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Hi everyone. Welcome to another episode of Real Faith in the Real World, a ministry of Normal First United Methodist Church in Normal, Illinois. Let's listen to what our guest speaker, Pastor Von Hoffman, has to say today.

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Here now, a second reading. I want to share from John's Gospel from the 15th chapter, hear this word. As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in his love. I have said these things to you, so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete. This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. No greater love than has no one has greater love than this, to lay down one's life for one's friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing. But I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father. You did not choose me, but I chose you, and I appointed you to go and bear fruit, and fruit that will last, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask in my name. I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another. The grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of God shall stand forever. This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. Let us pray. Grant, O Lord, that we might be the masters of ourselves to become the servants of others. Take our minds and think through them, take our lips and speak through them. Take our hearts and set them on fire for thee. Amen. If you are a longtime United Methodist as I am, it may interest you to know that this month has a couple of new starts. The the Miracle Sunday initiative that we've already seen the video of, the we're gonna have this push for theological education in a new and robust way, which is a great thing. The Council of Bishops made that choice and the churches are responding. The other thing that happened that's a little more under the radar, but I think is kind of interesting to me anyway, as a longtime church person, is that uh we have a new motto unveiled this month, or a new vision statement. Um you you have already started to see it around. Love boldly, serve joyfully, lead courageously. When Kathy called me to fill in this week, she said, we're gonna highlight the new motto. And would you be the serve joyfully guy for your week? And I said, absolutely, I will be the serve joyfully guy. That sounds like the right thing to do. Uh, you may remember our previous statement, I always liked it. Open, the Church of Open Hearts, Open Minds, Open Doors, you know that. Well, if you go to the website now, you can you can find it. It's in teeny tiny print, kind of at the bottom. Everything, for everything, there is a season, and I think we're kind of, it's time for something fresh, the bishop said. And so here we are. Love boldly, serve joyfully, lead courageously. Somebody asked, what's United Methodism about? That's our denomination says a good answer to that. And and so as the Serve Joyfully guy today, I started thinking about that motto, and it occurred to me, you know, for me, it's the adverbs that really make it effective. It's the descriptor words. I mean, if you just had the verbs, um uh uh love, serve, lead, that's okay, but it's the descrip, it's the adverbs. It's the it's the uh, you know, love boldly, serve joyfully, lead courageously. That shows the energy, there's that's where the energy comes from, right? That's where the enthusiasm and the desire for excellence, I guess, is how I would say it. It's the modifiers that um that really articulate the kind of church that we would want to have. And when I thought about my adverb for this week, the joyfully uh word, it occurred to me that it's good to talk about that openly because I think there are still a lot of people out there in our culture who don't automatically associate joy with church life. I think there are a lot of people, when they think of church, that still believe we mostly are concerned about, you know, a God who lays a lot of commandments on people and is obsessed with us keeping the right rules and will generally disapprove of us having any, not not having too much fun anyway. We're supposed to be on our best behavior, I think a lot of culture thinks, or else we will suffer the consequences of a God who will be easily uh mad at us. Um do you know the story of uh you know the name Frederick Nietzsche? Frederick Nietzsche was a 19th-century philosopher, and he was known for championing a kind of an anti-religious intellectualism. Uh he founded a movement that came to be known as the Death of God movement. Uh, Nietzsche the philosopher. Uh, but what most people don't know about him is he was a preacher's kid. He grew up in a parsonage. His dad was a Lutheran pastor in Germany, and apparently his dad was a pretty stern character because uh late in his life, Frederick Nietzsche the philosopher, thinking about his upbringing, uh uh reflected and famously said, I guess as I think back on it now, I found it impossible to believe in the Redeemer because my family never looked redeemed. Yeah, I okay, okay, I get that. And what I want to suggest this morning is that if there is one thing in the approach to our faith, both as it's articulated in the Old and the New Testaments, one thing in our tradition that I think sets us apart from all other ancient religions, is that actually our roots in the Judeo-Christian tradition have a dimension of joy, joyfulness, and joyful service built right into them. And it's a counterpoint to seeing religion as rule keeping and as primarily a burden to bear to keep us from, you know, angering God. I mean, way back in the sixth century BC, we hear the psalmist Chris read it just a minute ago. I was glad when they said to me, Let us go into the house of the Lord. For him, way back then, the idea of attending to his worship life and his spiritual formation, that didn't arouse feelings of gloom and doom for him. He doesn't say, I was apprehensive when they said unto me, let us go, or I was annoyed, or I prepared myself to be bored when they said unto me, let us go to the house of. No, no. He apparently has had enough experiences of it, uh, being positive. I was glad when they said, let's go. He had showed up enough at temple, apparently, that through the music that was offered that day, the beauty of the architecture around him, whatever happened to be said that day, he trusted that that process over time would lift him up and encourage him to be a better soul. And he would be reset time and time again to go out and take hold of life. I was glad when they said, let's go unto the house of the Lord. I had a seminary professor years ago who said that as a preacher, you will know you've done your job if at the end of the service, when people are leaving, if they are saying, not, boy, how great was that sermon, but how great is my life, and how great is God, and how great it is that I had a chance to get reconnected to God this morning. If they say that, you said, that's you've done your work, whatever else happens. And uh lo and behold, you know, I think about how prominent this idea of faith and joyful living are connected. How often it shows both in the early parts of the Old Testament and all the way through the new, and especially in the life and ministry of Jesus. That's why I picked that gospel section today. Uh late in John, that that section is uh it's what scholars call Jesus' farewell discourse, where he's trying to kind of articulate some things up for the disciples. He's just about to go into the, you know, the the Last Supper and the march to the cross and the trial and the crucifixion, and he's trying to sum up for his disciples, here's what this is all about. And in that section, here's what he says. These things I have spoken to you that my joy may be in you and your joy may be full. So, you know, there it is, as clear as it can be. For Jesus, joy is not a byproduct of religion, it's the central purpose of what he intended in the way he lived and in the way he taught. I mean, he could have framed it in all kinds of different ways. He might have said, These things I have spoken to you that my righteousness may be in you, or that my wisdom may be in you, or my purity of heart may be in you. But the word he uses, none of those. I've said these things that my joy may be in you, and your joy may be full. That's the goal. That's the goal of all that he came in God's name to give. So, I mean, I think the Consul of Bishops got it right to include that as one of the six words that define us joyfully. Uh, it's a key piece of our vision statement, and I think it's a nice counterpoint for all those times when we are tempted to think religion is about fulfilling an obligation or sitting there stiff and a little worried about whether we're measuring up to God's intention for us or not. And it's not an overstatement to say that Holy Communion itself is a part of that centrality of joy given to us, not to honor a dead God, but to experience a joyful living one in our everyday lives. How does that joy that Jesus is talking about there come to pass? I'm sure the disciples must have wondered. And it's interesting, um, right away, Jesus lets us know that joy, it's not like something we strive for to attain. Joy is not exactly the same thing as happiness. That's the way I would frame it. I mean, there is a sense in which happiness is the the sm little uh the little brother of joy. Happiness can be man-made, a happy home, a happy marriage, happy relationship with our friends. We can work for those things. And if we are careful and wise and lucky, we can achieve some happiness out of our own efforts. It's one of the highest achievements I would suggest that we're capable of. And when it's ours, we can take some credit for it. But I don't think you can never take credit for moments of joy because moments of joy are not something you create, they're just something you discover. They just come when they come, and they can't be forced or subject to our will. Forced joy is an oxymoron. Have you ever gone to a restaurant and seen somebody at the table next to you who's celebrating a birthday, and the restaurant staff, as a condition of their employment, have to come out and sing a joyful, happy birthday? Happy birthday to joy is not for, it can't be forced. Not not gen, it's it's just because it's discovered. And notice how Jesus uh articulates that. Joy is is the discovery that you have been chosen by God. You did not choose me, but I chose you. That's the there you go. Joy comes not by what choices we have made, but by our discovery that we have been chosen, that God Himself grants us a dignity that cannot be denied or taken away. So that's how Jesus said, you don't have to strive for it, you just have to look for it and be attentive to it and be grateful when it shows up. And the other thing I think that's important to say there in as Jesus talks about joy in John 15, is that part of his joy came out of this conviction that he cultivated throughout his adult life, that, and his absolute trust that whatever would happen to him in his everyday life, he could be confident that God had chosen him. Remember, back at his baptism, and therefore God would not abandon him. And so when Jesus faced limits, even the ultimate limit of his own death on the cross, as he was just gonna do soon after he said these things, he could do that safe in the embrace of this love that he trusted would never leave him. And that assurance brought with it this peace to live each day with a sense of joy and an unhurried calm and a deep sense of gratitude for the gift of time and each day's beauty. All of that to say, maybe our new motto, uh, love boldly, serve joyfully, lead courageously, can be a nice reminder for us as United Methodists that we can cultivate a similar kind of posture in our own everyday lives, finding joy even in the trials, as Jesus did. That is more possible than many people may think. Do you know the name Jane Kenyon? Uh some of you may know. Jane Kenyon was a distinguished American poet uh who some years back uh contracted uh leukemia and uh sadly died at the age of 48. Prior to her death, uh, Jane Kenyon worked with her husband, uh a man named Donald Hall, who was also a very distinguished poet, to compile a book that she knew would be her very last volume of poems. And she entitled this volume of poems, Otherwise. It's a lovely, it's a lovely uh book. Uh, and uh the the the title piece, the title piece is something that uh I I find very meaningful in terms of finding joy even in life's trials, and it reads like this uh Otherwise from Jane Kenyon, otherwise. I got out of bed on two strong legs, it might have been otherwise. I ate cereal, sweet milk, ripe flawless peach, it might have been otherwise. I took the dog uphill to the birch wood. All morning I did the work I love. At noon I lay down with my mate, it might have been otherwise. We ate dinner together at a table with silver candlesticks, it might have been otherwise. I slept in a bed in a room with paintings on the walls and planned another day just like this day. But one day I know it will be otherwise. And that's Jane Kenyon's beautiful acknowledgement that for all of us, as it was for her and as it was for Jesus, one day it will be otherwise. But until then, our faith invites us, as it invited the disciples long ago, to live with a sense of joy and beauty and the recognition that no day, however ordinary or commonplace as it may seem on the surface, does not hold the possibility to experience the holy and the divine and the joyful. One day for all of us it will be otherwise, but even on that day, Jesus bears witness we have a joyful promise that is at the heart of our faith, that all our days, no matter how commonplace, no matter how ordinary, they are bound in love to the one in whose unconditional care and in whose loving embrace we are forever safe and free to be joyful. Amen.

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Thanks for joining us for this episode of Real Faith in the Real World. We hope that this message helps you grow in your understanding and sparks new insight on your journey of faith. If you found this episode helpful, don't forget to subscribe and share. And as always, if you have questions and want to dive deeper into today's topic, please feel free to reach out to us by going to normalfumc.org, click about normal first, and click contact to leave us a message. We would love to hear from you. And until next time, keep seeking, keep questioning, and keep growing.