“I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete.”
The purpose of this life is joy. Jesus came that we might have joy. Part of our divine mission is to enjoy this life. Jesus’ teachings are meant to give us joy.
When people think of religion, joy probably isn’t the first thing that comes to mind. For many of us, religion is identified with oppressive rules and if you break them, then you are going to hell. When religion is based on fear and obsessed with rules and commandments, it can become like carrying thousands of bricks in a backpack.
This has been the state of the Christian religion in the United States since before the nation began. Puritanism infected the US with a joyless religion that was antithetical to the way of Christ. People are now leaving the church in droves because of it.
If religion were primarily about following oppressive rules and performing endless duties so we can be good people who don’t go to hell, I would leave, too. And I would take the risk of going to hell because it sounds like they have more fun there, anyway.
But the good news is that Christianity isn’t a religion that’s based on fear and rules and the avoidance of hell. Rather, the Christian faith is about enjoying this life now.
The Truth of Jesus is Found in Joy.
The truth of Jesus is found in joy. But the Christian faith doesn’t ignore the real problems of this world. And this is one of the many things that I love about Jesus. The passage where Jesus says that his teachings are meant for our joy to be complete is found in the midst of what New Testament scholars call Jesus’ “farewell discourse.”
Jesus was saying goodbye to his disciples. He knew he was about to be killed by the religious and political authorities. He knew his followers were about to abandon him. He knew that he was about to enter hell on earth as he went to the cross and to his death.
And in the midst of it, he says, “Hey, there’s joy. Right here. Right now.”
We know that life was not easy for Jesus. Far from it. We know that he suffered on the cross. We know that he prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane that he wouldn’t have to go through suffering and death. And we know that as we suffer today, we are not alone. Jesus suffers with us, too.
The Spirituality of Joy
The spirituality of joy, then, is different from happiness. Happiness is an emotion that is often fleeting and depends upon the circumstances in our lives. Happiness comes and it goes.
But joy is a disposition. It’s an attitude that can be cultivated and developed no matter our circumstances. Our joy can be complete even in the midst of suffering.
But how can we cultivate joy? There are many ways, but I’d like to quickly explore two ways with you today.
The first example comes from one of my favorite theologians, an African American man named Dr. Howard Thurman. Dr. Thurman’s greatest student was Martin Luther King, Jr. Thurman was a Christian theologian who was highly influenced by Buddhism. Dr. Thurman learned from Christianity and Buddhism that suffering is a part of life, but it doesn’t have to define our lives. We can find joy even in the midst of suffering.
Thurman claimed that what would make suffering intolerable was if we suffered alone. But we don’t suffer in isolation. Jesus suffers with us and we suffer together in community.
So the first way to cultivate joy is to be realistic about the suffering that will come our way. In my experience, and as Dr. Thurman said, one of the worst things about suffering is the thought that I’m all alone. Joy in the midst of suffering can be cultivated when we look up and see that there are compassionate people with us. That I’m not alone.
And I think Dr. Thurman was onto something important when he connected Buddhism and Christianity. Like Christianity, Buddhism teaches us about joy and suffering and desires and detachment.
Jesus was once confronted by a rich man who asked Jesus how he could inherit eternal life. This is fundamentally a question about joy. The reason that the rich man didn’t have joy in his life was that he defined himself by his wealth and possessions. He was attached to them in an unhealthy way. He believed in what we call today the “Prosperity Gospel.” He believed that he was a good person because he followed the law and so God blessed him with wealth and material possessions.
This line of thinking is dangerous because it brings the idea that rich people are blessed by God with material goods because they are good and poor people are cursed by God because they’ve been bad.
But Jesus challenges that kind of prosperity Gospel thinking. Instead of blaming the poor, he said that to have eternal life we must, in some way, help and love the poor. We must identify with the poor.
Jesus never says, “Blessed are the rich.” He does say, “Blessed are the poor.”
Jesus and Buddhism teach that if we want to find eternal life, if we want to find joy, then we must detach ourselves from defining ourselves by our material possessions and we must love our fellow human beings.
Like the rich young man who came to Jesus, our culture tells us that the way to joy is through having more possessions. And like the rich young man, deep down we know great wealth and possessions aren’t the way to true joy. Buying more stuff might give us a temporary thrill, but it doesn’t last. Having more attachments doesn’t lead to true joy. It just leads us to become more attached to stuff.
If attachments don’t cultivate true joy, then what does cultivate joy? Again, Jesus says that the point of his teachings is that our joy might be complete. And the passage ends with Jesus saying, “I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another.”
Jesus knew that he was about to suffer, and he still connected joy with love. The Buddha famously started his ministry by seeing a man suffering on the side of the road and the Buddha was moved with compassion for this other man.
According to these two great spiritual teachers, the way to cultivate joy isn’t through more wealth and possessions. Rather, it’s through relationships of compassion and love.
Interestingly, compassion literally means “to suffer with.” You cultivate joy through acts of love and compassion. We cultivate joy by realizing that at some point in our lives, we will all experience suffering. And even in the midst of suffering, as hard as it may be, we can find joy, for we are not alone.
