When we use our gifts and talents to bring goodness to the world that brings God joy. It probably does. But what about the kind of joy that comes from surprise, silliness, and delight? Does God know that kind of joy? What surprises and delights God?
I find that when I’m thinking about “joy” it doesn’t take long before I’m humming “Joy to the World.” (My hope is that the hymn just got stuck in your head, too.) Verse two reads, “Joy to the earth, the Savior reigns! Let all their songs employ, while fields and floods, rocks, hills, and plains repeat the sounding joy, repeat the sounding joy, repeat, repeat the sounding joy.”
James Martin, S.J., teaches one method of the lectio divina (sacred reading) that I know I’ve shared before that he calls “4 questions.” Practicing ways of engaging scripture is one way we can pay attention to what God is up to in our lives. For most of us, any devotional method of tending to our faith lives takes some practice. I invite you to use this method today focusing on part of our reading from Sunday, John 15:9-11 as you think about joy.
As we move toward our last Sunday focusing on the fruits of the Spirit, I’d like us to take a moment and think about the focus of our gaze. In his reflection entitled, “Incarnation,” Richard Rohr writes, “In most pictures of people waiting for the Holy Spirit they are looking upward, they have their hands out or raised – the assumption being that the Spirit is up there.”
The peace of God is something that we can almost grasp, but I’m not sure we can ever completely understand. I take great comfort in scriptures that remind me that God’s peace is bigger than my understanding; like the verse from Philippians that begins, “And the peace of God which surpasses all understanding….” And as part of his farewell discourse in John’s Gospel, Jesus says, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.”