Scripture Readings
Psalm 5 and James 1:2-4
Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a protestant pastor and theologian who was born in Germany in 1906. He was a young man who from an early age was truly in love with Jesus – he even began his university studies in theology at 14!
He went on to earn a doctorate in Theology from the University of Berlin in 1927, at just 21 years old. Bonhoeffer wrote several books– the most famous of which is called The Cost of Discipleship, which you may have heard of, and which argues that we should avoid the gospel of cheap grace, instead using all of our actions and even our thoughts to be conformed to the hard work of being Christ-like in a world that is so very un Christ-like.
Bonhoeffer also started a residential seminary for young Chrsitian reformers who didn't want to take part in the German Christian movement that was orchestrated by the Nazis. He even came to study in the United States where he could have taken refuge and stayed as an asylum seeker as the war in Germany intensified. But he felt that his people needed him as a pastor, and so he returned.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer is remembered as a martyr, a Christian who stood up to the brutal Nazi regime and lost his life because of it. In April of 1943, Bonhoeffer was arrested for his work in a plot to kill Hitler, and to end the Nazi control of Europe. Two years later, just days before the Flossenburg concentration camp was liberated by the allies, Bonhoeffer was hanged.
Now you might ask, what does the martyrdom of Dietrich Bonhoeffer have to do with joy? Aren’t these antithetical?
If we understand joy as interchangeable with the feeling of happiness, then yes. His death and his last two years in a concentration camp were not happy times.
But Joy is more than happiness.
As our scripture readings this morning illuminate for us, joy is not so much a feeling that comes spontaneously from within, but is instead a habit of the heart that is intentionally cultivated. Joy can be cultivated no matter the circumstances, as Bonhoeffer and a great many of the suffering saints of the Church can attest.
Joy is challenging to define. This fruit of the Spirit is more nuanced than happiness, yet in English we often substitute one for the other. Joy is not mere optimism or feeling good, though both of those can be a quality of Joy. Joy has a quality of cheerfulness and optimism, but isn’t quite those things either.
Joy can connote inner peace or a reserve of goodness that’s not dependent on circumstance; while happiness IS dependent on circumstances. For example, you may feel happy when you get a job promotion, or visiting a friend after years apart, or maybe relaxing on summer vacation.
You may also experience Joy with those events, but your Joy isn’t dependent on those circumstances. You would experience Joy even without a visit from an old friend, or a day relaxing on the beach – though the beach trip certainly would help!
Where happiness comes from those external triggers, your Joy is a habit of your heart that would still be present even if your circumstances were different.
Our reading from the Letter of James highlights this:
My brothers and sisters, whenever you face various trials, consider it all joy, 3 because you know that the testing of your faith produces endurance. 4 And let endurance complete its work, so that you may be complete and whole, lacking in nothing.
We are to consider our trials all joy. That seems counter-intuitive in our happiness-driven culture. Our current society craves comfort and calls it happiness.
But joy is a habit we cultivate, one that is tied to gratitude. Where we practice gratitude and thankfulness, there we also cultivate the habit of joy. Bonhoeffer wrote in one of his letters from prison: “Gratitude changes the pangs of memory into a tranquil joy.”
Even in the midst of his imprisonment, even with the specter of his death looming before him, Bonhoeffer found Joy. He found it in gratitude and thankfulness. He found it in worship; his fellow inmates describe him reciting the Psalms and singing hymns every day.
His situation was terrible! Let us not romanticize it at all– concentration camps were awful, harsh environments. Yet, because of his faith, because of his heart-habits of gratitude, Bonhoeffer could also experience Joy in the midst of that suffering.
Listen to the wisdom of Psalm 5: 11-12:
But let all who take refuge in you rejoice;
let them ever sing for joy.
Spread your protection over them,
so that those who love your name may exult in you.
For you bless the righteous, O Lord;
you cover them with favor as with a shield.
The Psalmist laments the wickedness of his opponents, acknowledging that God, too, dislikes wickedness. But as far as we know, the lament is still real, still current. The Psalmist is in the midst of whatever distasteful words or actions the wicked are lobbing at him.
Yet, even though the circumstances are uncomfortable, even possibly dangerous, the Psalmist rejoices in God. He knows that all who take refuge in God will “ever sing of joy.”
We “rejoice” in God. Rejoicing is built on the attitude of the heart that finds goodness and inner peace no matter the trials and tribulations. It is rooted in gratitude for all God has done, is doing, and will do– no matter the present circumstances.
Bonhoeffer understood this, allowing his gratitude for all God has given him to sustain him even in the harshest circumstances. His Joy was in his gratitude for God, not in the changeable scenery of his circumstances.
Happiness is fleeting but the fruit of Joy can sustain us throughout the ups and downs of our lives.
Dear friends, I invite you to take time this week to sit with the fruit of Joy.
Where are you cultivating joy? Where are you nurturing gratitude for all that God has given you? Where might you feel blocks toward this gratitude and the Joy it bears?
What work might we as a church, a witness to the love and grace of God in the world, need to do to help our community embrace Joy as a habit of the heart, instead of chasing fleeting happiness?
I know I struggle with chasing happiness instead of doing the inner work to cultivate joy. But, Joy persists no matter the circumstances, for our Joy is not born of what things we have, but instead is rooted in the enduring love of God that we have in Jesus Christ.
May you nurture the heart habits of gratitude and Joy, for the glory of God, this day and every day. Amen.
Related Posts
