Joy is deeper than happiness. Not a smile for the camera. Not a moment of comfort. Joy is an inner well-being. A settled assurance. Contentment in the middle of circumstances that say you should have collapsed by now. How many of you still have joy?
Based on what our community has been through, going through, and what we can see coming around the corner, you should not have joy. Too much pressure. Too much grief. Too much history.
The Apostle Paul knew something about pressure. Five times beaten. Three times with rods. Shipwrecked. Betrayed. Hungry. Cold. Exhausted. Surrounded by danger. Yet Paul writes from prison and declares something strange: “I still have joy.”
That word reaches across centuries and lands right here in St. Louis. In neighborhoods where schools struggle but brilliance still rises. On streets where development skips blocks but hope refuses eviction. In families navigating debt, health disparities, gun violence, and systems that often discount Black dignity. And yet, somehow, we still have joy.
Joy when our history is debated but never erased. Joy when contributions are used but credit is withheld. Joy when labor builds cities but equity moves at a crawl. Joy does not deny the struggle. Joy survives it.
Paul makes an unusual claim in Philippians. His imprisonment is not embarrassment. It is opportunity. “What has happened to me has actually advanced the gospel.” Chains became a pulpit. Prison became a platform. The imperial guard heard the name of Christ. Sometimes what looks like restriction becomes redirection.
Our community knows something about that. Cracked systems. Broken pathways. Closed doors. But God keeps planting flowers along the road.
Like the old story of the cracked clay pot. One perfect. One flawed. The cracked pot leaked water every day. Felt ashamed. Thought it was useless. Until the woman carrying it showed the flowers blooming along the path, watered by the crack. The flaw became the channel for beauty.
The same is true for a people who turned sorrow into song. Pain into preaching. Survival into spiritual power. Paul says his suffering also produced boldness. Others saw him endure and began speaking the Word with greater courage. Pressure does that. It hardens some. Strengthens others. The question is not whether we face trials. The question is what we become inside them. Are we carrots that soften? Eggs that harden? Or coffee beans that transform the water around them?
The Black church has long chosen transformation. We gather with candles in the blackout. We sing while the storm rages. We organize while the odds resist us. Because joy is not the absence of darkness. Joy is the light in the middle of it.
Paul closes with perspective. Through prayer and the Spirit of Jesus Christ, he believes everything will turn toward deliverance. Whether by life or death, Christ will be exalted. That testimony still stands.
The charges against God—neglect, abandonment, cruelty—do not hold. Too many witnesses. Too much evidence of mercy. Based on what we have seen. Based on what we have survived. God is not guilty.
So excuse us if we clap our hands. Excuse us if we lift our voices. Excuse us if we testify in the middle of unfinished struggle.
Trouble in the land. Trouble in the family. Trouble in the body. Trouble in the mind. But this joy we have, the world did not give it. And the world cannot take it away.
The Reverend Dr. Anthony L. Riley serves as the 14th Pastor of the historic Central Baptist Church of St. Louis, the 2nd oldest Black church in Saint Louis.