, one way or the other. That's what baptism symbolizes. And if we die in Christ, we rise in Christ, in the still-living Christ.

Rejoice in the Lord, always.

The mission of First Church is to engage and support people in worship, learning, fellowship, and service, so that all may find in our community the Spirit of the living Christ.  We are an Open and Affirming Church: All are welcome into the full life of our community regardless of their race, age, gender, nationality, marital status, economic situation, mental or physical ability, or sexual orientation.