Finding Joy in Community
Isaiah 35:1-10; Matthew 11:1-15[1]
As we make our journey through Advent with Henri Nouwen
this year, you would think that joy would be the easiest of the four themes to
talk about. With the festivities, decorations, music, and parties, we “should”
have a lot to be joyful about. But the truth is that for many of us, this is
not the “most wonderful time of the year.” Some of us see all the celebrating,
all the family gatherings, all the “fun” that everyone else seems to be having,
and we feel like we’re on the outside looking in. It can seem like there’s a
chain-link fence separating us from everybody who’s having so much fun, and we
just can’t find our way in. In fact, for some of us, while we may feel that way
most intensely at this time of year, that’s how it seems all year around. We’re
aware that there’s joy “out there somewhere,” but we just can’t seem to find
it.
I would say that can actually be a failure of community.
Yes, it might be the result of that person’s choices. But all too often, in
these days, it’s a failure to live together in community in all its different
expressions. Families, churches, even towns and cities can be badly divided by everything
that’s going on in our world these days. And when we turn on one another,
instead of encouraging, affirming, and supporting one another, we can cause
great pain. We see it in families that go their separate ways. But what we may
not see is that any time we fail to embrace someone enough that they no longer
feel like they’re on the outside of that fence looking in, our community has
failed. Any time we intentionally shun someone because they’re just “too
different” from us, our community has failed. And when that happens, community can
become a source of pain instead of a source of joy.
As we look to Henri Nouwen for inspiration this Advent, he
says it this way: “In my own community, with many severely handicapped men and
women, the greatest source of suffering is not the handicap itself, but the
accompanying feelings of being useless, worthless, unappreciated, and
unloved. It is much easier to accept the inability to speak, walk, or feed
oneself than it is to accept the inability to be of special value to another
person. … Instinctively we know that the joy of life comes from the ways in
which we live together and that the pain of life comes from the many ways we
fail to do that well.”[2] Joy comes
from living together in a community where we feel like we belong and we are
loved. All too often, the pain in our lives comes from our failure to live
together well in community.
As I’ve mentioned before, Henri Nouwen served as the
chaplain in a community where cognitively disabled persons and their caregivers
lived together. As a Catholic priest, he celebrated the Lord’s Supper every
day. As a member of the community he served, he welcomed everyone to take part,
regardless of whether they were “worthy.” I would imagine he knew quite well
many people who struggled with feeling “useless, worthless, unappreciated, and
unloved.” Given my personal experience with communities of mentally handicapped
persons, they seem to have an intuitive grasp on the fact that “the joy of life
comes from the ways in which we live together and that the pain of life comes
from the many ways we fail to do that well.” In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised
if they taught Henri that truth.
Those of us who are more “normal” may try to find our joy
in other places. We find our “joy” in the level of success we have achieved.
And we may try to demonstrate it by the kinds of homes we buy, the kinds of
cars we drive, and the kinds of clothes we wear. Or we find our joy in the
knowledge that we’re comfortable financially, or in the “busyness” of our
social calendar. We may feel like we’ve really “made” it when we get our
picture in the paper on the society page. Those kinds of external sources for
joy, however, are notoriously unreliable. We never really know what the stock
market is going to do. There’ve been times when people have lost a great deal
of money in one single day of trading. The market is vulnerable to all kinds of
changes, and given the general instability of the world these days, we have to
reckon with the possibility that something like that can happen again. Our most
prized possessions can literally go up in smoke or in a storm in a matter of
minutes. When we make our joy in life dependent on our circumstances we’re
skating on thin ice!
In a sense, our Gospel lesson for today addresses this
question. John, who identified Jesus as the Messiah when he baptized him, had
begun to question his faith. He was in prison, and Jesus wasn’t acting like he
expected the Messiah to act. So he sent his disciples to ask, “Are you the one
who is supposed to come? Or should we look for someone else?” (Mt 11:3, NIrV).
Jesus answered: “Go back to John. Report to him what you hear and
see. Blind people receive sight. Disabled people walk. Those who have skin
diseases are made ‘clean.’ Deaf people hear. Those who are dead are raised to
life. And the good news is preached to those who are poor” (Mt 11:4-5, NIrV). I
would say that’s the closest thing we have in Matthew’s Gospel to Jesus
claiming that he was indeed the Messiah.
The way he makes that claim is with a summary of the
promises of salvation found especially in the book of the prophet Isaiah. We
heard some of those promises in our lesson for today: “Then the eyes of the
blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall be opened; then the lame
shall leap like a deer, and the tongue of the speechless sing for joy” (Isa
35:5-6). And Isaiah says that all those who have been “ransomed” by the Lord,
which is a way of talking about salvation, will have “everlasting joy” (Isa
35:10). John was in prison. He wondered if he had picked the wrong “horse.” Jesus
called John to rejoice because he was indeed fulfilling the promises of God’s
salvation.
One of the things that drew me to ask Henri Nouwen to guide
us through the season of Advent this year is his deep and firm commitment to
the importance of community in all our lives. He saw it firsthand. I think one
of the most significant obstacles to finding joy together in community is when
we may harbor grudges or bitterness against one another. We all do it. Someone
lets us down, someone hurts our feelings, someone fails to live up to our
expectations, and we hold a grudge, sometimes for years. But there’s an old
saying about that. Holding a bitterness against someone is like drinking poison
ourselves and expecting it to hurt someone else. We’re only hurting ourselves.
The way to find joy in the community of people who follow Jesus is through forgiveness.
Jesus said it: “forgive as you have been forgiven.” We pray it every Sunday, “forgive
us our debts as we forgive our debtors.” The way to find joy in a real-life community
of people who let us down, who hurt our feelings, who fall short of our
expectations is through forgiveness. It gives us joy, and it gives them joy.
Most of us have our own reasons for celebrating at this
time of the year, whether it’s gathering with family, or the food we enjoy, or
the music, or the decorations. But the reason for the joy of the season is
because in Jesus Christ God has come to be “with us” in a way that bears our
griefs and carries our sorrows, as the prophet Isaiah also says. That’s how we
can find our joy together in this community, regardless of our circumstances. We
start with the joy we have because God has given us himself in the person of
Jesus. But as Henri Nouwen reminds us, we find that joy most fully when we find
it together in this community. In this community where we can let one
another down, where we can hurt one another’s feelings, where we can fall short
of one another’s expectations. In this community we can hold grudges or feel
bitter toward one another. In this community where we learn to practice
forgiveness.
And it’s here. There’s joy here if we have eyes to see it
and ears to hear it. Those of us who can be here on Wednesday evenings
experience it every week. Whether it’s around the tables or in a boisterous
classroom, whether it’s in the kitchen or in the music room (and we have fun in
the music room, make no mistake!). It’s here. We have joy together in this
community. We all experience it every Sunday when we gather together.
Especially during our greeting time. It’s one of the things I enjoy most about
our worship service. If that’s true for you as well, I’m fine with that. The
reason is because while Bible teaching is one of the important foundations for
Christian community, so is fellowship. It’s through fellowship that we find joy
together as a community. We find it around tables enjoying a meal together, or
right here in worship, sharing life with one another week after week. There’s
joy here. Sometimes we just have to get past the things that are blocking our
ability to see that joy, and allow ourselves to experience it.
[1] © Alan Brehm 2025. A sermon delivered by Rev. Alan Brehm PhD on 12/14/2025 for
Hickman Presbyterian Church, Hickman, NE.
[2] Henri Nouwen, Life of the Beloved: Spiritual Living in a Secular World, 72-73.
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