Had the Outlook invited me to write a few words about joy five or six years ago, I think I would have passed on the opportunity. I wouldn’t have felt qualified. Ask anyone in my family, and they will testify I’m not the most joyful guy. Yet, had I agreed, the thought that I would turn to the Apostle Paul would have surprised me even more. I’m not really a “Paul guy.” Paul has taught me much, and I am grateful for his words, but I doubt that I would want to meet him for lunch. He can be rather hard to take at times. He’s arrogant and, in some ways, sees the world so differently than I do that I wonder what we might talk about if we found ourselves sharing a Caesar salad. But I have changed, at least a bit, in recent years.
Surprisingly, this old apostle fed my faith in ways I failed to realize I hungered for. I believe Paul’s letter to the Philippians – penned from prison – is the most joyful writing in the New Testament. How can Paul be so full of joy even in prison? I wanted him to teach me. He indeed experienced the “dark night of the soul” yet somehow found his way to joy.
Joy is anything but commonplace these days. Anger is abundant. Loneliness, according to the surgeon general, is a health epidemic. And hopelessness is common. So much is wrong, and people of faith can do so little about it that speaking of joy can seem dismissive, even completely out of touch. Yet Paul says, “I will rejoice” (Philippians 1:18), “Rejoice in the Lord always” (4:4), and “I rejoice in the Lord greatly” (4:10). This joy is not some lighthearted prison party. Paul is speaking of joy, not happiness. They are similar but not exactly the same. Joy goes deeper than happiness. Happiness is tied to favorable circumstances in life — but joy, as Paul demonstrates, can rise above circumstances that are anything but favorable.
Joy is rooted in the confidence that life’s disappointments are not evidence that God has abandoned us.
Joy is rooted in the confidence that life’s disappointments are not evidence that God has abandoned us. Joy is the fruit that results from trusting that the spirit of Christ will work for our deliverance, as Paul says. Perhaps joy is the first taste of that deliverance. Happiness is something that finds us; it comes to us carried by the blessings of ordinary time. But joy is, at the same time, a gift as well as something that is pursued. Joy is grace but also a spiritual discipline, one that requires courage.
Karl Barth, who never struck me as a giddy theologian, defined joy as a “defiant nevertheless.” Joy is not the result of turning a blind eye to the brokenness of ourselves and our world; instead, joy is confidence in the power of love. We can embrace joy when we trust that the love that makes sense of life has called us by name.
So, in these few paragraphs, I’ll review some of what I think the Apostle Paul can teach us about joy when the world is falling apart.
Take the long view
Early in his letter to the Philippians, Paul says, “I am confident of this, that the one who began a good work in you will continue to complete it until the day of Jesus Christ” (1:6). Paul commonly looks past the present day to focus his eye on the ultimate work of redemption that will be accomplished in Jesus Christ. But what does that distant tomorrow have to do with joy today? In short, Paul urges us to take the long view and to let the present be rightsized. Convinced that God will be faithful, Paul trusts that we are defined not by our present circumstance, nor even our yesterdays, but rather by God’s tomorrow. Living toward that promised day is joyful.
Convinced that God will be faithful, Paul trusts that we are defined not by our present circumstance, nor even our yesterdays, but rather by God’s tomorrow. Living toward that promised day is joyful.
In 1987, the nation celebrated the bicentennial of the drafting of the U.S. Constitution. On a bright September day, Chief Justice Warren Burger waxed nostalgic: “If we … [keep] faith with the vision of the founders … we will have done our part to see that the great new idea of government – by we the people – remains in place.” Burger believed our calling was to stay true to a vision held in 1787.
Associate Justice Thurgood Marshall offered an alternative voice. Marshall had argued Brown v. Board of Education before the Supreme Court in 1954, and in 1967, President Lyndon B. Johnson nominated him as the first African American person to sit on the highest court in the land. Marshall declined an invitation to speak at the bicentennial celebration. Speaking of the celebration in a different speech, Marshall warned, “The focus of this celebration invites a complacent belief that the vision of those who debated and compromised in Philadelphia yielded the ‘more perfect Union’ it is said we now enjoy.” He added: “The government [the Framers] devised was defective from the start, requiring several amendments, a civil war, and momentous social transformation” to better realize the promise of a more just society. Marshall concluded that credit for the present meaning of the Constitution belonged not to the Framers but “to those who refused to acquiesce in outdated notions of ‘liberty,’ ‘justice,’ and ‘equality’ and who strived to better them.”
Marshall believed in America because Marshall believed that America was still becoming. America was a way of being with one another that we can imagine but have yet to know fully. For Paul, the day of Jesus Christ is similar. It is the life that God intends for all of us, but a life we have yet to know in its fullness. Here’s the key: if we keep our eyes open, from time to time, we will see that promised day in the present. Paul understood that he was defined not by what the world was doing to him but rather by what Christ had done for him — so even in the face of challenge, Paul knew joy.
Here’s the key: if we keep our eyes open, from time to time, we will see that promised day in the present.
Do the good that is yours to do
There is a second gift that Paul shares with us. The Philippians were concerned for Paul. They demonstrated their care and concern by sending a friend named Epaphroditus (4:18). The Philippians had concerns. Paul, are you well? Are you being treated fairly? Do you have enough to eat? Is it cold? Are you lonely?
In every church I have served, I have known saints who understood that a part of their ministry was to take care of the pastor. They would linger after a hard meeting just to check in. They would make time to share a glass of wine and offer encouragement at the end of the day. Epaphroditus is such a friend to Paul. For the Philippians to send him to Paul was their expression of concern for Paul. But they were concerned for more than Paul. They were also concerned for themselves, for they must have wondered: If this is how the world treats the Lord’s apostle, what will happen to us?
Paul speaks to the fear the Philippians feel. “I want you to know,” he writes, “that what has happened to me has actually resulted in the progress of the gospel, so that it has become known throughout the whole imperial guard and to everyone else that my imprisonment is for Christ” (1:12-13).
When they ask, “Paul, are you okay?” he responds, in essence, “Yes, because I have ministry I can do here! Yes, I am in prison, and there is not one thing about it that I like. But I can still serve Jesus Christ, and that is enough.”
Interestingly, Paul doesn’t say that the guards believe in Jesus; they just know that Paul believes in Jesus. I am comforted by the humility and the challenge of that perspective. In the early years of my faith, I felt that my calling was to do what I could to make my neighbor Christian. To sow the seed, as the parable exhorts.
I don’t believe that anymore. I am not called to make my neighbor Christian; I am called to be Christian to my neighbor. That means every day is an opportunity to live the faith I claim. Living faith in the ordinary choices of each day is a source of joy.
I am not called to make my neighbor Christian; I am called to be Christian to my neighbor.
One elder in a church I served was named Margaret. She was remarkable, a woman of deep faith and a mover and shaker. Margaret was often in the middle when things were getting done in the community. She was a force. But over the 20 years I knew Margaret, her energy faded. Her mind was sharp, but not as sharp as it had been. She said the days of attending committee meetings late into the night were behind her.
One morning I found her leaning on her walker at the counter that displayed our prayer list for the church. She said, “Tom, I must have walked by this counter a million times and didn’t even know we had a prayer list. I am so glad I discovered it.”
“Why is that?” I asked.
“Well, these days I can’t do much of anything else, but I can still pray. It’s not a lot, but it is the good that is mine to do. I’m glad I can do it.”
I think Paul would understand Margaret. When we say, “I have served the purposes of the Gospel,” it is a good day, even a joyful one.
The (humble) mind of Christ
At the heart of the Philippian letter is a plea to “be of the same mind” (2:2). It’s hard enough to imagine thinking alike in the church, but then Paul raises the stakes and exhorts us, “Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus” (2:5). If I understand the text, Paul is speaking not about our thoughts, but about our mindset or orientation. He describes this orientation in Philippians 2, asserting that the mind of Christ is a mind of humility (see 2:3, 7-8).
For the longest time, I had a flawed view of humility. My grandmother was convinced that being arrogant was the quickest way to damnation. Nobody likes a braggart, she would say. Don’t draw attention to yourself. Don’t get too big for your breeches, son. It’s not about you. Watch yourself.
Ironically, we’re supposed to achieve humility by thinking about ourselves all the time, even just to ensure we are not thinking too much of ourselves. But that can’t be the mind of Christ. When Jesus chose to humble himself, taking on human form, he wasn’t thinking, “Oh, don’t pay attention to little ol’ me. I’m just the savior of the world, but don’t make a big deal about it.” That might have made my grandmother happy, but it’s not humility. Jesus chose to live in this world because he loved this world.
Humility is the fruit born not by thinking of ourselves at all, but by thinking highly of others. When we see the good, the honorable, the beautiful in another, it humbles us.
We do not achieve humility by thinking less of ourselves. Nothing in God wants us to think less of ourselves. Humility is the fruit born not by thinking of ourselves at all, but by thinking highly of others. When we see the good, the honorable, the beautiful in another, it humbles us.
When I was in eighth grade, the catcher for the Atlanta Braves, Johnny Oates, lived in our basement for a couple of months. When you are in eighth grade and have a major league ball player living in the basement, the second coming of Jesus would be anticlimactic!
One night, a little sports car pulled into the driveway. Johnny got out of his car. No mitt. No uniform. No cleats. Absolutely nothing to let my neighbors know that a major league ball player was parked in our driveway. He came in with his suitcase. He sat with my dad and me at the kitchen table, and we ate a piece of pie. I asked him what playing on the same team with Hank Aaron was like. What was it like to catch Phil Niekro’s knuckleball? What was it like to throw Lou Brock out at second? It was a magical night.
But then my dad turned into my dad. “John, you know Tom is quite a ball player,” he said. I thought, no, Dad, don’t!
“Just last week, he and Joe Turner turned a double play in church league softball.”
“Dad,” I said. “Stop. He’s not impressed with church league softball. Dad, just stop talking.”
I admit, had anyone else been at that table, I would have been happy to walk them through the details of that double play. So why not that night? I didn’t want to talk about it that night because I was humbled — not because I felt inadequate or unimportant. Not at all; I felt great. I was humbled because, to my eighth-grade mind, I was sitting with someone important.
When we see worth in another, it rightsizes us. That’s humility. Such humility is actually joyful because we find ourselves in the right place.
When we see worth in another, it rightsizes us. That’s humility. Such humility is actually joyful because we find ourselves in the right place.
These days, we are surrounded by voices that point out what is wrong with everyone else. We need no courage or insight to point out what is wrong; all of us are flawed. But to look for the good in others is holy work. When we look for the good in one another, we not only create a mindset of humility but also find a source of joy.
We are living in hard times. The planet is under duress, and the results of climate change make the news daily. Honesty is no longer expected from leaders. Poverty remains a crushing weight. As people of faith, we cannot turn a blind eye to how the world is. But neither can we relinquish our trust in the power of God’s love to change it. The apostle held to this faith, giving him a joy he could not contain. So he wrote it all down in this old letter.
So even when things are falling apart, look for the good in others. Do the good that is yours to do, and take the long view. Even if you are generally not the most joyful person, you may discover your heart is more joyous. I can’t promise you will, but I can testify as one who is a bit more joyful than I have ever been: it is possible.
