Uncovering Joy: A House of Joy (Part 4 of 25)

Please feel free to comment - I'm looking for some feedback on these tales of urban spirituality. Thanks. TRRR

Uncovering Joy - A House of Joy 

“Or what woman having ten silver coins, if she loses one of them, does not light a lamp, sweep the house, and search carefully until she finds it? When she has found it, she calls together her friends and neighbors, saying, „Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I had lost.‟ Just so, I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.” (Luke 15:8-10) 

In Luke‟s gospel, the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling. Jesus was being the attentive person he always was. He was commenting about the order of seating at dinner and offered some words about hospitality within the Reign of God. For some, that kind of open welcome is offensive and disruptive. Jesus tells a parable about a banquet in order to press the point of the vision that calls forth all and not just some. This gospel story-telling is a journey through what is present and at hand. We learn about the Reign of God as we hear the stories of Jesus in the middle of what we have always seen as an ordinary day – no great event – no special preparation – no deliberate exercise. 

When I think about urban spirituality as a journey and exercise of uncovering joy, I am drawn to a very short parable that comes soon after the parable of the banquet in Luke. It is the second parable told to those who were questioning the kind of folks that Jesus welcomes and the people with whom he eats. In this parable a woman is looking for a coin she may have lost. She still has nine of the ten coins – but one is missing. First of all, she notices that one of ten is missing. Then she takes the time to move around everything in her house in order to find that coin. She does a thorough house cleaning. That means moving furniture, going into all the dark corners, going through the piles of things all of us “save,” shuffling around the things in the kitchen, up- ending the bed, shaking out carpets, and then sweeping - sweeping the dirt floor, in hope of finding that coin. She re-views what is so very well known to her. She finds the coin but she really encounters something much more – joy. Right there in the space of her life that is so ordinary - she finds joy by looking again at what is known so well to her. 

In the parable, the joy is something that is shared. Who knows, some of the neighbors may have been saying, “What‟s the big deal, she would have found it sooner or later?” But for that woman, joy is something that we share. Joy becomes contagious. When we are filled with joy over nothing more than that which is uncovered from the life very close to us and very available, the eyes of others are renewed. In her excitement, we may wonder about how something so small can bring about such grand rejoicing, but in that moment each of us may begin to think about how rich the everyday moments of our lives really are. We are invited to share in such joy. That becomes a model for us all. In the middle of our lives of plenty or our lives of want, joy has a place and it is the power to transform the rest of the day and even the rest of the journeys of our lives. 

Too often, days can become overwhelming. We can slip into a vision of life that is based on what we do not have and what we have not been able to do. This is a very quick journey that can shape how we see ourselves and the world in which we move each day. It often is one that precludes joy. 

Very early in the gospel stories, Jesus hangs out with the insignificant and undesirable locals. Jesus does this in full view of the people who thought that they were the ones who mattered most in their community - the acceptable ones. Inside the homes of those “locals” and when Jesus is taking time to simply be with them in the most ordinary acts of the day, joy is being uncovered in that home - at that dinner - in those conversations. 

Unfortunately, the religious leaders never allowed themselves to see and hear and touch the joy that comes into a room when the lost are found. I want to be very clear that this does not mean that the lost have somehow changed and become a part of the acceptable locals. Rather, there is joy that comes forth whenever we make room for those who have been told they do not fit in or are lost or are not worth being found. 

For a moment let’s look again at what I just wrote. What if we looked at this from another perspective? When Jesus goes into the homes of those rejected locals, he is not forced upon them. The sinners and tax-collectors and prostitutes and dirty ones seem to make room for Jesus. Joy comes to Jesus. The meals they shared – the conversations into which they let themselves wander – the touching and greeting – the embarrassing moments that seem to always be a part of the beginning of any new relationship, brings this “Prince of Peace” and the “Lord of Lords” into the joy that comes within the embrace of the totality of our humanity. What would Jesus’ life have been like had he not stepped into the hospitality of the least and lost and lowest? In those encounters -as common and ordinary as any of us have experienced - I would say that our God learns about us – in person. There is no distance between our God and the smells and aromas, the feeling and breath, and the laughter, tears and glances of humanity‟s most basic arenas of joy. In those homes and in those moments, the lost are found and our God tastes joy bumping elbows with – you and me. 

Jesus finds life. He finds life right there in all that which usually is overlooked. It is a life that happens even as people turn their backs in order to look at other people and things that have been given a grade of acceptable. Like the woman who finds a lost coin – joy explodes. It explodes with invitation. The coin was right in her home – under her nose – that close. Keeping that moment to herself would have been fine. And yet, we are looking at the Reign of God – a Reign that is at its fullest when it is unfolded within a community of complexities and stories that long to be found within one ever-expanding household. This joy is meant for all. The joy of the Reign of God is not to be taken in and put in a safe place. It is the foundation for a party – a celebration – a re-visioning of what is considered rich and full and worth a bundle of joy. She gathers in her neighbors and says, “Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I had lost.” 

Within the Reign of God we are in the midst of the party – an endless party – an endless appreciation of those who are so often considered to be lost. This Reign-of-God party is like a band of locals who walk out of the house in which they have been held prisoner by the mores and rules and laws of the day and they are now free. Jesus brings them out into the open and brings them along into further joy. This is joy that accompanies them in and through all places. It is not something held off for a special time. This is joy that will be embodied as they enter Jerusalem. Talk about a party! Imagine that gathering of the lost and the found and the party that broke out as Jesus was coming into Jerusalem. Sure people were waving palms and hollering and reaching out and touching, but they were also waving their hearts and their new lives. This joy over the common and ordinary is a joy that once experienced – changes the world of our hearts and minds and spirits. 

When I walk the streets of urban areas or press into the subways or sit alongside strangers in coffee houses I find that there are so many opportunities to experience the fullness of joy of God’s Reign. Our God sets us up. It is like God saying, “Come and see your brother and sister” or “Come and remember my promises to all people” or “Come and rest and find a joy so full and so simple and so available that angels throw a party.” The party is where Jesus can be found – just like the lost – taking in the rich and bountiful presence of God already at hand and as close as those once considered lost. There can be so many things to fear in our world. There can be so many things around us that cause our anxieties to well up and define us. But here within moments filled with anxiety and fear comes the Jesus who sits with us until joy may be found in what was once seen as so strange and threatening and is always so common and at hand.

When our house is the world and we are not afraid to search into the corners of the room and light a lamp to see more and more of what we thought we knew so well, the joy of the Reign of God awaits us. For here – right here – we will be amazed at how expansive is this grace of our God that promises to introduce us again - to a joyous homecoming that is already available and present. Open our hearts and eyes, O God, to such a home.

TRRR