True Happiness
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Deep insights into the mysteries of life come to us from lots of different places. Sometimes it’s from philosophers like Aristotle; or celebrated authors like C.S. Lewis, or theologians like St. Thomas Aquinas. And sometimes our source is a bit lower down the intellectual scale like, say, the comics. A few years back there was a Peanuts cartoon where Lucy started to ask Charlie Brown if he has ever known anybody who was really happy. But before she finishes her sentence, Snoopy comes dancing on tiptoe into the frame, his nose high in the air, blissfully dancing with abandon. He dances and bounces his way across two frames of the cartoon strip. Finally in the last frame, Lucy finishes her sentence, “Have you ever known anybody who was really happy and was still in their right mind?”
The question of what it takes to be truly happy is at the center of the Word we heard today, and it begs the question: Where CAN we find happiness? Too many of us spend our lives chasing after things we think will make us happy, but somehow that worldly happiness always seems to be one step away. So maybe it’s time we step back and recalibrate our definition of true happiness and where to find it.
In our first reading we hear Jeremiah prophesying against a treaty with the Babylonians: “Cursed is the one who trusts in human beings, who seeks his strength in flesh, whose heart turns away from the Lord.” And soon thereafter, the Israelites were overrun and spent the next several decades in captivity. Unfortunately the lesson from Jeremiah is one we’ve been slow to learn. A hundred years ago, at the end of World War I, when the Great Powers gathered to sign the armistice to end the war, Pope Benedict XV observed that the treaty and the peace would fail. His point was that there was no mention of trusting in God, no mention of eternal, spiritual values - the treaty trusted solely on man’s ability to restore peace to the world. Of course the pope was right - twenty years later the world engaged in an even worse war, World War II. The message of Jeremiah resonates through the ages - reliance on human capabilities is a sham. It didn’t work in the time of Jeremiah, it didn’t work after World War I, and it won’t work in our modern world today.
Paul’s message to the Corinthians cautions them that true happiness - or beatitude, as it comes from the Latin - may not be achievable in this world, but only in the next life. And if we cannot find happiness in this life and we reject life after death as manifest by Christ’s resurrection, then our claim to faith is empty and without hope.
Our Gospel today is Jesus’ Sermon on the Plain - Luke’s Beatitudes. We hear Jesus lay out for his disciples a new framework for living - four simple blessings and four matching woes. Blessed are the poor, the hungry, the mournful, and those hated by the world for their faith. And woe to the rich, the satisfied, the joyful, and those celebrated by the world. Not surprisingly, the Beatitudes - whether Luke’s shorter version or Matthew’s longer list - were pretty radical teaching. They stood Jewish values on their heads - just as they do for us today. Think about it - they represent an outright rejection of natural wisdom. And that makes them just as hard for usto accept as they were for the ancient Jews.
Does God really want us to be poor, hungry, mournful, and hated by the world? Maybe we need to dig a little deeper into the message of the Beatitudes.
The poor are not blest simply because they have very little. Their blessing comes from placing their trust in God in the midst of poverty. And the rich are not cursed simply because they’re well off - their curse comes from failing to share their blessings with those in need.
Jesus is not saying it's a blessing to be starving and a curse to have enough to eat. He is saying we are blessed if we can keep trusting in God during times of emptiness and hunger, AND that it’s a blessing if we are hungry for God. The curse of our "times of plenty” is that they tend to lead us to ignore our need for God, and to become spiritually self-satisfied. Just take a look at our society today.
And Christ is NOT saying that it’s a sin to be JOYFUL, only that we need to be aware of the source of our joy! It’s a blessing if we mourn for our sins and for the injustices in our world and for the losses we experience in life. It is not a curse to be happy, though. But it is a curse if our laughter is a cover-up for sadness and if it is at the expense of others.
So poverty, hunger, tears and rejection are not to be sought after. But if they come to us because we follow Jesus, then they are blessings. God can turn poverty, hunger, tears and rejection into blessings. We see this when people in bad times turn to God and convert to his ways.
So what’s our message here? The Beatitudes - both in Luke and in Matthew - have been called Christ’s Manifesto, his call to action. In the Beatitudes Christ calls us to minister on his behalf, to LOVE his children like he loves us. But living the Beatitudes is HARD - we have jobs, bills, families to tend to. The Beatitudes set a standard we could never meet. But here’s the thing - God isn’t calling us to be perfect, but to strive for perfection.
Let me give you an example - for all you married couples, at your wedding you committed to live for each other and become one. So everything is always absolutely perfect in your marriage, right? Of course not - hey, I gave Marybeth a toaster for Christmas the year we got married, okay? The point is - we don’t give up when we fall short, we step up and keep trying to do better.
Living the spirit of the Beatitudes is a pretty tall order. But Christ’s very existence - the very ESSENCE of his ministry - is unbounded love for each of God’s creations, no matter their station in life. God calls on us to focus not on things of the world, but on things of the spirit. Our reality, our source of true happiness, lies beyond the limits of this life, the things we can see and feel. That’s the message Paul is giving the Corinthians. That’s the message Jesus is giving his disciples. And that's the message Christ is sending us. It’s all about our orientation - toward things of this world or things of the life to come.
So the question we need to ponder is this: Are we going to continue to walk in the flesh, vainly trying to find happiness chasing after the material things of this world? Or are we going to accept the challenge to walk joyfully in the spirit, embracing the beatitudes in our daily lives, and trust in God to lead us to true eternal happiness? That’s the call we make each and every day.