Many Kinds of Joy - Sermon Text

“Two Kinds of People – Many Kinds of Joy”
Psalm 30
“Joy comes in the morning.”
Rev. Jason W. Coulter

A sermon prepared for First Congregational Church of Evanston
June 12, 2022 – Celebration Sunday!
Intro: Psalm 30 is a psalm of praise and joy but it begins by referencing a dark
place - Sheol – a word that pops up here and there in the Psalms and is understood
by Hebrew scholars as a kind of hell - the abode of the dead. The Psalmist praises
God for deliverance from Sheol and celebrates the joy that comes with the
morning.
I will extol you, O LORD, for you have drawn me up,

and did not let my foes rejoice over me.
O LORD my God, I cried to you for help,
and you have healed me.
O LORD, you brought up my soul from Sheol,
restored me to life from among those gone down to the Pit.
Sing praises to the LORD, O you his faithful ones,

and give thanks to his holy name.
For his anger is but for a moment;
his favour is for a lifetime.
Weeping may linger for the night,
but joy comes with the morning.
As for me, I said in my prosperity,

‘I shall never be moved.’
By your favour, O LORD,
you had established me as a strong mountain;
you hid your face; I was dismayed.
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To you, O LORD, I cried,
and to the LORD I made supplication:
‘What profit is there in my death, if I go down to the Pit?
Will the dust praise you?
Will it tell of your faithfulness?
Hear, O LORD, and be gracious to me!
O LORD, be my helper!’
You have turned my mourning into dancing;

you have taken off my sackcloth
and clothed me with joy,
so that my soul may praise you and not be silent.
O LORD my God, I will give thanks to you for ever.
You have heard it said that there are two kinds of people in this world –
morning people (Top of the morning to ya’!) and the people who want to throttle
the morning people (Grrrrr!). It seems that this desire to slice the entire human
population into two categories is a round-the-clock inclination.
Apparently, there are two types of people when it comes to toilet paper –
those that place the roll unfolding from the top and those that place the roll
unfolding from the bottom. There are those who slice a sandwich on the diagonal
and those who slice down the middle. There are the people who eat a cob of corn
left to right like an old typewriter and those who roll the cob towards them. Abigail
Van Buren (the famous Dear Abby) said, “There are two kinds of people in the
world, those that walk into a room and exclaim, ‘There you are!’ and those that
enter and say, ‘Here I am!’” There are those who put mustard on their hot dogs and
the heathens who use ketchup. There are Coke Folks and Pepsi People. Sparkling
or still. There are those who insist on dividing the world up into these annoying
categories and those who say, “Give it a rest already with these damned binaries!”
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In our scripture for today, the Psalmist says that joy comes with the morning.
As a morning person I can affirm this truth. However, I have some very conclusive
data that this truth is not universal for all peoples. As the father of twins, I have
within my household a living, breathing, evolving social science experiment in the
form of Eleanor and Cecilia.
When I creep into their room in the morning, to wake them for school, I see
these differences on full display. To my gentle greeting of “Good morning girls, its
time to wake up!” I get two very distinct responses. Eleanor generally rolls out of
bed and is ready for the day – bring on the coffee and conversation. Cecilia is more
likely to let out a hearty groan and pull the covers over her head and plead, “Dad,
five more minutes!” She’s not a morning person. And that’s okay. Her joy is found
elsewhere.
Maybe she will be more like her sibling Charlie, who is definitely a night
owl. Long after Mary Kay and I are in bed for the night, we will hear Charlie
dancing about the kitchen, whipping up a late-night snack and simply enjoying the
solitude of a house all to themselves. His joy comes in the evening.
My message for today is really just that simple. Whoever you are, however
God made you, whatever your circadian rhythms may be, find your joy! Your joy
may come in the morning, noon or night. It may be found with mustard or ketchup
on your hot dog. Whatever it may be, find that which brings you joy and claim it as
your own, for God loves you and wants you to be happy.
As we all know, finding one’s joy has not been easy as of late. The
interminable late stage of the pandemic that we now find ourselves in, continues to
frustrate and disappoint. It seems whenever we meet a benchmark and start to
anticipate some future freedom, the virus rises up again and saps our celebrations.
Covid continues to produce anxiety, make us sick, and hamper our joy.
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The news from elsewhere in our nation is no better. We are still reeling from
the mass murders in Buffalo and Uvalde and the response from our elected leaders
is nothing less than an abomination. Our democracy is broken and the hearings
taking place in Washington D.C. about the attempted coup on January 6 highlight
the weak points of our system but offer no real solutions as long as the Republican
Party stays in lockstep with the instigator in chief. The war continues to drag on in
the Ukraine and a trip to the gas pump leaves one deflated, not full. It is hard to
find the joy.
Which is why, as I was approaching this Celebration Sunday, I found myself
paging through the Book of Psalms seeking some solace and a slice of light and
hope. Psalm 30 did not disappoint.
The thirtieth psalm is subtitled in my NRSV bible, “Thanksgiving for
Recovery from a Grave Illness” and the writer references the hard times they
suffered. In verse two the writer exclaims, “O Lord, my God, I cried to you for
help and you have healed me. O Lord, you brought my soul up from Sheol and
restored me to life from among those gone down to the pit.” We who have spent
time in the pit and have whistled past the graveyard of Sheol can certainly relate to
the sense of gladness that comes from escaping this kind of peril.
The Psalmist directs the listener to praise our Creator, reminding us all, that
God’s anger is but for a moment, but God’s blessing are for a lifetime. And then
with a word of poetry that lights up the heart of this morning person (and I hope all
of you – even the night owls!) the Psalmist sings, “Weeping may linger for the
night, but joy comes in the morning.” The dawn of every day is a gift. It is God’s
promise to you and to me. And God’s promises are sure and true.
So on this Celebration Sunday, as our congregation seeks out the joy that
comes to us this morning, I invite all of you to find your joy and jump on it! If your
joy is cooking and you love assembling dishes with 26 different ingredients, well
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get with it and shake those pots and pans! If you love getting lost in someone else’s
story, crack open a good novel, find a comfy spot on the couch and be transported
to another place for an hour or two. Some of you might find your joy at the
intersection of Clark and Addison. Grab a seat in the sun, get a beer and a dog
(with ketchup?) and enjoy the game. Or your idea of joy may be to just get away
from all of these people and be out in nature on your own. Hit a trail in the Forrest
Preserve and take the road less traveled and you might just find your happy place.
My beloved, life is too hard, and life is too short, for us to wait on our joy.
So go get it. Claim your joy as your own and celebrate it as a gift from God. I close
this morning with something that brings me joy – poetry. Here’s a gem on the
subject of joy and it comes from the prophetess and poet Mary Oliver. It’s entitled
– “Don’t Hesitate”
Don’t Hesitate by Mary Oliver
If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy,

don’t hesitate. Give in to it. There are plenty
of lives and whole towns destroyed or about
to be. We are not wise, and not very often
kind. And much can never be redeemed.
Still, life has some possibility left. Perhaps this

is its way of fighting back, that sometimes
something happens better than all the riches
or power in the world. It could be anything,
but very likely you notice it in the instant
when love begins. Anyway, that’s often the
case. Anyway, whatever it is, don’t be afraid
of its plenty. Joy is not made to be a crumb.
Mary Oliver is right. Joy is no scrap or crumb. It is the abundant feast of God. Let
us all, morning person and the night owl, celebrate the feast of joy today. Amen.
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“Two Kinds of People – Many Kinds of Joy”

Rev. Jason W. Coulter

I will extol you, O LORD, for you have drawn me up,

Sing praises to the LORD, O you his faithful ones,

As for me, I said in my prosperity,

You have turned my mourning into dancing;

Don’t Hesitate by Mary Oliver

If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy,

Still, life has some possibility left. Perhaps this

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