This is our last Sunday in the series of Psalms as the songbook of Israel and our summer songs pointing to the character of God. I hope you have had as much fun as I have looking at some modern summer songs alongside the psalms. Like the psalms, we have learned about the character of God and the circumstances of God’s people. We have reminded ourselves of God’s faithfulness and mercy as well as the unique character of God’s ever-present way of being with us, not just in times of celebration, but also throughout the challenges of life.
This morning, we turn look together at the joy of walking with God. Now, plenty of summer songs seek to express joy and excitement, but this song gives an over the top feeling. I think every dance studio cycles this song through their repertoire every other year. Maybe you have even had the experience of watching children, grandchildren, or maybe even yourself, tumbling onto stage, jumping around, and capturing the joie de vive that this song offers. Katrina and the Waves made the song popular in 1985. And it has been populating air waves, wedding celebrations, and movies, ever since. Let’s watch it! Walking on Sunshine. (watch clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iPUmE-tne5U )
It’s that moment when you find out you are going to be a grandparent for the first time and you have been waiting patiently for what feels like eons. It’s that moment when the thick envelope comes in the mail and the college of your dreams has accepted you and offered scholarship funds. It’s that moment when a baby flashes the first genuine smile and you cannot help but glow. It’s the moment when your love asks you to spend the rest of your lives together and you want to tell everyone! It’s the moment when you walk back to your desk after a hard meeting and someone has left you a note, a snack, something to let you know they are thinking about you. It’s the moment when you are sure beyond a shadow of a doubt that God is with you and has your back!
The psalmist in 111 is having a walking on sunshine moment. In describing God, the psalmist can almost not imagine how God be anymore incredible. In singing God’s praises, the psalmist declared how God has faithfully established and kept covenants, how God has fed God’s people, and sent redemption to the people. God, who is full of honor and majesty, faithful and just, powerful and trustworthy has been known by the psalmist. The psalmist, who sounds he is introducing a dignitary, goes onto say, God is gracious and merciful, holy and awesome. God is the only one who contains this rare combination of attributes. God does not stay far away from people. God encourages intimacy and connection. In fact, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom and understanding. Being with God, learning from God, observing God is the initial step to yourself understanding and becoming wise.
Following an initial doxological summons to “praise the LORD” (hallu yah), the psalmist shares Psalm 111 in the acrostic form. That is to say each successive letter of the Hebrew alphabet begins each bicola through verse 8, and each tricola in verses 9 and 10. The psalmist is bursting at the seams for God. The joy of the Lord is known when we recalled how God has been with us in the past. David speaks of the joy of the Lord in our lesson from second Samuel. It is joy, as deep as life, when David says God delivered me. David experienced the connection and intimacy, the goodness and gracious of God. He sings praises to the God who delivers him again and again, even after his major mess ups. We hear his joy.
But, maybe you are not exactly having a walking on sunshine moment. Most of us do not live in perpetual soundtrack of Walking on Sunshine. What does it mean for us to walk with God in joy? Joy and happiness are not as synonymous as perhaps our third grade language arts teachers lead us to believe. Joy is a response deeper than initial happiness. Joy comes not only because of the situations in our life, but because of a deeper commitment.
In fact the two words have different Greek origins. The Greek word for happiness is Makarios and it refers to the freedom of the rich from normal cares and worries. It is the word used to describe a person who has received some form of good fortune–money, health, children and that sort of thing. The word in Greek is chairo, described by the ancient Greeks as the “culmination of being” and the “good mood of the soul.” Chairo is something, the ancient Greeks tell us, that is found only in God and comes with virtue and wisdom.
Henri Nouwen, Roman Catholic theologian says it this way, “Joy does not simply happen to us. We have to choose joy and keep choosing it every day.” Happiness is happenstance. Joy is choice. Joy comes in the midst of loneliness and loss as well as excitement and eagerness. Joy comes with good news and bad news. Joy is a daily choice. Joy is how we think about the world.
I think of the story of Mother Teresa. When we think of Mother Teresa, we think of one who models Christian virtue, shows us how compassion, love, and commitment to God is lived out. I have always thought highly of Mother Teresa, my respect and admiration for her increased when I read Come Be My Light, her private writings that were released after her death. You see, when she was 36 she experienced her second call on the train through India. She had fallen very ill and had experienced a profound sense of God’s presence. She heard a voice ask to her to care for the poorest of the poor. She changed her vocation from teaching in a girl’s school to caring for the untouchables. Never again, did she hear or feel such a profound experience of God’s presence.
She choose joy and remembrance of the experience of God’s presence for the remaining 51 years of her life as she served most profoundly those in need of God’s presence and care. She concluded that these painful experiences could help her identify not only with the abandonment that Jesus Christ felt during the crucifixion, but also with the abandonment that the poor faced daily. In this way she hoped to enter, in her words, the “dark holes” of the lives of the people with whom she worked.
For us, as we begin this fall season, some going back to school, others returning to a regular work schedule and yet others, observing the changes in nature that affect their daily routine, we hear that calls us to know the joy of walking with God. God calls us not to be weighed down in the challenges that surround us, not to carry alone the grief and worry, fear and anxiety, loneliness and wonder, but instead to choose to walk with God.
God calls us in the midst of uncertainty about sending our child on the bus for the first time and the pressure of high school AP course, to walk with God. God calls us in the midst of devastating test results and the unknown of the health future, to walk with God. God calls us in the midst of the abandonment of loss and the world’s unpredictable turns, to walk with God. My prayer for you is you might choose joy and find moments during which you are walking on SUNSHINE with God!
This is the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, thanks be to God, Amen.
https://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=2332