“A Life that Brings Happiness”
November 5, 2017
Revelation 7:9-17
Matthew 5:1-12
Albert Einstein is back in the news again. This time it’s not for his prediction of gravitational waves or his theory of relativity. It is for what is being called Einstein’s much simpler “theory of happiness.”
Did you hear about this? In 1922, Einstein was in Tokyo on a lecture tour, staying at the Imperial Hotel. When a bellboy delivered a message to the physicist, he fished in his pocket for some change to tip him and found nothing.
Instead, Einstein offered a tip in the form of his theory on how to have a happy life.
“A calm and modest life brings more happiness than the pursuit of success combined with constant restlessness,” he wrote in German on a piece of hotel stationery.
On a second sheet, he wrote, “Where there’s a will, there’s a way.” O.K.—not original thinking, but still…
Einstein told the bellboy that if he was lucky, the notes might become more valuable than a regular tip. Last month, his theory of happiness was sold at auction for over one and a half million dollars.[i]
Someone is very happy indeed—although we’ll see if they can continue to live a “calm and modest life” with that newfound wealth.
Happiness often seems in short supply right now, as we face what Arkansas Senator Jeff Flake recently called: “the daily sundering of our country — the personal attacks, the threats against principles, freedoms and institutions, the flagrant disregard for truth or decency, the reckless provocations…”
Over the past year I’ve preached about this “daily sundering of our country;” I’ve railed against it in private conversations. As a result, I feel, not happier, but more exhausted by all of this. Maybe the “threats against principles, freedoms, and institutions” are wearing you down as well.
So I found it refreshing to read the New York Times columnist, Roger Cohen, who reminded me that “Lament grows tiresome, as does a very high and righteous moral tone.” We should “not forget that the likeliest thing is that something unlikely will happen. Celebrate,” he advised, “Celebrate the fact that humor, scoops, political oratory and the Constitution are all enjoying a revival due to negative forces that will remain unnamed.”
When we worry, it’s good to remember John McCain’s recent statement that America is still “this big, boisterous, brawling, intemperate, striving, daring, beautiful, bountiful, brave, magnificent country.”[ii]
Although I am one who is given to both lament and a “high and righteous moral tone,” I’ve started to experience a little happiness instead.
Jesus had a few thought on happiness as well. We heard them in those words from the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount that we call the “Beatitudes.”
The Greek word in Matthew’s Gospel, makarios, is difficult to translate. Homer said that the immortals of Mt. Olympus were makarios. In secular contexts the word seems to suggest being fortunate. We might say that the one who is “makarios” is happy.
So listen again as Jesus says:
“How happy!—you who are poor in spirit, or mourning, or meek.
How happy!—you who are merciful, or pure in heart, or persecuted.”
We might object—but listen carefully:
The first thing Jesus does as he begins to teach is to call us into the joy of being alive with all of the difficulties and possibilities that come to us.
You are happy, Jesus says. More life is coming to you when:
You are poor in spirit.
You mourn.
You are meek.
You hunger and thirst.
Do you start to recognize yourself as Jesus talks?
How happy are those who are:
Merciful.
Pure in heart.
Peacemakers
Persecuted.
Do you find yourself somewhere in those descriptions?
No one individual will find himself or herself described by all these words—but taken together they paint a picture of all people. They paint a picture of a congregation.
Those who mourn, those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, the merciful—you know people like that. You might even be sitting next to one of them this morning. Or maybe you would number yourself among those who know what sorrow means, who claim nothing, who make peace.
Yes, there’s a danger here: we can hear those words as a command. We can hear those words and think that that we are called to become poor in spirit, or meek, or peacemakers, or merciful, or persecuted. Or we think that if we find ourselves among the crushed, the meek, or those who grieve over injustice that we have some sort of “Christian duty” to remain as such.
Jesus is not telling us to go out and try to become such people. Jesus instead speaks to those who find themselves in these various life situations—and I don’t think that his list is meant to be all inclusive. Some have been active—making peace, pursuing what is right to the point of persecution, showing mercy. Others passively find themselves sorrowing, hungering, or thirsting.
The words of Jesus look toward the future. He speaks of fulfillment to come. And Jesus speaks as he always does, as one with authority, as one whose word is dependable.
. . .they will be comforted.
. . .they will inherit the earth.
. . . they will be filled.
. . .they will receive mercy.
Nothing is lost to God. The One who created forgets nothing that has been created.
Your sorrow is not lost.
Your hunger for the good is not forgotten.
Your acts of mercy and peace, even though they seem fruitless, are held by God, gathered up and made good.
This reorders our lives today. It’s been said that the various English translations of the New Testament Greek do not do justice to their meaning. The Beatitudes are usually rendered as statements, and so we heard them this morning: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the realm of heaven.” The Greek, however, states them as exclamations, ecstatic utterances of present reality, literally: “Now happiness and the realm of heaven for those poor in spirit!” “Now mercy of those who are merciful.” [iii]
Tomorrow has become today. It is now that Jesus calls us “happy.”
These words are often read on All Saints Sunday—listen carefully that you might hear Jesus inviting us to take life as it is, to look at it closely and deeply. In each of our situations that there is indeed something “fortunate,” something “happy” about simply living.
This day we remember Hermine and Gretchen and Kristie as we give thanks for their lives. And if we call them “saints,” it is not because they lived perfect or even exemplary lives—although there is much in each of their lives that we might want to imitate.
They are “saints” because they engaged fully in life with all of its possibilities and challenges, taking life as it came to them. They knew illness, the death of loved ones, and difficult times. They also knew the joy of music, the power of love of family and friends, the quiet assurance of faith. That is to say they knew the happiness that Jesus spoke of—in all the senses of that word.
Think of the saints in your own life—the women and men whose lives were marked not so much by goodness as by an honesty of self. Chances are they weren’t people interested in showing you how religious they were. There were people who increasingly were themselves before God—letting God’s goodness flow through them and being transformed by it. They were people who expressed in their lives who they were before God.
The brilliant light of their living and their dying gave glory to God. The more they were themselves, the more we are ourselves, the more God becomes known in this world.
Happiness is never achieved directly—you don’t have to be an Einstein to know that. If you set out only to be happy, chances are you'll end up miserable. If a congregation and its leaders worry about making its members “happy” they will never attain anything like the “blessedness” that Jesus announces. But as we live calmly and modestly, as we celebrate the unlikely things that will likely happen, as we become fully engaged—body, mind, and soul—in other efforts, we discover real happiness—the good fortune Jesus speaks about. If you are engaged in making peace, in showing mercy, even if you are mourning—you might yet find happiness.
More than that, as we engage with the world, we hear the good news that God is breaking into this world with mercy, with comfort, with abundance. The Realm of God is breaking into the world and that reshapes how we understand the present. It is no longer a matter of waiting for good things. The goodness of God is coming toward us even in the most difficult situations.
This is not about taking on added requirements for living, but about being transformed people Wholeness in life is not about doing more things. Wholeness of life is found as we follow the way that is known.
This is where God is leading us, I think. Transforming us that we might do what is just, kind, and humble. Let us recognize that this is not the way that all people will choose. This is not the path on which all people will walk.
But it is our path. It is the way of Jesus Christ, known and to be made known to us as we walk with one another—and with all the saints. In so doing we might find the happiness that is brings more life to our neighbors, more life to the hurting world, and more life even to ourselves.
[i] https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/25/world/middleeast/einstein-theory-of-happiness.html?_r=0
[ii] https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/27/opinion/a-quiet-and-modest-life.html
[iii] Peter Gomes, Sermons, pg. 116