Sermon 9-26-04
The Pursuit of Happiness- 1 Timothy 6:6-19
(view lectionary notes for this text)
As human beings, we spend such a great deal of our lives searching. We search for people with whom to share our lives and our dreams. We search for a place that we can call home, physically and emotionally. We search for a vocation - a career path - that will meet our deepest needs. We search for meaning to this thing called life. We search for success, in the many forms success can take. And we search for God, sometimes at least, or perhaps we just search for something that is bigger than our own selves. But above all, I think we search for happiness, or that thing which we label as "happiness." We want to be happy, and so much of what we do is fueled by a desire to achieve this happiness. We shop because we think things will make us happier. We work harder because we think promotions or raises will make us happier. We eat because we think eating makes us happy, at least temporarily! Just this week, I came across an article in one of my favorite magazines that included a sidebar titled "Recipe for Happiness." The article suggests that you can actually reduce happiness in relationships to an equation - stable relationships have five times as many positive communications or interactions as negative ones. The magazine suggests, consequently, that just trying to send more positive communication signals, we might find that "recipe for happiness." (1) We want to be happy in our relationships, and I think often we even hope that our relationship with God will make us happy. In fact, happiness is so important to us, that in the Declaration of Independence of this country, we declared, courtesy of Thomas Jefferson, that all of us are entitle to none other than life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. We just wanna be happy! Is there anything so wrong with that?
Maybe not. But if happiness is what we want, it seems that we must be looking in all the wrong place, in all the wrong ways. We are not a very happy people. More and more our relationships with each other, be it between spouses or siblings or parents and children or between friends, fall apart because of the hurt and pain we cause one another. More and more, people seek out help because of depression, anxiety, fears, and worries. More and more, we experience violence: in the walls of our own homes, portrayed on the television and in the media, in harsh realities in our global community. More and more, it seems we find our selves feeling more empty than happy. If happiness is what we want, how come we can't seem to find it? Some would suggest that perhaps we are misguided in our desire for happiness. To be happy is asking for an unattainable state. Life isn't about happiness - it's about living. But I would argue that our quest for happiness is not so misguided. It's just that as usual, we humans are going about reaching our goal in the wrong way!
Our Epistle Lesson this morning helps us focus in. Today we turn our attention to a reading from the epistle - or letter - to Timothy from his mentor. Timothy was a young pastor, full of promise and hope, and his mentor writes to encourage him in his ministry. What we read today is a lot packed into a few passages. Basically, the mentor first describes the path of life that many are tempted to take, and then suggests an alternate path for Timothy to follow, one that is much more rewarding, the mentor argues. This section begins with this statement: "Of course, there is great gain in godliness combined with contentment; for we brought nothing into the world, so that we can take nothing out of it, but if we have food and clothing, we will be content with these." Godliness combined with contentment brings great gain. This is sort of the theme the mentor works with here, expanding on it, but his basic premise indeed urges us to seek happiness, or contentment. He follows by suggesting, as we have considered, that we often get confused about the source of our contentment.
Timothy's mentor focuses his warnings around money and the desire to be rich. But I think his words can extend beyond the specifics. We read, "those who want to be rich fall into temptation and are trapped by many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction." Most of us, however, do not think that what we really desire is to be rich, even if it is sometimes hard to tell by our actions. So, for our purposes, I think we could just as easily substitute the word happy into this sentence, and understand its meaning. Revised, we read, "those who want to be happy fall into temptation and are trapped by many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction." Are we sometimes trapped by our quest for happiness? Does our desire for happiness sometimes lead us to "senseless and harmful desires?" Barbara Brown Taylor writes, "When we succeed in cutting ourselves off from each other, when we learn how to live with the misery of other people by convincing ourselves that they deserve it, when we defined our own good fortune as god's blessing and decline to see how our lives are quilted together with all other lives, then we are the losers. Not because of what God will do to us, but because of what we have done to ourselves." (2)
Timothy's mentor does not just stop at these warnings however. He follows up with strong and inspiring words of encouragement. He encourages a life filled with the pursuit of "righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance, and gentleness." Timothy is urged to "fight the good fight of the faith" and to "take hold of the eternal life, to which you were called." Finally, the mentor sums up by sharing what God promises to us: "God . . . richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment," and we can find the "life that really is life."
So, if God promises us this "life that really is life" and promises to provide us with "everything for our enjoyment," then it seems that God is working for our happiness. Then, if God wants us to happy, and we want us to be happy, how come things still aren't working out for us? I think our problem is a matter of what we choose as our foundation. We want to be happy, and we hope that our happiness includes a successful life and a nice relationship with God too. God wants us to have a great relationship with God, and hopes that we understand that our deepest happiness can come as a result of this relationship. Theologian Bruce Epperly writes, "Only the Eternal One can satisfy eternally and infinitely. We can live simply so that others can simply live because we know that true happiness comes from our relationship with God and our neighbors." (3)
Our problem is that instead of seeking God, we are seeking happiness. But in reality, we should be seeking God, who is the source of our happiness. God wants our deepest desire to be for a relationship with God. Instead, our deepest desire is often just to be happy, no matter what provides that happiness for us: God, or something else we might try. But God is the one who wants to offer us that "life that really is life." Sometimes we get an image of what it is to be a faithful Christian and we picture something that is about denial and suffering and opting out of things that most people find fun. And its true, our faith journey sometimes requires us to make choices that are considered unusual by others. But by all means, God wants us to have a full experience of life, the most full and abundant experience of life that anyone can have.
The question for us is: what will we choose to pursue in our lives? Nathanial Hawthorne wrote, "Happiness in this world, when it comes, comes incidentally. Make it the object of pursuit, and it leads us a wild-goose chase, and is never attained. Follow some other object and very possibly we may find that we have caught happiness without dreaming of it." (4) God so desires for us to be happy, for us to have abundant live. But we must begin not by pursuing happiness, but by pursuing God, even as God pursues us. Seek happiness, and you may find a world of disappointment, because our own efforts can never truly fill us, and the promises of money and success and possessions are never as good as they seem. Seek God, and God's blessings will be all around you, as God fills you with abundant love. As we learn to love God and one another and what is inside, instead of other things, and what we can have, we finally have a chance at attaining the happiness that is our heart's desire. The choice is yours: choose to pursue the life that really is life. Amen.
(1) Jennifer Sweeney, "Lessons from the Love Lab," Health Magazine, October 2004, p. 98.
(2) Barbara Brown Taylor, Bread of Angels, Cambridge: Cowley, 1997. p. 112.
(3) Bruce Epperly, Process and Faith Lectionary Pages, http://www.ctr4process.org/pandf/lectionary/Sept26_04.htm
(4) Nathanial Hawthorne, http://www.christianglobe.com/Illustrations/theDetails.asp?whichOne=h&whichFile=happiness