Sometimes, our best laid plans are wilted by the

realities of a broken world. Sometimes, words that

seemed suitable turn to ash before they are ever

spoken. Owing at least partially to my passionate

proclivity for advance preparation, my practice is to

plan service themes each summer for the full program

year, September to May. And so, way back in July,

putting together a series of sermons on the demands

that faith makes of us, October the 15th was deemed

the day to extol the virtue of joy.

And now, that day has come, and that very virtue

feels improper, unseemly, even tasteless. For a full

week now, we have absorbed the agonizing images,

videos, firsthand accounts, and news reports of

terror, of senseless violence, and the commencement

of war in Israel. The toll of the suffering is only

beginning to come into focus. There will surely be

more to come. The coordinated cruelty of the terrorist

attack will reverberate in ways that bring incalculable

pain to Palestinians and Israelis alike. The world

watches in heartbreak, horror, and helplessness.

And so, clearly, I missed the mark on those sunny

summer days of planning.

Who commends joy when misery is raw and grief

is overwhelming?

Who preaches that sermon today?

Maybe the Apostle Paul does. Paul, an evangelist

and itinerant church planter, did not have the luxury

of planning sermon series, much less an entire

year’s worth. Paul wrote urgent letters, appeals

addressed to communities of faith facing the full

range of human emotion and experience. Scholars

agree that First Thessalonians is the first of Paul’s

many letters. In the opening chapters, the apostle

describes some of what he has already endured

in his mission of sharing the Gospel in the Roman

world, writing how he has “suffered and been

shamefully mistreated in his travels and for his

preaching.” Then, Paul turns to the circumstances

of his readers. They are in the grip of grief. We don’t

know all the details, but some shared communal

experience of pain and loss has overwhelmed the

nascent faith of the Thessalonian Christians.

Given all of this—Paul’s suffering and the

community’s grief—we may be surprised that

Paul gives the instructions we just heard. “Rejoice

always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all

circumstances.” In all circumstances? Does Paul

really know what he is asking of us?

We may want to explain his folly. Afterall, Paul is still

an amateur apostle. He’s new at all this. Perhaps

over time he will grow out of such unreasonable

demands. Not so. If you keep turning in your Bible,

you will come to the Letter to the Philippians, likely

Paul’s final correspondence. He writes the letter from

prison in Rome where he is awaiting a sentence

that is likely to demand his own life. In those

circumstances, the seasoned, experienced apostle

writes, “Rejoice always; again, I will say rejoice.”

What is it that leads Paul to commend joy no

matter what else may come? Here’s what I think.

It is not naivete. It is wisdom. It is not starry-eyed,

pie-in-the-sky, flippant positivity. The joy which

Paul commands is fed by a deep well of trust in

the goodness of God. Like his ancestor David,

Paul has found the presence of God in the least

likely of places. And so, despite everything, Paul

rejoices as David danced.

Admittedly, it is a radically irrational choice.

Sometimes, joy is the unexpected guest at what

feels like the wrong moment. Sometimes, joy

feels inappropriate, out of place. Sometimes, joy

interrupts our grim solemnity. And sometimes, joy

is the only sustaining response to a world beset by

tragedy and lives upended by grief.

This week, our family traveled to Colorado for fall

break. The beauty of those Rocky Mountains and the

gift of unhurried time together felt incongruous with

the news I read whenever I picked up my phone. All

week long, I struggled with the blatant contradiction

even as I soaked up the grace of those days together.

On Friday evening, we visited the Estes Park Memorial

Observatory for an extraordinary experience of

stargazing. With twelve other visitors from all around

the country, we sat on metal folding chairs as Mike

Connolly introduced himself and the stars and planets

we would be viewing. But before we climbed the

stairs, Mike told a story.

On July 2, 2005, two of his three children were

tragically killed in an accident. As they waded through

the fog of grief, Mike and his wife Carole made the

choice to do something to honor the memory of their

children and perhaps give them a purpose. Mike is an

aerospace engineer, and as he grieved the loss of his

children, he also remembered how many nights he

stayed up too late with his children viewing stars and

planets through the telescope. And so, they formed

a foundation, built the observatory, and immediately

gave it away to the community. Now, Mike spends his

days teaching students in the elementary, middle, and

high schools in town to identify stars and marvel at

the night sky. And a couple nights a week, he invites

visitors—no charge—to come and do the same. He

explained to us how this simple act of giving back

brought him a sense of peace and, in time, even

joy. That joy was obvious as we sat huddled under

blankets with a group of strangers witnessing the

wonder of the heavens and the beauty of one man’s

grief transformed.

We can choose joy even in the most daunting of

circumstances. But we cannot do it alone.

Lost in the English translation of Paul’s original Greek

is the important detail that every imperative in this

morning’s passage is plural. In fact, this section of

the letter begins with instructions that enable us to

embrace joy preemptively. “Encourage one another,”

the apostle writes. “Build up each other.” Friends, joy

is never a solo endeavor. You simply cannot produce

joy all by yourself.

The practice began early this summer. Our son

Ben was feeling left out as a group of older boys

rode bikes without training wheels around the

neighborhood, and Ben asked if we could talk.

At the edge of our yard, there is an old wicker

bench, and there we sat down. For months now,

Ben and I have made our way to that bench. We

call it our talking bench. That first day, together

we created an imaginary neighborhood. It looks a

lot like our neighborhood, but there are dramatic

improvements. For starters, we imagined that

there was a series of tunnels from one house to

the next so that children could go from basement

to basement to play with their friends without

disturbing their parents. We thought about zip-lines

and slides. We added a full-sized swimming pool in

the cul-de-sac and a basketball court on the lawn.

Every kid gets a go-kart to ride.

And then, Ben had a timely idea. “Hey, Dad. What if

every person in our neighborhood had a button they

could push whenever they wanted someone to play

with them? I would call it a lonely alarm. If you’re

feeling lonely, you just push the alarm, and someone

will come and be with you. That way, no one will be

sad or left out.”

Don’t you think there would be high demand for one

of Ben’s lonely alarms? Paul tells the Thessalonian

Christians, “If you want to experience joy in a time

of grief, you have to build each other up; you must

encourage one another. Joy shared is joy multiplied.”

And so, I think of Paul, urging members of the early

church—whose hearts were hurting—to rejoice

anyway, to trust a deeper power at work in this world

of pain. I think of an aerospace engineer in Colorado,

who still feels every single day the sting of loss and

the absence of his precious children, who gathers

communities of amateur stargazers and creates

space for wonder. And yes, I think of this moment in

our world, which demands so much of us, can leave

us feeling weary and frayed. This moment when

we might find deeper reservoirs of compassion for

each other, a greater capacity to savor the joy we are

given. This moment when we might choose to offer

one small gesture of kindness, one simple act of care

for another.

Friends, there is a choice. We can keep pushing

joy out into an unknown future, or we can seek the

goodness of God in this moment we’ve been given.

There is a choice. We can try to go it alone, all by

ourselves, or we can welcome the gift of community

that creates the capacity for deeper fulfillment. There

is a choice.

Here’s what we know intuitively or learn as we

travel the road of life. If we delay joy, if we put it off

until everything is perfect, if we insist on the right

circumstances or the right crowd, the joy we seek will

simply never come. And in time, we will look back on

a life of missed opportunities and declined invitations,

a life spent wishing we had one more chance.

Joy comes despite everything else.

Faith asks us to welcome this gift of grace. Amen.