Rejoice Always

At one point the sermon on Sunday picked up the admonition from Paul to Rejoice Always, or as the NIV puts it, Always be Joyful!

Not surprisingly, I suppose, the song leader had picked up on this, and at several points in the music package instructed the congregation that we needed to make sure every face carried a big smile, or that we needed to clap joyously, or some such other happy-clappy requirement.

Oddly enough, none of those instructions helped improve my level of joyful feelings. Indeed, usually it has the opposite effect. If I'm already down, such comments just make me feel worse -- not only am I weighed down by whatever I already felt, but now I have to add the guilt of not being happy on top of it, and maybe even the weight of esteeming myself a hypocrite for managing to put the smile on anyway. And if I was feeling really good, I now feel quite a bit less wonderful for having had it imposed upon me -- and maybe even a bit ticked if I remember all the times it happened when I was depressed. I know I am not alone in this reaction.

Getting back to Paul, I notice that Paul gives his instruction in the plural rather than the singular. When Rejoice Always! is a singular imperative, it adds a heavy burden -- one cannot simply pick oneself up from the depths by an act of will and rejoice -- or at least I don't seem to be able to. But understood as a plural imperative, the whole picture changes. Now it is the group, the community, the body that is to Rejoice Always!. That means the one whose heart lies nearly dead on the floor does not have to raise his/her spirits alone. Instead the community comes along side and helps lift the person to rejoice. Maybe even by electing to weep with those who weep.

What a tremendous difference! Wouldn't that be Good News worth sharing with others? If only one was permitted to proclaim the evangel to those already within the household of faith.

But that's a different subject.