February 16, 2025 What In The World Is Happiness? Luke 6:17-26
A family had sold everything possible to pay bills and to put food on the table. Nevertheless, a burglar broke in one night when the family was gone. The family returned and found the door knocked off its hinges. “What did the burglar get?” the police officer asked. The head of the house just shook his head.
“Practice,” he said. It’s not easy being poor. What did Jesus mean, “Blessed are the poor?”
Jesus was a master at keeping his listeners off-balance. He always said the unexpected. He praised people others despised. He lifted up those others put down. “It is more blessed to give than to receive.” “For whoever wants to save his live will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it.” And two thousand years after his death and resurrection theologians still wrestle with his exact meaning. No better example can be found than the Beatitudes found in differing forms in both Matthew and Luke. Many modern translators contend that the word “happy” is closer to Jesus’ original meaning than “blessed.”
That doesn’t help. That means that, among other things, Jesus said you are happy if you are poor, happy if you are hungry, happy if you are down-hearted, happy if you are hated and happy if you are persecuted. To which most of us would say, “Thanks, but no thanks.” We don’t want to be poor. We want to be like Michael Jordan. I read recently that Jordan makes more money each year from pitching Nike shoes than all of the Nike factory workers in Malaysia combined. Michael’s our role model, not some homeless fellow shuffling along the street looking for his next meal. We don’t want to weep or mourn or be persecuted. It’s bad enough that sometimes we feel the world is against us.
What is it that Jesus is saying to us about happiness? We need to know. For you and I are not poor, we’re not hungry, we’re not down-hearted, we’re not hated and we’re not persecuted. And many of us are not happy, either. In fact, according to some studies, people in our affluent, safe, comfortable society are more depressed than they have ever been! Where have we missed it, Lord? Where is happiness to be found?
First of all, let’s dispel the notion that Jesus was a dewy-eyed dreamer–out of touch with the real world.
Jesus was preaching on humility, lowliness, gratitude. His words must have been shocking to a subjugated people caught in a warring nation. Why didn’t he lead them in a bloody rebellion? Why didn’t he establish a new kingdom? Could it be that he had a different kingdom in mind for them? Jesus did have a different kingdom in mind–a kingdom of the Spirit. He was no dewy-eyed dreamer. He knew his followers would be persecuted. He knew that many of them would be rejected by family and friends. He knew that many of them would live their lives on the edge of abject poverty because of their commitment to him. That’s still true today in many parts of the world.
Jesus knew the hardships that his followers would endure, but he wanted them to know that happiness isn’t dependent on outward circumstance. Happiness comes from within. But let’s begin by admitting that Jesus was not in denial.
Secondly, let’s acknowledge that when people look for happiness elsewhere, they are less happy, rather than more. In many cases people who are rich and famous are in many respects lonely and poor because they are forced to be so isolated from the people of the world.
Where are you going to turn for happiness? Your work? There is certainly much satisfaction to be found in a job well done. But today’s fast-changing world is turning many talented, intelligent people into poor detitute people wanting for more and more and more. Never satified. The skills they once had are no longer needed or wanted and the world passes them by very quickly.
Of course, you have your family. The Roper Organization asked Americans what they believed constituted “the good life.” The ranking was instructive.
First was material aspirations;
Second was a happy marriage;
Third was children.
A Mass Mutual study of family values showed that eight out of ten Americans reported that their families were the greatest source of pleasure in their lives–more than friends, religion, recreation, or work.
In a survey of ten thousand Better Homes and Gardens readers (a majority of which were baby boomers), more than half said their relationship to their spouse was the single most important factor in their personal happiness–well ahead of children, spiritual or religious belief, health, or even financial security.
We prize our families, but even family circumstances change. A spouse can bring great joy into your life–and then break your heart. So can children. And sooner or later all whom we love leave home–whether for college, for a family of their own, or for the grave. If you have invested all you have and all you are in your family, where will you be then?
Tragedies happen! People come, people leave, people move on, people die. Jobs come and jobs go. Money can be there one day and gone the next. So, on what do you depend for your happiness? Jesus was no dreamer. And experience has taught us that when people look elsewhere for the totality of their happiness, they end up less happy rather than more happy.
Finally, let’s acknowledge that if we lived according to Christ’s plan for our lives, we would have a zest for living that would know no bounds.
Suppose we lived our lives having as our greatest values love for God and love for others? Suppose instead of burning ourselves out seeking wealth or status, we lived all our lives seeking to expand our divine potential so that we were continually improving our minds, improving our bodies, improving our Spirits–not out of fear, not out of insecurity, not out of greed or lust, but simply out of living fully and completely as children of God? Can you see how much more productive, how much more effective, how much more alive we would be?
This is what saintly living is all about. It is not about cloistering ourselves away from the world–though many saints have found much joy in developing that kind of intense relationship with God. For most of us, though, saintly living is about turning the world of human values on its head. It is about moving from values which are survival-based to values that are faith-based. It is about moving from a life that is self-centered to a life that is God-centered and other-centered. It is about moving from a life in which we are conscious of what we lack to a profound gratitude for all we have. Thus we find true happiness. Thus we find true blessedness.
Jesus was no dewy-eyed dreamer. Just the opposite. Jesus knew that lasting happiness is not found in wealth or a full stomach or the esteem of our friends or even family relationships–though all of these can satisfy for a while. All of these are important. But there is only one source for true and complete happiness–God.