One of the universal human quests is for happiness. The Encyclopaedia doesn't have an article on "happiness", but there is a reference to it in 112 articles! On the other hand, there is a significant article on "liberty or freedom" - the history of human struggle and the acceptance of basic human freedoms. I suppose it is easier to measure freedom than happiness!
In December 1948 the United Nations General Assembly unanimously adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The objective of the 30-article declaration is to promote and encourage respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms. The declaration proclaims the personal, civil, political, economic, social, and cultural rights of humans, which are limited only by recognition for the rights and freedoms of others and the requirements of morality, public order, and general welfare. Among the rights cited by the declaration are the rights to life, liberty, and security of person; to freedom from arbitrary arrest; to a fair trial; to be presumed innocent until proved guilty; to freedom from interference with the privacy of one's home and correspondence; to freedom of movement and residence; to asylum, nationality, and ownership of property; to freedom of thought, conscience, religion, opinion, and expression; to association, peaceful assembly, and participation in government; to social security, work, rest, and a standard of living adequate for health and well-being; to education; and to participation in the social life of one's community…The General Assembly in 1955 authorised two human rights covenants, one relating to civil and political rights, and the other to economic, social, and cultural rights. After a long struggle for ratification, both of these covenants became effective in January 1976. [Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Microsoft ® Encarta. © 1993 Microsoft Corporation. Copyright © 1993 Funk & Wagnall's Corporation]
We have the call and struggle for freedom, the insistence on all sorts of rights - and a deep yearning for happiness in one form or another. Much of our modern life, with all its complexities and contradictions, directly expresses this universal human quest for happiness.
Yet modern life is also a vast illustration of our human failure to obtain happiness. In a sense, a great deal of the confusion and conflict in the world today arises from millions of personal quests for happiness.
A large part of our problem is that we make happiness our goal, whereas it is really the by-product of a life whose focus is elsewhere.
Listen to Psalm 1, "Happy are those who reject the advice of evil men, who do not follow the example of sinners or join those who have no use for God. Instead, they find joy in obeying the Law of the Lord, and they study it day and night. They are like trees that grow beside a stream, that bear fruit at the right time, and whose leaves do not dry up… The evil are not like this at all; they are like straw that the wind blows away…"
What is the Psalmist telling us here? that "evil men", "sinners", "those who have no use for God" don't lead an exciting, "fun" kind of life? No, he wasn't saying that! I doubt if anyone would ever do the wrong thing if they didn't find some pleasure in it!
Many of us know the old hymn,
What is the missing word? Some hymn books have "the pleasures of sin" and others "the follies of sin". What were the anonymous hymn writers original words? I suspect he/she wrote "pleasures". We can feel a real pull, an attraction towards the advice, example and company of those who have no use for God! But in the course of that kind of life there is something inside us that shrivels up because we are out of contact with the source of life. The fun and hilarity are hiding a dying core. Indeed, the Psalmist concludes that "the wicked are on the way to their doom."
So much of what we call happiness is dependent on the right environment and circumstances. But the Psalmist speaks of the happy ones - "the righteous" (the ones who are right with God) - as having secret resources to sustain them even in the time of trial. The power is not in the flower. The fruit depends on the root.
The words of Jesus at the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount - what we call the Beatitudes - stand in sharp contrast to the common assumptions - then or now! In the book, Is God at Home?, J.B. Phillips gives the beatitudes as most people think they should be:
He had come to bring in God's Kingdom. After his temptation we hear him beginning his preaching with the same call as John the Baptist, "Turn away from your sins, because the Kingdom of heaven is near!" (Mt.4.17). He called the four fishermen to learn a new kind of fishing - catching men alive (4.19)! - gathering people into the Kingdom!
The "happy" sayings of Jesus - the Beatitudes - set out a whole series of Kingdom qualities that will be found in those who have come into the Kingdom, whom the King has welcomed as his subjects (vv.3,10). These will see and know God who is invisible (v.8, cf. Heb.11.27; 1 Jn.3.2). These are the ones whom God himself will claim as his children (v.9). True happiness has to do with knowing God, belonging to God's Kingdom, being part of God's family… Hardly the popular view, but then Jesus was one for making true statements, whether popular or not. If we really want to make our life work properly, we had better get back to the Maker's instructions! The fact is that we don't find happiness by seeking happiness. We find God, and discover a deep level of happiness as well!
So happiness comes to those who come to God with true humility, acknowledging their spiritual poverty, grieving the discrepancy between their lives and God's purposes. Their greatest desire is to know and to do what God requires, even though this may well lead to persecution and suffering. They will be known by their care for others - both in mercy and in working for peace.
Later in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus pin-points the anxiety that robs us of this happiness - we pursue it in things that can only, at best, bring passing satisfaction (6.19-31, 24-32). There Jesus insists that we "be concerned above everything else with the Kingdom of God and who he requires of you, and he will provide you with all these other things" (6.33). The wise person will hear the words of Jesus and obey them - that is like the man who built his house on a rock (7.24-27).
By one of those strange twists of language, the word "blessed" - translating this special kind of happiness - seems to have taken on an opposite meaning - "cursed" - in much common usage. Does this, perhaps, represent our human reaction to the divine plan for happiness? Our own plan of autonomous self-fulfilment may prove itself over and over to be unworkable, but we will still stubbornly pursue it - anything but acknowledge our need of God!
Jesus didn't go around Capernaum with a clip-board surveying the people for the eight most popular concepts of happiness. He was simply telling us the truth - that happiness comes to those who seek to know God and to do his will - to the ones who acknowledge their spiritual poverty, to those who mourn, to the humble, to those whose greatest desire is to do what God requires, to the merciful, to the pure in heart, to the peace-workers, to those who are persecuted because they do what God requires. These qualities may not represent the most popular set of circumstances, but they are the key to happiness.
"Turn away from your sins", Jesus said, "because the Kingdom of heaven is near!" In humble trust, let us take our place in that Kingdom - restored at the core, with joy welling up within us and overflowing to those about us.
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