Psalm 30: 1-12 (links validated 5/29/24a)

The German professor I had for my very first college class back in 1982 was a man named Wally Bratt. Not only did Professor Bratt become a favorite professor and then a vital advisor and mentor to me, he slowly on became a close friend, then a confidant and colleague, and later for twelve years I became his pastor. Wally died on Easter in 2021 and among the reflections I put together for an initial memorial service and then later the full funeral was the fact that every time I came to Wally over the years in moments of distress as a college student, a seminarian, a friend, and later as his pastor, the last words Wally invariably spoke at the conclusion of our longer conversations were “Joy cometh in the morning, Mensch.” Wally was a saint (though I can feel his cringing at that even as I write it) and as such, he reflected the posture of all the saints. Specifically an unshakeable core belief that although we can never deny that difficult moments and seasons come to even the most faithful of Christ’s disciples, God is still out ahead of us leading to a better new morning of a new day dawning. And when Christ’s kingdom fully comes and the New Creation is upon us, it may indeed be so that looking back, all the weeping we did may look but a fleeting moment, the passing of a short night, compared to the joy and the rejoicing we will forever have with our loving God.

Many of us know the famous line from Julian of Norwich that “All shall be well and all shall be well and all manner of things shall be well.” What may be less known is that these were the words of Jesus spoken to Julian as part of a series of visions she received when, by all appearances, she was about to die of a grave illness that befell her at a fairly young age. Most everyone around her were convinced Julian would die but she did not but instead, following her series of heavenly visions of Jesus in all his glory, she recovered and lived another thirty-three years in fact. If ever we were tempted to treat her famous saying as a too-tidy gloss on the reality of suffering in this world, the actual context in which she heard these words clears that up for us pretty quickly.

In the 10th episode of season 5 of the much-and-rightly-acclaimed television series Queen Sugar, Nova, a Black writer and journalist, researches a police-involved brutality that affected 19-year-old Andre, a Black boy. Little does Nova realize that it is her boyfriend, Calvin, a rookie police officer at the time of the brutality, who out of fear of having a fall out with his fellow white police officers, decides to join in on the brutal beating and strikes Andre with such force that it permanently paralyzes Andre. Many years pass by, Calvin is no longer with the force, and he is even portrayed as a better man whose past is behind him. But Andre’s pain and suffering are real and ongoing. When Nova interviews Andre, he shares that it is Calvin who literally broke his back. Nova is heart-broken and comes home to confront Calvin. Nova and Calvin are sitting on either side of the table. The audience can hear the needle of the clock ticking and the sound of papers shuffling as Nova looks for a picture of Andre to show Calvin to confront him. Nova reaches for the picture of Andre and pushes it to Calvin’s side. Calvin’s eyes look away from Nova’s face and point downwards to look at Andre’s picture. The moment Calvin’s eyes make contact with Andre’s image, the background sounds die, and the sound of the ticking clock stops. There is dead silence. Time itself stops moving. It is a powerful scene. The audience is left with nothing but a heavy and lingering grief...

In December 1988, the world almost lost Dave Brubeck. Yes, that Dave Brubeck, the world-famous jazz musician. He was having a series of heart episodes and under the care of a cardiologist named Lawrence Cohen. Dave kept putting off bypass surgery because of his concert schedule, but the delay was not doing him any favors. Finally, Dr. Cohen ordered him to a hospital in Connecticut. The night before the surgery, Dr. Cohen stopped in to see his world-famous patient. It was 10:30 at night, and the cardiologist walked in to discover Brubeck with music manuscript paper scattered all over his bed. He was writing a piece of music because he couldn't sleep. Dr. Cohen said, "What are you doing? It's the night before your surgery!" Dave looked up and said, "I'm writing out one of your psalms. What can you do, Lord? Can the dust praise Thee if you put me down in the pit? And joy will come in the morning.'" Psalm 30. The next day, the surgery went well, and months later, Dave took Dr. Cohen to the premiere of the piece. It was a large-scale composition for choir and orchestra called, "Joy Comes in the Morning." Brubeck dedicated the piece to his cardiologist. And at one point in the performance, Brubeck began to smirk. Suddenly Dr. Cohen realized why - Dave had created a bass line for the piece from a transcription of his own irregular heartbeat. Right in the middle of the performance, both of them laughed out loud...

As I have noted before in other sermon commentary articles here on the CEP website, there is a poignant moment in the play and film Shadowlands, the story of C.S. Lewis’s late-in-life romance and marriage with the American Joy Davidman. Joy is the love of Lewis’s life but she also has a cancer that they both know will take her life sooner rather than later. Lewis had a hard time grappling with the cancer and was often minded to downplay it or try to ignore it. But at one point Joy tells her husband that the sorrow that will come later was part of the joy they had in being together for now. “That’s the deal” Joy says. Joy and sorrow have this quirky connection in which paradoxically the presence of the sorrow enhances the joy. And that is something the psalmist of Psalm 30 seems to have known about.

It is, of course, not exactly a full-throated proclamation of Gospel hope but in his own oblique way Tolkien helps us to see what hope beyond death may look like in this scene from the Peter Jackson version of Tolkien’s “Lord of the Rings” as Pippin contemplates what looks to be his impending death only to have the wizard Gandalf point him toward a better hope.

In preparation for this sermon, I turned to that great source of Biblical interpretation and Christian commentary – ESPN films. I hesitate to use a sports reference more than once in a sermon, but I’m making an exception today. There is an ESPN series called “Basketball: A Love Story.” What a beautiful title, right? Well, it has a lot of has to do with the history of basketball. It’s filled with stories of friendship and sacrifice and a lot of cultural commentary, not simply sports per se. One segment got my attention. It looked into what basketball coaches felt when their team won a championship. Was it joy, or was it more like relief? It was surprising how many said “relief.”...

Henri Nouwen learned much about suffering and joy during his ministry with the Daybreak community. He offers this word of insight that draws from this Psalm: Mourning makes us poor; it powerfully reminds us of our smallness. But it is precisely here, in that pain or poverty or awkwardness, that the Dancer invites us to rise up and take the first steps. For in our suffering, not apart from it, Jesus enters our sadness, takes us by the hand, pulls us gently up to stand, and invites us to dance. We find the way to pray, as the psalmist did, “You have turned my mourning into dancing” (Ps. 30:11), because at the center of our grief we find the grace of God.

Just when we thought Rocky Balboa had shuffled off this mortal coil, he’s back in a new movie called, “Creed.” In my less than sanctified state, I loved those bloody tributes to the underdog who rose up from apparent defeat to vanquish the invincible foe. It was thrilling to see Rocky dancing in victory on the stairway. There is something to admire in those who will not quit.

("Alfred Adler was a psychotherapist who lived in the early part of the 20th century. He was known for his social gatherings. One time he had a large number of guests who had been invited to a dinner party in a famous New York hotel. During the meal he noticed a blind lady entering the dining hall. He immediately got up and pushed aside several chairs to make room for her..." and other illustrations)

("Before she married, my mother was an accomplished dancer. During the late forties, when I was about three years old, she began to teach dancing and baton twirling. She traveled throughout rural north Georgia, holding classes in the public schools as an itinerant dancing teacher...")

Bob is the principal of a high school in Southern California for students who have problems in the traditional high school setting. He writes: "This year we moved into a new site. I was allowed to design the configuration of the buildings and designed the school with only one entrance and exit. Every morning I stand at the gate where students enter and greet them by name. No one is allowed past me if they are not students. "By greeting each student in the morning I am able to spot potential problems before the student has a chance to get on campus and cause problems. My inspiration for this campus design and my decision to be at the gate when my students arrive and leave is our Gospel passage for this week.

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