Sermons

“The Joy of Empty”

Luke 1:39-56; Isaiah 61:1-4, 10-11 – Rev. Rebecca Littlejohn

Vista La Mesa Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), La Mesa, California – December 14, 2014

Holy God, bless the speaking and the hearing of these words that we truly discover the liberating joy of living out your gospel. We pray it in the name of the One coming into the world, Amen.

It was so wonderful to have Mary visit with us today. She seemed so excited. And those verses we call “the Magnificat” are quite powerful. She certainly seemed to think it is a song of joy. But did you listen to the words? There’s some stuff in there that may not, on the surface, really seem all that joyful, depending on your perspective. The lowly get lifted up, and the hungry get filled. That’s awesome. But the rich and the powerful had slightly more ambiguous fates. The powerful are brought down from their thrones, and the rich are sent away empty. You have to wonder if Mary had any idea what that was going to look like. Was she so excited because she was relishing the karmic turn-about? Had she had just about enough of the rich and powerful, such that she was more than ready for them to get their comeuppance? That is entirely possible. Then again, maybe she had a more subtle understanding of how Jesus would turn the world upside down.

We don’t think of “empty” as a good thing. Usually when we talk about something being empty, it means we think it ought to be filled as soon as possible. Empty is lonely. Empty is lacking. Empty is a let-down. Then again, maybe we’re not truly looking at “empty” with gospel eyes. After all, have you ever tested the acoustics in a room with nothing else in it? Empty may surprise us.

One thing that is interesting about this particular part of Mary’s song is that we can look at later stories of Jesus and see how it came true. There are two instances I’d like to lift up today. It seems that, as in most things having to do with Jesus, it’s not as simple as other people would make it seem. It’s not exactly that Jesus pulls powerful people down from their thrones and robs them and sends them away with nothing. No, being who he is, Jesus offers a choice. And as it turns out, one option led to grieving and one option led to joy.

The first story we’ll want to look at is the rich man from Mark 10. He asked Jesus what he must do to inherit eternal life. He had followed all the commandments since he was very young. But when he pressed Jesus for more, the answer was “Go, sell what you own and give the money to the poor.” He was given a choice. Jesus didn’t take all his stuff. He was given the option of emptying himself out, but we will never know what that might have led to, because, as Mark tells us, “he was shocked and went away grieving, for he had many possessions.”

Contrast this with the story of Zacchaeus from Luke 19. He was up in that tree, trying to stealthily catch a glimpse of Jesus walking by, when instead, Jesus walks right up to him and invites himself over to his house. And here Zacchaeus doesn’t wait to be presented with options; he joyfully makes the choice on his own. “I will give half my possessions to the poor, and pay back four times anyone I have cheated.” You can hear the excitement in his voice in that story, can’t you? His whole life has suddenly, as Mary predicted, been turned upside down, emptied out, if you will, and he’s happy about it. That is the joy of empty. This other choice has much different consequences.

The truth is that many of us need a good emptying out. There is too much in our lives – too much stuff, too much activity, too much hassle, too much noise. And yet, rather than working at clearing the clutter, we’re much more liking to be spending out time accumulating more. An outside observer might even think we have a deep-seated fear of empty. Now, obviously, being destitute isn’t pleasant, or even necessarily spiritually fulfilling. But I don’t think that’s the kind of emptiness Mary was alluding to in the Magnificat. It’s not the poor and lowly’s emptiness she’s exalting. It’s the emptiness of the rich. And as we saw in the experience of Zacchaeus, the emptiness of the rich can be a source of joy. Sometimes, being empty means having more room. Sometimes being empty means traveling more lightly, taking life less seriously, or most especially, having the opportunity to touch others’ lives with God’s abundance. The joy of Zacchaeus is the joy of generosity, like we heard about in the story Larry read earlier.

The joy the rich are offered in the Magnificat is a choice. We can choose to walk away heavy with our stuff and our sadness. Or we can choose to empty ourselves out in generous abundance, sharing with those who need to be filled with good things. We can choose to be part of this world-changing thing Jesus is doing and tap into the joy of empty, or we can choose to hold onto our stuff. Isaiah puts it another way. He invites us to seek out those who mourn, to bring them comfort. Listen to the beautiful images of reversal he describes, the things he wants us to give: “a garland instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the mantle of praise instead of a faint spirit.” Can you imagine what it would feel like to bring that sort of relief to someone who was suffering? Can you imagine the joy your emptied-out heart would be brimming with? There is a reason Dear Abby tells people who are unhappy to go find a way to volunteer helping other people. Empty really is a path to joy, if only we can make that choice.

Imagine with me, for a moment if you will, another biblical character. This is not one who is actually in there, but one we can infer from the rest of the story. Let’s think about the innkeeper’s wife. Artists and writers have created all sorts of back stories to that one little sentence fragment from Luke 2, verse 7, where it says “and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.” If they can do it, so can we. Let’s imagine her this way: she’s already plenty busy, because clearly the inn is full of guests. And yet, here is this couple, about to have a baby. And the only space left is in the barn. She must have been mortified that her husband couldn’t come up with anything more suitable. So can you imagine the scurrying around she must have done? Emptying out every cupboard of blankets and cloaks, finding every extra soft thing in the house, possibly even taking furniture from some of the other guests’ rooms to turn a stable into a nursery… And if we can imagine her this way, let’s imagine her like Zacchaeus, that is, let’s assume she’s doing all that, not with a grudging spirit of being put-upon, but with generous joy and excitement. A baby is coming, after all! What could be more exciting? The innkeeper’s wife is engaged in the joy of emptying, digging out everything she can find to share with this brand new arrival. And I choose to believe that she was singing songs of joy while she did it, because that’s how making the choice to empty ourselves out affects us.

If we can be brave and make the choice to empty ourselves out, we may discover that the only thing that’s really empty is the cage we used to be trapped in. We can leave it behind and enter into a new kind of freedom and joy. This song Mary is singing is good news for everyone, if we can make the choice to become part of it. It’s not Jesus’ way to do it to us, but he does offer the invitation. Come along on a new kind of journey. Come to a table where the feast is simply bread and juice. Embrace the joy of empty and find yourself filled with good things.

During this season of celebration, there are many opportunities here at VLM and beyond to empty ourselves out; there are many activities that will wear us out. But the joy of that exhausted heart, that has been poured out in serving others, is deeper than any fleeting happiness we can find at the mall. I give thanks for this community where we come together to empty ourselves for Jesus’ sake so that others may be filled with good things. May it always be so. Alleluia and Amen.