The Happiness Illness

Did you know that March 20th is International Happiness Day? I don't know who invented the holiday, maybe Hallmark card? It's certainly not on the list of holy days in any Christian calendar that I've ever seen. But how perfect for us Americans. Another day in the pursuit of happiness. How about buy-more-stuff day? Or Feel-good day? Or stuff-yourself-silly day? Here is a day dedicated not to any role model or meaningful issue but simply to the idea that you should be happy. Oh, and by the way, what do you do on international happiness day if you are grieving or sad or just in a bad mood? I guess that you should just crawl back in bed and pray for tomorrow?

The truth is that we have become a bit ill in our consumerist world. We have fallen prey to the myth that to be happy is the greatest goal in life. And even more than that, we have come to believe that you can buy happiness, or exercise it onto you somehow, or vacation into it. By golly, if you look good and you're beautiful then you will be happy! And worst of all, if by some reason all of this self-absorption and feelings-centered reasoning still leaves you moody, the implication is that there is something wrong with you. You should be happy! Our ads scream. MAKE YOURSELF HAPPY!! We have become plagued by The Happiness Illness.

Jesus said these words two thousand years ago. Up until this week, I ran away from these words because I didn't really understand them. He said, "those who love their life lose it and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life." 

We are supposed to hate our lives? That just never sounded right to me. Our lives can be frustrating and sad and full of pain but to HATE them? Could that really be what Jesus meant when God created us and gave us life? Why would God want us to hate what he had made? It made no sense to me.

So I spent some time studying the Ancient Greek of the gospels. The word Jesus used is m-i-s-e-o. It is a word whose meaning is to hate in the sense of renouncing, to give up, to hand over.

Renounce. Let go. Reject...We are supposed to renounce our lives.  And then Jesus is very specific by including three key words IN THIS WORLD. You are supposed to renounce or give up your life IN THIS WORLD and live for heaven, live for God, live for the life eternal...live for the real deal.

Have you ever thought about the symbol of our faith? A cross. They are everywhere in our world, on top of buildings and on graveyard stones, engraved in rings or suspended on a chain around a persons neck. The cross is the ultimate symbol of Christianty. How strange that a symbol of torture would embody a faith...the symbols of other religions are all more upbeat- a six-pointed Star of David, the crescent moon of Islam, a lotus blossom for Buddhism. And for us--an instrument of execution.

Would you put a firing squad on your business card? Wear a tiny electric chair around your neck? Suspend a gold hangman noose on your wall?  Don't forget what a cross really is. It is a symbol of death.

The cross reminds us of what Jesus is talking about here. That we must be willing to die to ourselves, that our lives are not first and foremost about making ourselves happy.

My son Luke got his drivers license on Friday. And I am a nervous wreck. I want to hold onto him. I don't want him hurtling down the highway at 60 miles an hour. I don't want him to risk his life. I want him home. But he is going to drive. And I have to let go.

And if I don't let go and give him the freedom, he will not grow into the man that God wants him to be. I will crush him. I cannot hold onto his life any more than I can hold onto mine. I want him safe, I want him happy. But I must let him go and renounce all my motherly instincts, send him him out onto the highway of life.

When you wonder what to do with your life, most of us ask first and foremost if this thing will make us happy. Luke is already thinking about college about a career and people ask him all the time, "what do you want to do?" Not "what is God asking of you" but "what would make you happy?" No wonder our young people don't know what to do with their lives. We are asking them to pursue happiness and no one can make themselves happy. 

What if we asked, first off, how can I serve God? How can I renounce my own pleasure and give it away instead? What does God ask of me? Where does the world need me?

Brad Dowling, neurofibromatosis...

Kimberly Ham, a reporter, did all kinds of research on how to make yourself happy. And guess what she found? It had nothing to do with your looks, your health, your money, or even your family situation. The number one thing that makes you happy is...giving.

GIVING. Do you mean doing something for someone else? Yes. The best way to make yourself happy is to try to make someone else happy. How ironic. How paradoxical.

In other words, you have to give up your life if you want to really live. You have to let go of making yourself happy and give your life away to be happy. Give your money. Give your time. Give yourself to things not because they will make you happy but because God needs you.  The goal of your life cannot be your own gratification, that is a recipe for disaster. No, you must lose your life for God, give it all to God. 

God really wants your help in this crazy, broken world. And it is the forces of darkness that distract us into thinking we can't do anything unless it makes us happy. Was Jesus always happy? Most of the time he was totally exhausted, actually. He fell asleep on boats and climbed mountains to get some peace. And I'm darned sure that he was not happy on the cross but that was the best thing that he ever did!

Things are changing. People are going to church now when it is convenient, just enough to make themselves not feel guilty, when they are not doing something like vacations and hobbies and sports and eating out. One lady came up to me on Christmas Eve in the receiving line and proudly announced, "I come here every year!" 

It is easy to go to church for the purpose of making yourself happy. Did the sermon feed me? Did I feel moved? Was the music good? But none of these are the reasons to come to church. Christians have been going to church on the morning of the first day of the week for thousands of years because it is a concrete way of saying to God, "My life belongs to you. I put you first. I will worship you in the first hours of the first day of the week. I DIE to self and LIVE for you!"

I want you to combat The Happiness Illness. Don't buy into the myth. Your happiness is not the most important thing in the word. There is something so much more important and so much more meaningful and that is your salvation, your heart's growth, the journey of your soul.

The crowds have poured downtown for these basketball games. It is awesome. I wish people would pour into church that way. I wish our problems had to do with crowding and people screaming and lack of parking. What if we came to church with the same enthusiasm that we come to a game? Cheering for GOD!

You know, the evangelicals have something with that altar call. It gives people the invitation to hand themselves over to Christ, again and again and again. To hand your life over, hand over your happiness. You don't need to worry about your mood anymore. It is just not that important.

I told my evangelical friend something recently that I truly believe. We at the cathedral, we do an altar call every week. And everyone comes up. Everyone!

So when you walk forward to receive Christ's body and blood, hand over your very self. No more worry about the mindless chasing of happiness. No more cheering for the wrong team. Fight the Happiness Illness. Your first priority is no longer your own pleasure. Give yourself over to the mystery of the cross.  

Are We Ashamed?

It took a long time to tell others my story of how I came to church.  Some of you have heard it but I want to make sure that all of you know how it happened.

When I was a little girl my dad was very depressed.  He couldn't get out of bed sometimes.  During one period, he stayed in bed for three months.  He would weep and cry.  I used to pray by sending letters to God in my head.  "Dear God," I would write, "Please help my dad.  Thank you for life, love, Kate." 

My first memory of church was of two things, beauty and safety.  The people seemed so solid, it was as if that they loved me already.  And I just felt that I could relax.  It was beyond words, a presence of God that I felt deep inside and it was so beautiful.  When my mother, who was a concert pianist, would practice in the church, I would take off my shoes and run and slide down the aisles in my socks.  There was no place I would rather be.  Church was where there was love and laughter and church was where I found God.  It was the single most important aspect of my life, the fact that I went to church.  I don't know where I would be, who I would be, without it.

When I meet with parents to get ready for their baby’s baptism, I ask them what qualities they most want to see in their child as he or she grows into adulthood.  Most parents say similar things.  They want their child to grow to be good and honest.  They want them to give something back to the world.  But when the parents look deep in their hearts, they realize that there is nothing more important to them than the fact that their child have faith in God and love Jesus.  And one of the most important places that can lead them to develop that faith and love is right here in church.  In fact, there is nothing more important than coming to church – not going to school or soccer practice or violin.  There is nothing more important than developing our relationship with God, and so much of that happens here in this place.

My son Luke is at a boarding school up north, just outside of Princeton, New Jersey.  It was his idea to go and I have missed him like mad, but he has learned a lot.  You see, it is a different world up north.  The winds of secularism blow there with a force.  When people ask Luke about himself and he says that he is a Christian, they assume he is male chauvinist, racist, and judgmental.  They think he is backward and some kind of redneck from the south, out of touch with reality.  They have a chaplain at the school who is an Episcopal priest.  He has been instructed by the school administration not to say “The Lord” or “Jesus.”  At the end of the service, he says, "Go in peace to love and serve."  People at Luke’s school talk freely about the Buddha or Islam or Hinduism, but not Jesus.  It is taboo to say Jesus.  They mock the name of Jesus.  And those who are Christians are, for the most part, afraid to acknowledge it.

Luke is one of only two students in the whole school who go to church on Sunday.  He has found a small Methodist church near his dorm.  They love him there.  I think that he finds the same kind of love and acceptance that I found so long ago – the presence of God in community.

What is happening?  The church that I found as a child saved my life.  It taught me about the grace and love of Jesus.  But up north, people are staying home.  As at Luke’s school, many are ashamed to admit if they have a Christian background.  The churches are small and struggling.  It looks like the end of Christendom.  It is no longer normal to go to church – it is counter-cultural and can get you labeled and branded as a bigot or worse.  But don’t kid yourselves.  These winds of secularism are not just blowing up north.  These winds are blowing here, too.  As I have said before, my friends, there is a storm brewing, and so many people are living in a pup tent while the hurricane is bearing down on them.

What is happening to our world?  Christians are being slaughtered in the Middle East every week.  And even at home, we are slowly becoming reviled, considered out of date and out of touch.

And you know what?  All of this is a great blessing.  Let me say that again.  The fact that the world reviles us is a great blessing.

When Jesus spoke to his disciples, he told them that he was going to have to suffer.  Peter could not handle that thought, and argued, "No, Lord," you are the Son of God, you should not suffer!"  To which Jesus responded with these harsh words, "Get behind me, Satan! You are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things." 

Where is your mind set?  Is it set on money, power, prestige, friends, comfort?  If so, your mind is set on human things.  God wants us to not be ashamed of Him.  God is calling us back – back to the time of the early Christians when it was not popular or even safe to go to church.

Jesus said that those who are ashamed of him, well, he will be ashamed of them when the time comes.  And, for me, the thought of Christ being ashamed of me is a truly scary thought.

If I asked you, I don’t think any of you would say that you are ashamed of Jesus.  But do your actions speak otherwise?  Are you willing to speak the name of Jesus at work, at play, at any place you find yourself?  Or do you find yourself hesitant, holding back, afraid you might offend, afraid that others might treat you differently? If that’s the case, then you have made a strong statement to the world.  And believe me, it’s NOT the statement that Jesus wants you to make.

We Episcopalians are a funny breed.  We don't want to offend.  We don't want to sound pompous.  We want others to like us.  So we are subtle in our evangelism, IF we even evangelize at all.  But Jesus is calling us to speak aloud about what the church means to us and to not be ashamed.  Remember, if we are ashamed of him, he will be ashamed of us.

My friends, RIGHT NOW we have the opportunity to really stake our claim for God.  RIGHT NOW, when you come here to church, you are choosing to come despite having all kinds of other options – TV and coffee shops, extra sleep and shopping, reading the paper or travel.  RIGHT NOW, you are giving up many things to come here.  When you start your week with church, you are saying, I give my PRIME TIME to Jesus.  I am NOT ashamed.  He is the most important one in my life.  I would give my life for him. 

Now is the time.  We must begin to speak about our faith to people out on the streets because they are hungry for the love of God and don't even know it yet.  

In London, there is an old historic church called the Steeple Church.  They have a big lawn outside their building.  The church was aging and small but young at-risk youth would gather on the lawn to talk, bask in the sun, or play music.  One day, some of the members of the church came outside with hot chocolate.  They did not invite the kids inside immediately, but gave out the hot chocolate and listened to them.  And week after week, they would bring hot chocolate and listen.  The kids began to call their time together “hot chocolate.”  And then, after a few months, one of the members of the church asked them, "If we gave you some rooms in the church, what would you use them for? What would you like to do?"  They mentioned just hanging out, playing music. And so the church gave them space during the week.  And often, if you walked into the old sanctuary, you could hear heavy metal music being played or teenagers talking and laughing.  And soon those teenagers were wandering into worship.  They wanted to know more about this place that had opened its arms to them without question. 

I don't think any of us would say we were ashamed of church or of Jesus.  But if that is true, why are we afraid to admit who we are?  Why are we not inviting people inside?  Why are we not listening carefully to people's lives and offering Jesus to them when they seem lonely or afraid?  Why are we so hesitant?

There is a storm brewing.  In fact, it is almost upon us.  It is time for us to speak the truth about who we are as Christians.  It is time for us to speak the name of Jesus without hesitation.  Are you ashamed?