Orientation: Joyful
Don faced his death with resolute joy. He grew up at Compton Heights Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in St. Louis, graduated from Bethany College, felt a call to ministry, and went to Yale Divinity School. After he was ordained, he served as Associate Minister at First Christian in St. Joseph, MO, pastored First Christian in Cape Girardeau, MO, then went to First Christian in Columbia, MO, where he had responsibilities in campus ministry, membership, community action, and outreach. When I arrived in 1985, Don was pastoring a house church in St. Louis. Circle of Life was composed of a few dozen folks seeking a place of welcome and belonging outside the walls of the church.
Don, too, sought that welcome and belonging. Don was gay.
In 1993, President Bill Clinton ushered in legislation dubbed “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” under which homosexuals serving in the military were not allowed to talk about their sexual orientation and commanding officers weren’t permitted to question service members about it. Though Clinton’s intention was to provide a way for gays and lesbians to serve in the military, it was far from acceptance. Military personnel were mandated to keep their identities secret in exchange for offering their lives in service to their country. An equitable exchange?
The church was years behind the military when it came to its enlisted personnel. Everyone conspired to silence regarding beloved, gifted pastors, Christian educators, music directors and organists who were lifelong bachelors or bachelorettes. Didn’t ask. Didn’t tell. Didn’t dare. People can be so mean. Christians can be so cruel.
During my years at Compton Heights, resolutions were brought to our denomination’s biennial General Assembly that reflected society’s conflicted coming to terms with the sexual orientation of people who identify as LGBTQIA+. In 1987, the General Assembly rejected a resolution brought by conservative delegates calling homosexuality sinful. In 1989, delegates approved a resolution calling on the church and its members to treat persons with AIDS as children of God and to “act as instruments of God’s compassionate love and tender care when the seeds of fear, prejudice, and alienation have been sown.” Though Don was a delegate at the 1987 Assembly and able to cast a vote in favor of his self-worth as a human being created in the image of God, he was not present for the 1989 General Assembly. Diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in the summer of 1988, he was rail thin by Advent of that year. Jaundiced. Dying. He died in 1989, but not before preaching a sermon on joy using only a candlelighter and Christmas carol.
Our worship committee chose folks to light the Advent wreath. When they handed me the list for Advent 1988, I looked at it and said, “You asked Don to light the Advent wreath on the Third Sunday of Advent? That’s the Joy candle. Don’s dying. What were you thinking?”
They said, “He said he’d do it.”
I said, “I’ll go by and talk to him.”
There was nothing to talk about.
“David,” he said, “I know it’s the Joy candle. That’s the one I want to light.”
The scripture that Sunday was Philippians 4:4-9. Paul wrote, “Rejoice in the Lord always.” Mind you, he was in a Roman jail cell. How could he rejoice? He lifted his head and hands and rejoiced when he ought to have buried his head in his hands and sighed. How can that be?
What that says to me is joy – biblical joy – is not dependent on external circumstances, but upon an awareness of God’s presence in all circumstances. In Barbara Brown Taylor’s words, “The only condition for joy is the presence of God. Joy happens when God is present and people know it.”
The fact that joy transcends circumstances is a blessed truth I'm reminded of whenever I hear the spirituals. Michael Curry, Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, a black man whose faith was forged by the spirituals, wondered, “Why didn't slaves go crazy? They had no doctors, no therapists or social workers. Families were separated and sold.” He says, “I believe it was their singing. Spirituals took away their shame, wiped away their tears and made them part of God's own family.” Nobody and nothing was going to steal their joy! Paul rejoicing in prison and slaves singing in the fields beneath their taskmasters' noses bear witness to a truth fundamental to faith: joy transcends circumstances. If God is near, joy will find a way.
Paul continued his ode to joy by testifying, “I've learned in whatever state I am to be content. I've learned how to be abased and how to abound; in any and all circumstances I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and want. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me” (Philippians 4:11-13).
The word content is from a Medieval Latin word that means “held together.” When Paul said, “I’ve learned in whatever state I am to be content,” he was saying, “No matter what, I trust my life will be held together by God.”
Have you ever noticed the word religion has in its center the letters l-i-g – lig – as in the word ligament. What does a ligament do? It holds us together, connects bone to bone. The spiritual “Dem Bones” sings, “The toe bone’s connected to the foot bone/ The foot bone’s connected to the ankle bone/ The ankle bone’s connected to the shin bone.” Ligaments hold our bodies together. Religion at its best holds everything together: ligs us to each other, God, and all creation. Religion at its best isn’t a five-inch-thick dictionary of dogma – things you must believe – or a rulebook of things you’d better do or not do. Religion as in ligament is a way of living life that strives to hold relationships, societies, and creation together. Give me some of that ‘ol time religion Paul had, born of his conviction that the Lord was near, holding him together, filling him with joy and a “peace that passes understanding.”
I’ll never forget Don processing down the center aisle that Third Sunday of Advent as we sang the opening hymn. He walked unsteadily, his face gaunt. As he reached the front of the sanctuary, his back to the congregation, his face toward where I stood on the chancel, the flame of the candlelighter he held before him bathed his jaundiced face in a soft glow. I remember the look on his face – a peace that passes understanding; a radiant, intrepid joy. Having lit the Joy candle, he turned, faced the congregation he had grown up in as a child and returned to at the end of life, and said, “Joy to the world, the Lord is come. Let earth receive her king. Let every heart prepare him room, and heaven and nature sing.” With that, he solemnly, a bit unevenly, returned to his pew, the candle softly burning – Joy. Joy. Joy.
Don stopped by my office a few days before Christmas with a present – a homemade ornament he had crafted. It is a 5” high right-angled triangle made out of powder blue cardstock, a circular hole punched at the tip through which Jennie looped and tied string so we could hang it on our tree. On one side, at the top of the triangle, Don drew a shimmering star with a deep blue colored pencil. Emanating from it toward the tip and in long strokes to the base are rays of orange, blue, and yellow. On the flip side, also of Don’s craftsmanship, is a quartet of free verse poetry in his crisp, elegant handwriting that reads:
His beginning is storied
Mine I can’t recall
But I see tomorrow
All entries & exits integrated
DGP ‘88
The ornament, its radiant starlight on one side and radiant verse on the other prophesying the ultimate holding together of all things – “All entries & exits integrated” – reminds me each Christmas of the man whose visage yet shimmers in my memory.
I led Don’s funeral nine weeks after he lit the Joy candle. It was a Saturday in February, the dead of winter. Members of his Circle of Life congregation were there mourning their pastor and friend. Members of his home church were there hosting the service. Together we mourned one of our own, a pastor, a brother in Christ, a child of God, a man beloved.
The previous fall, Don handed me an envelope. Inside, in the same indelible handwriting that inscribed the Christmas ornament, were his desires for his funeral, which we honored.
The Prelude was J.S. Bach’s “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring.”
The Call to Worship was a responsive reading Don crafted from Psalm 130:
Out of the depths I cry to thee, O Lord!
Lord, hear my voice!
Let thy ears be attentive to the voice of my supplications:
I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in God’s word I hope.
O Israel, hope in the Lord!
For with the Lord there is steadfast love,
With our God there is plenteous redemption.
Selections of poetry and the Beatitudes were read.
We sang “Blest Be the Tie That Binds,” followed by a reading from Psalm 27:
The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear?
One thing have I asked of the Lord,
that will I seek after;
that I may dwell in the house of the Lord
all the days of my life,
to behold the beauty of the Lord,
and to inquire in his temple.
I believe that I shall see the goodness of the Lord
in the land of the living!
Wait for the Lord;
be strong, and let your heart take courage;
yea, wait for the Lord!
Also, Psalm 139:
Whither shall I go from thy Spirit?
Or whither shall I flee from thy presence?
If I ascend to heaven, thou art there!
If I make my bed in Sheol, thou art there!
If I take the wings of the morning
and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,
even there thy hand shall lead me,
and thy right hand shall hold me.
My meditation ended with a remembrance of Don’s lighting the Joy candle on the Advent wreath. The service ended, as per Don’s instructions, with our standing together and singing “Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee.”
The Postlude? “Joy to the World.”
