Blogging the Lectionary - I've got that guilt, guilt, guilt, guilt, down in my heart. Where?..............

Jesus said to the disciples, 'And now I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one. While I was with them, I protected them in your name that you have given me. I guarded them, and not one of them was lost except the one destined to be lost, so that the scripture might be fulfilled. But now I am coming to you, and I speak these things in the world so that they may have my joy made complete in themselves. I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world. I am not asking you to take them out of the world, but I ask you to protect them from the evil one. They do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world. Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. As you have sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. And for their sakes I sanctify myself, so that they also may be sanctified in truth.' - John 17:11-19

we used to sing the song in Sunday school:

I've got that joy, joy, joy, joy, down in my heart
Where?
Down in my heart
Where?
Down in my heart
I've got that joy, joy, joy, joy, down in my heart
Where?
Down in my heart to stay
And I'm so happy
So very happy
I've got the love of Jesus in my heart
And I'm so happy
So very happy
I've got the love of Jesus in my heart

And we were joyful while we sang it. Voices raised, hands clapping. Expressions of delight on every face. The piano player bouncing her way through the chord changes. When we were through we were then told how God loves us all very much and how we were broken and sinful, filled with every kind of deceit and wickedness . How our badness was what held Jesus to the cross and pierces his side and it was our evilness that killed him.

My lips sang joy, while somehow the song was rewritten in my mind as:

I've got that guilt, guilt, guilt, guilt, down in my heart
Where?
Down in my heart
Where?
Down in my heart

I've got that guilt, guilt, guilt, guilt, down in my heart
Where?

Down in my heart to stay
And I'm so wicked,
So very wicked
I'm evil and deceitful in my heart

And I'm so wicked,
So very wicked
I'm evil and deceitful in my heart

It seems really harsh when I type it out that way. Yet that is where I end up from the theology I was given. If this seems unusual I refer you to the popular mega-pastor Mark Driscoll who in a recent sermon talked about how “God hates, right now, personally, objectively, some of you,” 

I'm not wanting to get into the Theology of all of this. When I read the passage today I was drawn to the phrase '...my joy made complete in themselves'.

We each have been wired uniquely for joy. What brings joy to some people leaves me cold.  By the prompting of a friend I have created a Joy List - a litany of the activities that cultivate joy in me. Ways that God has uniquely created me to experience His joy.

In the midst of daily life I am making a conscious choice to not let a day go by without doing something that generates joy within me.  The Shorter Westminster Catechism says 'The chief end of Man is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever'. There is a joy that I experience that comes from God. It may be buried under rubble of theology, but it is there.

It is time to go digging.