BIBLE READINGS: 1 Corinthians 15:12-20 Luke 6:17-26

SERMON

If you're happy and you know it clap your hands. By the sounds of it, not many of you are very happy today? Let's try that again, if you're happy and you know it clap your hands. Well that was a bit better, but I still wouldn't describe that as a thunderous outpouring of happiness. There are a number of reasons we may be reluctant to "clap" our happiness. It may be that we are not a very happy bunch, but I doubt it. It might be that we are uncomfortable openly expressing our happiness.

I have a friend who says he has to remind his brain to tell his face to smile when he is happy. It could also be that we do not even recognise that we are happy. We take so much for granted in our lives, and can get into such a hectic routine, that we may not take the time to realise that we have many blessings for which we actually are happy. Or it is even possible that we are trying to determine how happy we are based on criteria that probably won't make us happy anyway. We are constantly being told by advertisers that we would be happier if we were wealthier; especially if we won the lottery or invested in the right superannuation fund; or if we took the right vitamins; or wore the right clothes, or that we could have a perpetual smile on our face if we owned the right car. Many people seem to be in the continual pursuit of something or someone that will make them happy.

Luke tells us that scores of people came from 100's of kilometres away, to see Jesus and that, "they had come to hear him and to be healed of their diseases; and all in the crowd were trying to touch him, for power came out from him." It sounds like people were coming to Jesus saying, "Jesus, make us happy!" They wanted Jesus to say something inspiring or do something miraculous, and he did, but then Jesus went on to say that there is a contentment, a blessedness that goes beyond the feelings of superficial happiness. He said true blessing rarely comes from the places we expect; not from wealth, or health, or being popular, but from of all places, being poor, being hungry, weeping, and being persecuted. In fact Jesus went so far as to say that the people who have everything they want will rarely experience true happiness.

Jesus had come down from a mountain to a level place to talk to the crowds, he met people where they were, mingling with the average folk who came to him, and even making the effort to spend time with the sick, and poor, and outcasts whom everyone else avoided. By doing this Jesus was saying, "Who you are is OK. You are loved. You are blessed by God. You can find true happiness right where you are. You don't have to try to be someone you are not, or to have something you don't have in order to be happy. Look at your life where you are right now, and you may be surprised to discover just how happy and blessed you are without even recognising it.

You don't have to be ashamed of being poor, or sick, or in grief, or made fun of, in fact these experiences may allow you to be in touch with life on a level you have never experienced before. Wherever you are, whatever you are going through, there is the potential to experience happiness. If you are always looking for happiness around the next corner, you probably won't see it when it comes. Someone once said - “There is something sadder than shedding tears, and that is not being able to shed them. There is something more harmful to life than being hungry, and that is not appreciating the food you have. There is something worse than being persecuted for what you believe in and that is not believing strongly enough in anything that you would be willing to be persecuted for.”

Happiness is not something we receive from the outside. We can't just put a funnel on the top of our head and pour in happiness, though it seems many try. True joy comes from within; from knowing we are loved, from loving ourselves; from feeling good about who we are. People who are rich and famous and powerful are not more blessed or even necessarily more happy, in fact those things can be a curse, because if we clutch too tightly the superficial things we think will make us happy, we may not be able to experience happiness without them, or be open to receive the kind of happiness Jesus is talking about.

If Jesus were to speak to us today he might say: "Woe to you who are rich, to you who spend more money in a year on lottery tickets and on coffee than on helping your neighbours, for you have already received your comfort. Woe to you who are well fed now and who throw food in the garbage everyday, for some day you will go hungry. Woe to you who laugh now, ignoring the sorrow of others around you for one day you will mourn and weep and there may be no one to reach out to you."

These sound like harsh words, and they are. Luke tells us that when Jesus spoke words like these to the throngs gathered around him, he looked directly at his closest followers, in a sense saying, "if you want to follow me, it won't be all fun and games. I will not make you rich and comfortable, but I can help you to be happy by knowing that you are blessed, that you are loved, and that by following me you can be fulfilled."

The fact is that our inability to be happy is probably not because we need more money, or because we pay too much in taxes. Our happiness problems are usually not material but spiritual: problems of attitude, problems of the heart. Medical science tells us one of the leading causes of death in the Western world is heart disease. In today's scripture readings Jesus tells us that the leading cause of spiritual death is the very same thing - a disease of the heart, a heart that does not allow itself to love, to share, to have faith.

Now this does not mean that Jesus is condemning the quest for happiness, or for blessedness, rather he are trying to point out to us where it may be found. It is found in trusting God, and in living as God desires. It is found in seeking contentment more in what we have than in what we want, in hungering for justice, in crying with those who hurt, in speaking the truth even when others do not welcome it.

Just a few verses before this passage in Luke's Gospel, we are told that Jesus quoted Isaiah saying he had come to preach good news to the poor, and freedom for the captive. Now on the surface that may sound paradoxical to what he is saying in today's passage, that you can find happiness in being poor or oppressed, but Jesus is not saying it is necessarily a good thing to be poor, or hungry or in sorrow, or marginalized, but rather that in those low times of life we can sometimes experience the grace of God, the love of others, and our own internal strength more profoundly than when everything goes the way we want. And Jesus himself lived and taught that we should do all that we can to relieve the pain and hardship of others, while recognising that in our own lives, those times of trial can in fact strengthen us.

In essence I think what Jesus was trying to say is this, "Blessed are those who do not fool themselves into thinking they are totally self-reliant, rather blessed are those who let themselves trust God and love each other." Sometimes we may think that we don't need anyone, that we can solve every problem on our own, and that people who do need help must be weak. For many that false sense of self-sufficiency went out the window when the power went off. The fact is we do need each other; we need each other's skill, we need each other's help, we need each other's hope, we need each other's love, and as Jeremiah reminds us, we need God.

The vision of happiness Jesus has is not Casino happiness, not the false belief that having more will make us happier, because if we base our happiness on what we have, we will never have enough, and if we base our happiness on what we want, we will find that we always want more.

We can never really judge how happy a person is by the size of their smile, because sometimes, even when we can not smile, we can know our blessings, and trust in the strength of others and of God to carry us through.

Eugene Peterson’s "The Message," provides us with a new way of looking at this passage…

"You're blessed when you've lost it all. God's kingdom is there for the finding. You're blessed when you're ravenously hungry. Then you're ready for the Messianic meal. You're blessed when the tears flow freely. Joy comes with the morning. Count yourself blessed every time someone cuts you down or throws you out, every time someone smears or blackens your name to discredit me. What it means is that the truth is too close for comfort and that person is uncomfortable. You can be glad when that happens - skip like a lamb, if you like! - for even though they don't like it, I do...and all heaven applauds. And know that you are in good company; my preachers and witnesses have always been treated like this.

But it's trouble ahead if you think you have it made. What you have is all you'll ever get. And it's trouble ahead if you're satisfied with yourself. Your self will not satisfy you for long. And it's trouble ahead if you think life's all fun and games. There's suffering to be met, and you're going to meet it. There's trouble ahead when you live only for the approval of others, saying what flatters them, doing what indulges them. Popularity contests are not truth contests - look how many scoundrel preachers were approved by your ancestors! Your task it to be true, not popular."