7.13.08 The Road to Happiness #1: Making Happiness the Priority
WESTMINSTER PULPIT
The Rev. Dr. David Thompson
July 13, 2008 The Road to Happiness #1 “Making Happiness THE Priority”
Text: “I have learned in whatever state I am, therewith to be content. I have been through my initiation and now I am ready for anything anywhere, full stomach or empty stomach, poverty or plenty. There is nothing I cannot master with the help of the One who gives me strength.” St Paul
There was a time in my life when I was quite taken with Malcolm Muggeridge, the very famous editor of Punch magazine. In fact I have heard him speak in person and hung on every word. He wrote on the subject of happiness and what he said became foundational in my thinking.
Here is part of what he wrote on this subject: “There is something quite ridiculous and even indecent in an individual claiming to be happy; still more, a people or a nation making such a claim. The pursuit of happiness, included along with life and liberty in the American Declaration of Independence as an inalienable right, is without question the most fatuous that could possibly be undertaken. This lamentable phrase - the pursuit of happiness - is responsible for a good part of the ills and miseries of the modern world. To pursue happiness as a conscious aim is the surest way to miss it altogether.”
I am giving this series over the summer because today I could not disagree more with Malcolm Muggeridge on this subject. In fact I deeply believe now that we can pursue happiness as a conscious aim. This sermon series is based on the delightful little book, Happiness is a Choice, by Neil Kaufman. In the second half of the book he details six shortcuts to happiness and I am basically following his order. To what he is teaching I shall try to bring some insights from the Biblical writers and the Christian tradition.
Why do this? Because I think that as individuals and as a society we need a major course correction. I think that we could all be much happier than we are. There are many wonderful people in Westminster who are not particularly happy and as a pastor I care for them a lot. Why is it that most folks consider that being happy is the dessert on the menu rather than THE first priority?
What have we been conditioned to believe? Kaufman surveyed little children, older children, teens, young couples and singles in their twenties, folks up into their fifties, but only when folks reached into their sixties did he find people declaring in terms of their wants that they wanted to be happy. All of us have wants. Little children identified certain toys, dolls, bicycles, space travel, Lego’s, video games, etc. as “wants” but they didn’t say they wanted to be happy.
High school students wanted a new boyfriend or girlfriend, to do well in sports, to get a driver’s license, have longer vacations, get a car, and have sex or more sex, but again no stated desire to be happy. In colleges and universities there are no courses I know called Happiness 101.
A group in their middle twenties wanted better jobs, more money, better homes or apartments. They did start to talk about having fewer hassles, an easier life and more challenges, better relationships, more respectful children, more personal time. But only sporadically did words like peace, comfort and happiness appear.
But interestingly nearly all groups surveyed said that they wanted all these things because they thought that they would make them happy. They sought happiness as the end product of all their wants and striving, yet they all failed to mention directly this critical concern that underlay all others!
Do you remember Christ’s story of the rich man who built bigger barns? Why did the man do that? Because then he thought that he could relax and be happy and enjoy his wealth. But as Christ points out he didn’t get to do that. He died before he got happy.
How many of us put off happiness in the present moment because we are like the business executive who defers his happiness because he is working all the time on the “bottom line” of his company? Why is he doing that? Because he wants a larger nest egg. Why does he want that? So that he can finally relax and feel comfortable! So he is holding back on his comfort level and working hard all the time in order to be happy at some time in the future.
Why do we make our happiness dependent upon achieving goals? Why not be happy now and then work on our goals? Why are the two mutually exclusive?
Why do we say “I will be happy when my daughter is respectful to me,” or “when my spouse is respectful to me,” or “when the boss gives me a raise”, or “when I lose weight”, or “when I graduate with a Ph.D., I will be happy when I get a new fuel efficient car.”
St Paul was a man who went through many hardships. But in the lesson today he talks about going through an initiation. He says that he has learned that whatever state he is in therewith to be content. He can be rich or poor, with a full stomach or an empty stomach. It makes no difference. He says that there in nothing he cannot master with the help of the One who gives him strength.
By this passage he indicates that he has made a significant learning: His happiness does not depend on circumstances or acquisitions of the things that riches can bring. He can be content or happy either way. What was the initiation?
He encountered Christ on the Damascus road when he was headed in the wrong direction with his life. That was step one. But that encounter was only the beginning. He got thrown in jail, beaten, whipped, persecuted, and once he had to escape from his killers by being lowered in a basket over a city wall. But in these things he learned, perhaps through the good times and the bad that he could through Divine help change his attitude to them. He learned contentment and that there was nothing that he could not master.
I believe that we too can master the art of happiness. Let’s look at one of our hang-ups. We have been taught by many people and teachers that happiness cannot be sought directly. Anthony DeMellow says that it is a mistaken idea that we can pursue our own happiness. Why? Because happiness he says is always a consequence. Muggeridge and DeMellow here are on the same page. And there is enormous truth in what they say. But pursuing happiness and having happiness as a consequence do not have to be exclusionary. We can do and have both!
Jesus is interesting in his Beatitudes. Jesus links happiness in the present with a joy in the future: happy are the poor in spirit, their”s is the Kingdom of heaven; happy are the gentle, they shall have (note the future tense all the time), they shall have the earth for their heritage. Happy are those who mourn? What on earth does he mean? Happy are those who mourn, (note the future tense again) they shall be comforted.
Thus for Jesus, there is this relationship between the future and the present, which results in happiness NOW. Do you remember the verse about when Jesus was facing his death in Jerusalem? The Scriptures say “For the joy that was set before him he endured the cross and the grave.” We can assume that Jesus is teaching us something very important. We can choose happiness in the present by bringing hope from the future into the present moment and being happy now as we will be then. What a clever idea! It is the very same idea he teaches when he says: Whatsoever things you ask for in prayer, believe that you have them already and they shall be yours! The future is brought forward into the present.
What is behind this teaching? We find that out in the book of Proverbs and it is marvelous once we get it. Whoever trusts in the Lord: Happy is he! Linking the future and the present is done by trust in God. As St Paul says there is nothing I cannot master with the help of the One who gives me strength. Thus happiness in the present is achieved by faith in God, believing that God will live up to God’s promises and celebrating that in the present moment. That is why St Paul said “I have learned that whatever state I am in therewith to be content.” Rich or poor, full or empty of stomach St Paul is happy. He has been initiated into a great secret, of living the future in the present. Note it is the positive future not the negative future! Many of us are just great at projecting our future fears into the present, which makes us miserable. But what Jesus and St Paul suggest is the very opposite of that fear-filled process and so it has the very opposite result. We become happy now!
But we need something more. The truth I want to convey today has two distinct facets. I would qualify DeMellow and Muggeridge to argue that happiness can be pursued directly. They are right I believe to say that happiness is a consequence, but wrong when they say it cannot be pursued as an end in itself. Simply put, I think that God intended us to be happy and that we can by decision take a short cut to that happiness. How do we do that? We make happiness a priority. How does this work?
A lawyer who attended one of Kaufman’s workshops decided to prioritize happiness. She went into court to litigate for her clients. She noticed that they were very anxious and so she surprised herself by saying: “Let’s remember that we want to present a strong case, but even more important we want to give ourselves a happy experience!” Her clients gaped at her! But one of them took her seriously. He relaxed his shoulders, eased his overly tight grip on his attaché case and found himself relatively unmoved by the misinformation presented by the opposition. He found himself able to respond very clearly to questions and that he had an attitudinal advantage. And he outperformed himself!
This lawyer now has a growing reputation as a lawyer who makes happiness a part of the legal experience. Her clients are encouraged to give themselves as best they can a comfortable, peaceful and happy experience even while being involved in a messy divorce, or a child custody dispute or whatever.
Kaufman says: “Why do we make happiness the dessert on the menu? Next time a lover scolds us, a coworker criticizes us, a child screams or a parent scolds, we can use that event to remind ourselves that first and foremost we want to be happy. In effect we decide not to push any unhappiness or misery buttons. We have the power to make that choice. Even in the face of an attack or a treasure lost we can affirm our first priority in every situation- to be happy.”
St Paul argued that there was nothing he could not master.
These California fires where people have lost everything so tragically remind me of a story told by Kaufman of a woman and her husband who lost their home. At 1:00 a.m. she stood barefoot with her husband, son and daughter, shivering as she watched firemen hopelessly battle a blaze which consumed their house. The flames destroyed treasured gifts, favorite pieces of furniture and photographs, and the videos that documented their lives. Everything disappeared right before her eyes!
At first she tensed, overcome by the event. Then she remembered her decision for happiness as a priority. She knew that if she was to get there she would have to drop her judgments of the situation. She did so and put her arms around her husband and children and whispered, “We are alive. We are all alive! Isn’t that wonderful?!” Her daughter smiled. Her son nodded, and then sighed his relief. The tension in her husband’s face dissipated. Then this woman, eying her home, said a silent goodbye to all the souvenirs of their personal history.
When the walls of her house collapsed, she smiled like a little girl watching fireworks. She decided she would greet the next day by welcoming the new circumstances which this event precipitated. From the ashes came the clear awareness that she always possessed the freedom to be happy. This, I put to you, is Mastery!If that was possible for her, if that was possible for St Paul who sang in jail after he was beaten up, then it is possible for anyone of us! The pain, the suffering, the difficulty will have initiated us into choosing happiness.
Anyone of us can decide to make happiness THE priority. Then we will be able to say with St. Paul: “I have learned that whatever state I am in, therewith to be content. I have been through my initiation and now I am ready for anything anywhere, full stomach or empty stomach, poverty or plenty. There is nothing I cannot master with the help of the One who gives me strength.”
May God bless us all!
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