Sermon Tone Analysis

{Read Matthew 5:1-12}

On the northern shore of the Sea of Galilee there sits a Catholic Franciscan chapel called the Church of the Beatitudes.

It is located on the traditional site where Jesus delivered his famous Sermon on the Mount.

Ironically, the chapel was built in 1938 with the help of an Italian fascist dictator named Benito Mussolini.

Pope John Paul II celebrated mass there in 2000.

Even President George W. Bush visited the church in the last year of his presidency.

The church’s unique architecture reflects the opening remarks in Jesus’s sermon.

Its octagonal shape represents the eight simple but sublime beatitudes he delivered on this mountaintop overlooking the beautiful sea.

Rays of sunshine spill through eight stained glass windows located high on the walls of the church, illuminating Jesus’s elegant words etched into the colorful glass.

It’s a strange place to find the secret to happiness, don’t you think?

But it was there that Jesus “blessed” his audience and reversed the usual notions of happiness.

Today I’m beginning a new series of messages called /Highway to Happiness: A Surprising Trip through the Beatitudes of Jesus.

/Matthew 5:1-12 will be our home for nine weeks.

Yes, we’ll take 9 weeks to travel through 12 verses and 8 beatitudes.

What a journey it will be!

Some of you might be wondering, “Pastor, how can you get an entire sermon out of a single sentence.”

Good question.

Actually, I’m wondering how I can plumb the depths and riches of a single beatitude in only 30 minutes each week.

You won’t find empty clichés or safe, sentimental platitudes in the beatitudes.

They are as refreshing as they are counter-cultural.

If you’re looking for feel-good sermons or simple behavior modification tips, you won’t find them here either.

Jesus gave us /be-/attitudes not /do-/attitudes, although the word “beatitude” never appears in the text of Scripture.

The dictionary defines “beatitude” as “supreme blessedness” and “exalted happiness.”

The beatitudes have been called be-happy attitudes, beautiful attitudes, a road to recovery, the secret to happiness, the applause of heaven, and a staircase ascending toward God.

Some see these eight teachings as evidences of the character of Christ.

In his best-selling book /The Secret to Happiness,/ Billy Graham noted, “The character which we find in the Beatitudes is, beyond all question, nothing less than our Lord’s own character, put into words.”

*Selling Happiness*

Happiness is a popular pursuit.

Authors, movie producers, songwriters and universities have all figured out how to market happiness.

For example,

* In 2006, /The Pursuit of Happyness /starring Will Smith was a Hollywood blockbuster film based on the life of Chris Gardner who achieved happiness as a successful Wall Street stock broker after being homeless.

* Sheryl Crow wrote a popular song titled “If It Makes You Happy.”

* In 1988, “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” became the first a cappella song to reach number one on the Billboard Top 100 chart and held that position for two weeks.

* Four thousand books were published in 2008 on ‘happiness’ compared to 50 books on the topic in 2000.

* The most popular class at Harvard University is on positive psychology.

At least 100 other universities offer similar courses.

* Our founding fathers acknowledged “the pursuit of happiness” in the Declaration of Independence as one of three unalienable rights endowed by our Creator.

Even Coca-Cola is selling happiness.

The soft drink giant recently launched their new advertising campaign to a worldwide audience on Super Bowl Sunday called “Open Happiness.”[i]

{Run “Coke-Heist” commercial video}

Nobody is more creative in their advertisements than Coke.

Their commercials are great entertainment.

But is it really possible to find happiness in a bottle full of brown, sugary water?

*Searching for Happiness*

It’s easy to sell happiness because most everybody is searching for it.

But few of us ever really find true happiness.

Have you ever wondered why happiness is so elusive?

Pop music icon Madonna was asked, “Are you a happy person?”

She replied, “I’m a tormented person.

I have a lot of demons I’m wrestling with.

But I want to be happy.

I have moments of happiness.

I’m working toward knowing myself, and I’m assuming that will bring me happiness.”

Chris Evert was a commanding figure in women’s tennis in 1986.

By age thirty-one she was internationally famous, earned three million dollars a year (a lot of money for an athlete of that time), and had homes in England, California and Florida.

During an interview with a writer from /Life /magazine, she admitted, “I’ve had enormous success, but you have to find your own happiness and peace.

You can’t find it in other things and people.

I’m still searching.”

“I’m still searching!”

she says.

These are haunting words for someone who has reached the pinnacle of success in her career.

What about you?

Are you still searching for happiness?

The Declaration of Independence guarantees our right to pursue happiness, but it says nothing about actually obtaining happiness.

There’s a good reason for that.

When Thomas Jefferson wrote that “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” were three unalienable rights endowed by our Creator, he believed we could pursue happiness but not obtain it.

He got the idea from John Locke who believed happiness, though elusive, was the foundation of liberty.

According to Locke, and thus Jefferson, there were so many contingencies involved with obtaining happiness that no person could realistically claim a right to obtain it; he could only claim a right to pursue it.

George Mason, another one of the founding fathers, wrote the Virginia Declaration of Rights, a document with which Jefferson was no doubt familiar in 1776.

Mason mentioned “pursuing and obtaining happiness” among the “inherent natural rights” of the individual.

His belief in the right to “obtain happiness” clashed with Lock’s notion of the elusive nature of happiness.

Maybe happiness is elusive because we have the wrong idea about it.

Perhaps our definition is skewed.

“Happy” comes from the French and Middle English and describes something accidental or happening by chance.

This kind of happiness is circumstantial and understood by many of us as the absence of adverse circumstances.

Is this what the Founders had in mind when guaranteeing our right to pursue happiness?

In a lecture at Hillside College on John Adams, historian David McCullough noted that when Adams and the other Founders wrote in the Declaration of Independence that all men possess the rights to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” that what was meant by “happiness” was not “longer vacations or more material goods,” but rather “the enlargement of the human experience through the life of the mind and the life of the spirit.”

McCullough is on the right track, don’t you think?

Today, happiness has been reduced to instant gratification through happy meals, happy hours, and happy pills.

However, Jesus had something else in mind.

*The “Blessed” Life*

Let’s take a closer look at the beatitudes.

Jesus used the word “blessed” nine times in twelve verses.

It is key to understanding what our Lord means by the pursuit of happiness.

“Blessed” is from the Greek word /markarios/ which generally means “happy” or “blissful.”

However, the way we use the word “happy” today trivializes the word “blessed.”

“Happy” is like a 90-pound weakling trying to bench press a 300 pound “blessed.”

We must deconstruct our understanding of happiness if we are going to grasp what Jesus is saying.

The Greek word translated “blessed” was used in extra-biblical literature in two ways.

First it described the rich who used their wealth to insulate themselves from the cares and worries of normal folks.

It was also used to describe the Greek gods who had the power to create a celestial existence for themselves full of deep satisfaction, fulfillment and supreme happiness.

Of course, Jesus aimed his teaching at people who were neither wealthy nor gods.

On the contrary, they were poor and persecuted.

By using the same word that applied to the gods of the ancient world and to the super rich, Jesus was reassuring his loyal followers that peace, contentment, joy and fulfillment were theirs to claim.

Yes, they could live the “blessed” life.

Unlike Thomas Jefferson, Jesus believed we could actually obtain happiness with his help.

The backsides of the beatitudes contain assurances that the “blessed” life is actually within reach for the pilgrim who pursues Jesus.

Read his words again, this time slowly and carefully,

“for theirs is the kingdom of heaven”

“for they shall be comforted”