Hey, this is Joan Ortberg and the word for today is be jolly. And I know that’s an unusual word. Doesn’t get used much in our day. It’s not at all. Cool. And it can sound trippy or saccharin. And I don’t mean it to there’s a particular reason why I’m using that word that I will get to, but it’s an invitation that comes precisely in the moments of greatest difficulty or heartbreak or challenge or suffering. And that those moments come not as an interruption to God’s calling on our lives. They are a calling. Those moments are a calling. So I’ll tell you where this word comes from. We’re in a serious passage to wisdom. I’m taking a break today. We’re walking through the screw tape letters by CS Lewis. They’re wonderful, but there’s a character in another book that for the last several years has been very, very personal to me.
And I have reread that book a couple of times, just in the past few years and go back and reread and think about this character all the time. And that’s what I want to tell you about today. Be jolly today. This is your chance to be jolly. Hi, his name is mark Tapley and he’s a character in a book by Charles Dick. And my favorite Dickens book is called Martin. Chait the Cheel wi family. The theme of the book really is about selfishness and the Cheel wi family is consumed by selfishness. So it has a lot to say about our world and the protagonist in the book. Martin Sheel is admirable in many ways. Uh, he has a strong character, a strong sense of will. He’s honest, but he also has been tainted by selfishness and he’s entitled and his life is all about him.
And he expect other people to be able to serve him and do what it is that he wants. It just kind of takes them for granted. He’s clearly a three on the Agram like I get it. Mark Tapley is one of those quirky, eccentric comic lovable indie fatiguable characters. That Dickens was so good at painting. He was connected with, uh, the blue dragon Inn and, uh, in love with the land lady and everybody loved him. He had this infectious generous spirit. And so people just loved to be around him. And he breathed life into everybody. He had a generosity of heart that made the people around him better, and he referred to this quality as being jolly, but he was quite frustrated in a wonderfully comic way because he thought his situation in life was so pleasant. The people around him were so loving that it was no credit to be jolly.
And he wanted to be in a situation where it would be so dire, so difficult where it would take so much courage and so much perseverance that it would actually be a praiseworthy thing to be jolly. And he kept being frustrated in that cuz his life was just too good. Somebody saw him walking one day and said, uh, you look terrific. And he said, well, it’s easy to be jolly when you’re well dressed. Now, if I was wearing rags, there’d be some credit in that. And somebody saw him one day and said, uh, it looks like you’re just in terrific health. And he says, well, it’s not hard to be jolly when you’re in great health. Now, if I had a touch of the inflammation of the lungs and I could still be jolly, there’d be a credit in that. So he’s constantly looking for a situation where he would face so much difficulty, so much pain, so many obstacles that there would be some credit to being jolly.
And he ultimately decides that he will become a servant to Martin Sheel. And as you might imagine, that was not an easy role for somebody to take. Martin Tellit is desperate to make a fortune he’s in loved, but he is bitterly estranged with some unjustness injustice from his own grandfather. And so he decides to go to America to seek his fortune. And mark Tapley goes with him and they set up a little financial company and it’s called Sheel wit and company Kathleen’s name is not even in it, but he doesn’t begrudge that at all. The company is just spelled C and his response to that is I’ve never, I’ve always wanted to meet a co and I never thought I would be one. So he’s thrilled just to be the co in Sheel wit and co when they’re on the ship crossing the Atlantic ocean, there’s a tremendous amount of seasickness and illness. And although taping himself is quite ill, he takes care of everybody, tends to people, brings them whatever food. They might be able to eat, comforts them, cheers them up. And he himself is sick. But of course, everybody is so filled with love and gratitude towards him that there’s no credit in being jolly, just cuz you’re seasick on a ship because other people are so kind to him.
They end up, uh, in the America and Martin, she impulsively, foolishly invests everything that they’ve got in what ends up being a worthless piece of fever, infested swamp land. And so they’ve lost all their money they’re broke and the people that live there because there’s an epidemic are so weak that they’re unable to bury the folks that have already died. And then Martin Jesuit gets sick. And so mark Tapley at great risk to his own health is caring for Martin Shez with who of course does not appreciate it. And then mark Tapley gets sick. And even then, uh, he is looking every moment for a chance to be jolly when he is so ill that he cannot speak. And Martin CWI who is recovered by this time asks him, how are you doing? He just takes a little slate and writes on it in chalk, this single word jolly. And he thinks maybe now he’s finally reached such a low point in his life, such difficulty, so much suffering that there will be some credit to him, but it is at this point that Martin, she is converted and Dickens doesn’t use precisely that language, but that’s what happens.
It occurs to him that in all of these moments of deprivation and suffering, when they were on the boat, going over there, when they got to this swamp land, that mark Tapley is 10 times the man that Sheel, whatever was, and that there was a generosity of spirit and which Sheel, what looks at his own life. Dicken says the curtain rises a little bit in what has beneath it. His self, self and Chael w realizes that there are defects of character in him that he cannot remove. And so he must just surrender to the good, I can’t, God can, I think I’ll let him. And he begins to change. He begins to be changed.
And he recognizes now that mark Tapley is someone to be deeply admired and emulated. And of course, mark Tapley recognizes this shift in Martin Sheel and Tapley recovers from his illness, but now less, there’s no credit for his great spirit for his courage and his generosity, which he all puts into this simple word to be jolly, no credit in anymore because now Tapley is, is loved by his newly humbled friend, Martin Zeit, and his circumstances are filled once again with generosity of spirit, from those around him. And they end up going back to England and C wood is reconciled to his grandfather and is healed of his selfishness. And Tapley goes back to that land lady and the blue dragon and asks if she would like to change her last name to and co in company. And she says, yes, and renames the blue dragon, the jolly Tapley, the apostle Paul said, therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have access to the grace in which we now stand. Not only that we, we, we and we, we exalt, we boast in the hope of the glory of God. Not only that we also exalt in our sufferings.
We exalt in our sufferings, not just tolerate them. We exalt because suffering produces endurance and the endurance produces character and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint. I was talking to a friend the other day, who’s a pastor and thinking it, maybe that’s you and you work at a church and with COVID and, uh, the politicization of everything and racial unrest. These are such challenging times to be what a great time to be at a church. You have to throw out everything. What’s the budget gonna be? I don’t know. What’s the attendances gonna be? I don’t know, but to be able to say, I’m standing with God and we are seeking to be a spiritual community together in this time where it’s really hard. And we have no idea what the outcomes are gonna be. What a great time to be able to trust in God, cuz cuz we’re living in God’s world.
We’re living where God is involved in this project to reconcile all things to himself. So it doesn’t depend on you or me or any given organization. What a great time for that be jolly. Here’s my chance. I was talking to a friend last week, William and I never knew this about him. He and his wife were wonderful. People always wanted to be parents and they never could. And they carried that ache around day after day, year after year. But he said the passage that they’ve always kinda founded their lives and their marriage on is Genesis chapter 12. When God comes to Abraham and says, I’m gonna bless you and you will be blessed to be a blessing to others. And William said, that’s how we’ve always sought to live our lives. Blessed in the midst of this deep heartache, blessed to be a blessing to others.
So that’s the word for today? Whatever difficulty, discouragement, obstacles, challenges, suffering, you are in whatever you have lost. It is not the end cuz we’re in God’s world because God is working to reconcile all things and to bring about redemption and to heal me from my selfishness and you from whatever it is that you suffer from and over and over and over, I’ve just come back to, uh, Tapley. At the end of the book, he’s talking to somebody about how, uh, he’s always sought for this opportunity. It’s been denied him and he says, I guess I’ll have to put it in my will that on my grave, it will be written. Here’s the man that would’ve come out strong if he’d ever got the chance, but fate denied him. Here’s my chance. Here’s your chance today to trust God, to clinging, to God, to exalt, even in our sufferings, our failings aren’t inadequacy because it all leads to hope just the way we want it. Just the way we want it. Love you guys. See you next time.