Happiness - The greatest gift that I possess?

There is the Ken Dodd song that has the words, "Happiness, happiness, the greatest gift that I possess I thank the Lord that I possess more than my fair share of happiness."

We live in a world that still more than anything else wants to be happy, the pursuit of pleasure and the avoidance of pain. This involves living in peace with other people, by which we mean the absence of open conflict.

I sometimes feels I live in a culture that is not pursuing life, but living death. Aldous Huxley in Brave New World has a dystopian vision of a world living on Soma, a drug which keeps everyone happy - but by doing so removes meaning from the world. Probably most of the population of Britain would be happy with that idea. We seek happiness in pleasure, in material possessions, in the sexual possession of people, and in being comfortable. We live in a feel good world, and we want to feel good.

When we enter the church we do not leave this baggage at the door, because we do not even think of it as baggage. Indeed, it is very hard to identify baggage that has been with us for so long that we see it as us. Therefore when we come to church we want a church that will make us happy, that will make us feel good, that will keep us from pain, and that will make us comfortable.

We argue that God will help us to be happy far better than the devil's ways, but we do not question whether indeed we are pursuing the right goals, and how "Don't worry be happy!" really fits with, "If anyone wants to come after me, let him deny himself, pick up his cross and follow me." Matt 16v24. Now of course it is easy to pick out one verse and take it too far, but there are other verses and there is the life of those followers of Jesus who are recorded in the Bible. One of the most comprehensive summaries being Hebrews 11v32-39. Just a short extract says, "36Some faced jeers and flogging, while still others were chained and put in prison. 37They were stoned^[f]; they were sawed in two; they were put to death by the sword." v36-37a.

Really being a Christian what more could you want? What is even better the passage states, " 39These were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised." Great, really great. So you get sawed in two, you get killed, and you still do not get what you were promised.

Reminds me of the old quip attributed to St Teresa of Avalla when having a bad day, "God, if this is how you treat your friends, it's not surprising you have so many enemies." Not really a case of keep taking the happy pills.

Following Jesus is not easy, and does not automatically lead to increased happiness. Moses suffered alienation from his own people and from the Egyptians, and the years spent tending sheep cannot have been easy. Joseph had done his time in Jail. David seems to have never really enjoyed what really matters, when you take a step back he had a heart after God, but he was perhaps a pretty dysfunctional creative genius. Jesus was rejected and crucified, Paul had a very difficult time, and probably ten out of the remaining Eleven Disciples were martyred.

If life is just about material happiness then Christians are losers. Paul comments, 1 Cor 15:19 "If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men."

We believe, whether we like it or not, in something that is bigger than life itself. We cannot escape the fact that either we have a hope of heaven, or our sufferings are in vain.

How we believe affects how we behave, indeed conversely sometimes how we behave tells more about what we believe than what we say we believe. We need to regain a sense of eternity, we need to regain a sense that we have a God who is bigger than life itself. That the concerns of this current age, or not ultimately our concerns, we were created for more and we have been redeemed for more.

Church buildings used to awe people with a sense of something bigger than themselves, today tiny in comparison with the shopping centres that instead block out the light in our City Centres we have lost sight of the fact that there is something bigger than all this. The answer to the plight of the church is not that God can make you happy, but that there is not just something bigger than happiness but someone.

Happiness is not and cannot be pursued as an end in itself, happiness for happiness sake makes us emotionally paralysed, happiness is a by-product not an end-product. Paul talks about joy, he talks about contentment, intermingled with suffering. Jesus is focussed on love, He promises peace and joy, but also a cross.

Ultimately we were created for something bigger, for something more. In a world that is addicted to happiness, it is easy for us as Christians to sing from the world's hymn sheet and say Jesus can make you happy. Except sometimes following Jesus can be very hard, and it forces us to put aside the things that in worldy terms we think make us happy. The Church therefore must point the world, like the Spire on a traditional church, heavenwards. To a world that is addicted to the moment, to the here and now, we present eternity. The Kingdom of Heaven is near, that it can and does break through into our reality.