Stewarding Joy
Philippians 4:4-7
May 17, 2026
Emmanuel Baptist Church, Rev. Kathy Donley
Image: Photo by Robert Collins on Unsplash
Hundreds of years from now, if there are still such things as archaeologists, maybe they will study America in our era. If they do, they will have all kinds of material to examine –videos of demonstrations, political debates and church services, records of court decisions and executive orders and actions of law enforcement, not to mention so many internet memes, emails and texts about what we’re living through.
All that is known about the church at Philippi comes from this letter and the book of Acts, which is precious little. But from them, we might extrapolate. We can imagine a group text from Lydia, a textile artist. She sends a reminder about a meeting by the river for prayer at sunset this evening. What she doesn’t have to say, because everyone knows, is that they’re meeting beyond the city gates because foreign or non-Roman gods are not allowed inside the city. [1]
Or we might imagine a video clip of an ugly crowd at a town hall meeting, which would have likely been outdoors and open to the public. Concerns about a higher cost of living and struggling businesses are easily manipulated into blaming one of the city’s minority groups, immigrants, who aren’t patriotic enough and don’t do things the right way. Perhaps powerful people make speeches in which they say that “those people” want to corrupt our youth by teaching them about their worth to God, contrary to our theology. That will break down moral order and result in anarchy. Which leads to people shunning the Christians, refusing to hire them as day laborers, and boycotting the few Christian-owned stalls at the market.
We can imagine the economic and social struggles that these Christians feel all the time. They remember that when Paul visited the city, some influential businessmen had filed charges for disturbing the peace. So, Paul and his companions had been beaten and thrown in jail in violation of Rome’s own guarantees of due process to citizens. If it happened to Paul, it could happen to them. Every day brings new atrocities. They wonder how to raise their children in such a time. They wonder when or how it will end.
We can imagine that the constant pressure on them from outside the church leads to tension and conflict on the inside. Two strong leaders, Euodia and Syntyche, are entrenched in conflict. We have no idea what it was about, but it appears intense and protracted.[2] We can expect that people are taking sides and this factionalism is threatening the survival of the Philippian church.
As far as we can tell, this is the setting in which Paul writes the letter to the church at Philippi. Perhaps you heard a few echoes of our own circumstances in that description. Oh, I forgot to mention that Paul himself is writing from prison. I hope that you have heard enough to understand that not much is easy or carefree in this situation. There is mostly struggle and injustice and pain and uncertainty. And yet. . . this letter overflows with joy. In 4 short chapters, Paul refers to joy or rejoicing at least 16 times.
I think it is important to remember that context, because otherwise we might easily dismiss Paul as naïve or sheltered. But he knew real hardship and still, he declared “Rejoice in the Lord always.”
Paul is not happy about being in prison. He is not telling the Philippians to be happy that their neighbors are ostracizing them. He is not overlooking the fact that they can’t get work or sell their wares which makes it really hard to pay their bills. But he does say “Rejoice in the Lord.”
“In the Lord” – Paul emphasizes this because in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, the world has been irrevocably changed. The early Christians believed that resurrection had re-opened Paradise on earth, returning the world to the beauty in which it was first created. Paradise was to be found on this earth, permeated and blessed by the Spirit of God. That is the deep source of Paul’s joy.
Theologian Henri Nouwen wrote “Joy is the experience of knowing that you are unconditionally loved and that nothing - sickness, failure, emotional distress, oppression, war, or even death can take that love away.” [3]
The Rev. Dr. Kelly Brown Douglas was a keynote speaker and preacher at the Alliance of Baptists gathering last month. It was such privilege to hear her. She spoke of our nation in this time of crisis. She said “We are undeniably a nation, a people, as disoriented, doubtful, and despairing as we have been in a long time.” She said that the deliberate scapegoating and intentional lies we see in the public square every day are disorienting. The disorientation is intentional because it leads to despair which may be more powerful than fear.[4]
Despair may be more powerful than fear. I think she is naming something significant. And if despair is being cultivated, then perhaps our most powerful response is joy.
Kelly Brown Douglas spoke about her grandmother, a poor black woman who was born in slavery. They called her Mama Mary. She migrated from the south to Columbus, Ohio during the great migration. She migrated with little more than a sixth-grade education, working as an elevator operator. She held a dream, a dream that her four grandchildren would one day finish high school. It was a dream she herself was denied in a time when opportunities such as that were not available to black children. So with faith, she set aside what little she could so that Kelly and her two sisters and her brother would receive something upon their high school graduations. Mama Mary did not live to see it happen, but all four of them completed high school and so much more.
Rev. Douglas said, “I come from enslaved people who lived and died and never breathed a free breath, never thought they would, but they still fought for freedom because they believed in a God of freedom. I am here to honor that kind of heritage, to trust in the faithfulness of God and to refuse to give in to despair and doubt.”
She continued, “In a culture that profits from despair, joy is a revolutionary act.”
Several weeks ago, on Easter, I said that as people of the resurrection, we have a duty to hope. Today, I am saying that we also have a responsibility to steward the joy that is ours because of Christ, to summon our joy and bring it to bear on our circumstances, to rejoice in the Lord always.
The psalmist wrote “Weeping may linger for the night, but joy comes with the morning.” Joy and sorrow are often two sides of the same coin. Sometimes we recognize joy and hold it as more precious because of what we endured in the night of weeping.
A long time ago, in a small town in England, there was a fire in a neighbor’s yard that became a fire in the house. The neighbors gathered around. They had called the fire department and they were all looking and watching this house come apart in the flames. On the second floor there was a little nine- or ten-year-old boy. Through the window, they could hear him screaming. They wondered what they might do but no one moved, until from the back, John William Breckenridge moved up to the edge of the house and found the drain pipe and shimmied it up to the second floor. He broke the window, grabbed the boy, put him on his shoulder and came down burning his own hands, but saving the child.
Three weeks later, this child was an orphan with no surviving family, but a tremendous insurance pay-out. They gathered in a court of law to figure out who would be adopting this nine-year-old boy. The court was full, because of the large amount of money involved. In the midst of the yelling and shouting, the judge decided that he might let the boy choose who would adopt him. So, the boy got down from his chair and he weaved through the crowd. It seemed as if he was searching for a certain face. He came finally to the back of the room to a man who was sitting with his arms crossed. He took the man’s arm and he pulled it out and he saw the bandages on the burnt hands, and he turned to the judge and he said “this is the one.” And so it was.
We are a people as disoriented, doubtful, and despairing as we have been in a long time. We are in the night of weeping, no doubt, but can we hold on for the dawn, for the joy that comes in the morning?
Lots of people I know want to distinguish between happiness and joy. They say that happiness varies with circumstances, but joy is a more permanent part of our relationship with God. I tend to agree with this in theory. But I have some issues with it in practice. When the people who claim to possess this permanent joy are perpetually stressed or irritable or short-tempered, then I start to wonder. I think if you have joy, then at least occasionally, it should show up as happiness or laughter or a smile.
Depression and anxiety are real diseases and should be treated as such. You cannot will yourself out of clinical depression any more than you can will yourself out of a broken arm. Please hear that. But there is always a range of mental/emotional/spiritual health that we can effect, just as we can effect physical health through sleep, diet and exercise. And I have also noticed that joy can be contagious. It is easy to be grumpy when everyone around me is grumpy. It is harder to persist in my grumpiness when other people are joyful. (Not impossible, mind you, but harder.)
If joy is our most powerful response to despair, if joy is a revolutionary act, and we have forgotten how to be joyful, we might need some help exercising those muscles. When my now-adult daughters were young, I hung up this poster which says How to Really Love a Child. I’m sharing it here because I think these ideas work for adults too or for the child that still lives inside us. So, I’m going to read this poster and I encourage you to listen for one or two things you might do to reach for joy.
Be there. Say yes as often as possible. Let them bang on pots and pans. If they’re crabby, put them in water. If they’re unlovable, love yourself. Realize how important it is to be a child. Go to a movie theater in your pajamas. Read books out loud with joy. Invent pleasures together. Remember how really small they are. Giggle a lot. Surprise them.
Say no when necessary. Teach feelings. Heal your own inner child. Learn about parenting. Hug trees together. Make loving safe. Bake a cake and eat it with no hands. Go find elephants and kiss them. Plan to build a rocket ship. Imagine yourself magic. Make lots of forts with blankets. Let your angel fly. Reveal your own dreams. Search out the positive. Keep the gleam in your eye. Encourage silly. Plant licorice in your garden. Open up. Stop yelling. Express your love. A lot. Speak kindly. Paint their tennis shoes.
Handle with caring.[5]
Henri Nouwen said “Joy does not simply happen to us. We have to choose joy and keep choosing it every day. It is a choice based on the knowledge that we belong to God and have found in God our refuge and our safety and that nothing, not even death, can take God away from us.”[6]
Beloved ones, let us choose joy and keep choosing it every day. Amen.
[1] Ralph P. Martin The New Century Bible Commentary: Philippians (Grand Rapids: Eerdmanns, 1983) p 5.
[2] Todd Still, Smyth and Helwys Bible Commentary: Philippians and Philemon (Macon: Smyth and Helwys Publishing, 2011), p 122.
[3] Henri Nouwen, You Are the Beloved: Daily Meditations for Spiritual Living (New York: Convergent Books, 2017) p. 169
[4] Kelly Brown Douglas, keynote speech at the Alliance of Baptists Gathering, April 16-19, Evanston, Illinois
[5] Poster by SARK, https://planetsark.shop/products/how-to-really-love-a-child-by-sark-premium-matte-vertical-posters
[6]Henri Nouwen, You Are the Beloved: Daily Meditations for Spiritual Living