What's your color?

Sermon-Year B-3 Advent-12-14-08
The Cloud of Unknowing,
"O God, our great companion, lead us ever more deeply into the mystery of your life and ours, that we may be faithful interpreters of that Life to each other, through our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen."
Today is called “Gaudete Sunday”, from a Latin word meaning “to rejoice”. The first word of the Introit at Mass (Gaudete, i.e. Rejoice). When Advent used to be much more penitential, this Sunday was a bit of a break and instead of four purple candles in the Advent wreath this Sunday added a pink one as a symbol of this different focus.

I was at a meeting of clergy and we were talking about this lesson from Thessalonians. And this young priest said, “play this game, notice everything that you can see that is green.” Well, once somebody says that, it’s hard to stop seeing green everywhere. Another person said, “try NOT thinking about elephants.” (I’ve lost you now haven’t I-you’?) Well, try to think of something OTHER than elephants. You’re either looking at everything green in the church or you’re so focused on elephants, that you’ve already checked out of the sermon. Their point was that when we focus our attention on something, it’s becomes so easy to get fixated on it-and we have trouble turning it off.
The point this other priest was making (the one who spoke about seeing green) was how important it was to focus on being positive right now, to look for the good, to hunt for the happy elephant, to think about Good green. We spent half an hour praying and talking about this reading from Thessalonians:
16Rejoice always, 17pray without ceasing, 18give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. 19Do not quench the Spirit. 20Do not despise the words of prophets, 21but test everything; hold fast to what is good; 22abstain from every form of evil.
Powerful words. And as we clergy talked about the difficulties our congregations were going through right now, I started thinking about the power of these words: 16Rejoice always, 17pray without ceasing, 18give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. 19Do not quench the Spirit. ….. hold fast to what is good;
Hard things to do. The church in Thessalonica was flourishing despite a lot of opposition and persecution. Times were hard, and yet the people and the church there were growing-in numbers and in depth. It wasn’t easy. Paul the apostle had started the church and then was run out of town. So he sent them this letter, to encourage them, and to help them-even when he wasn’t allowed to be with them. He gave them impossible advice: we can’t possibly rejoice ALWAYS; we can’t constantly pray without ceasing; there is no way we can, Give thanks in all things. But Paul tells these new Christians to do that. Listen, Paul was a realist, he knew what people could and couldn’t do. And he knew that people could not do these things-but still he encouraged them to try. Because he knew that times were hard, that they would be challenged, and that their lives would be difficult. And so he told them to notice everything that was green. To NOT think of elephants. He wrote to them that their faith would require them to be extraordinary. He told them to choose what they focused on, make a decision about their attitude, to select who they would be. He wanted them to know that faith in Christ didn’t mean being thankful FOR all things-but finding that which was God IN all things.
The great preacher, Harry Emerson Fosdick wrote a book called A Faith for Tough Times. He tells the story of a woman who had a very painful and serious case of arthritis. Most days all she could do was lay in bed. She received a visit from one of her friends one day. The friend lamented at length about the woman’s arthritic’s condition, finally ending her words with: “this illness will certainly change the color of your life.”. To which the woman with arthritis answered: "And I propose to choose the color."
Paul writes his new struggling church in Macedonia, the Thessalonians, and he tells them, CHOOSE THE COLOR OF YOUR LIFE.
16Rejoice always, 17pray without ceasing, 18give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. 19Do not quench the Spirit. hold fast to what is good;
Listen, being positive and encouraging in our economy, in our circumstances right now makes little sense. Times are hard and may get worse. Challenges abound, and some days they are too much for us. We feel powerless over much that is happening, and that is ALWAYS hard to accept. But we can choose the color of our lives. We can decide on who we will be and what we follow. We can focus our attention.
Here’s the elephant I “don’t” want you to think about this week: 16Rejoice always, 17pray without ceasing, 18give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.
I could give you a thousand inspirational stories about being positive-but you already know that this is true. It is when things are hard, that we most need to hear these words, feel the support of others, know that we are going to make it, and believe that God is with us as we journey. This does not come easily. But it is what we decide. It is what we resolve, it is the green that we see everywhere we look.
Today is Gaudete Sunday, when we light the pink candle and remember the word, “rejoice”. It is the day we hear the words of encouragement from Paul to the Thessalonians. It is the day that I challenge you to choose which color your life is going to be, when I ask you NOT to think of elephants of faith and hope. It is the day when we hear and take into our hearts, 16Rejoice always, 17pray without ceasing, 18give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.
This is the will of God for us.