Truly Happy

Psalm 1

What would it take for you to be happy? Have you ever taken time to really think about that? Part of living in a consumer society means we are constantly bombarded by messages seeking to convince us that the secret to happiness lies in covering up our grey hairs in our beards, eliminating the crows feet around our eyes, and drinking a great tasting lite beer with only half the calories! Materialism thrives if we, as consumers, can be taught to belief that happiness comes from stuff. But it doesn’t really, or does it? I’ve seen a kid playing with their favorite toy, and you can’t tell me they’re not happy as they do it. But is their happiness coming from the toy, or from someplace else? Does true, lasting happiness come from without, or within?

There are some who, believing that they know what it would take to make themselves happy, are willing to pursue their own happiness at almost any cost even at the cost of the happiness of others. This attitude or willingness to live at the expense of others is proven time and again to go against the instruction of God. And sometimes it is explicitly God’s instruction that we oppose in pursuing our own presumed happiness or well-being (see Genesis 3: Adam and Eve and the snake). On account of this opposition to God’s will, such selfishness is sinful and is often spoken of in Scripture as “wickedness.”

Certainly, there is an appeal to doing whatever it takes to make oneself happy, and such actions are typically pretty easy to justify or sweep under the rug. “I’m not doing anything that bad, and it makes me happy…so what’s the harm?” Or if we’re made aware of the way our behavior negatively impacts someone else’s well-being or happiness we justify ourselves by thinking, “they would have done the same thing in my position,” or “well such-and-such time ago so-and-so behaved this way against me.” How quickly we get sucked into this tempting cycle of selfishness.

Later on in Psalms, we see the Psalmist both lament and be lured by this wickedness. In Psalm 73, the writer bemoans the prosperity of the wicked while the righteous suffer: “It seems like I’ve kept my heart pure for no good reason, I’ve stayed innocent for nothing, I’m weighed down all day long, I’m punished every morning.” And in Psalm 137, we hear the Psalmists great suffering give way to the tempting thoughts of imagining that his enemies would suffer, too. Caution, the following text contains disturbing language that might not be suitable for children (It’s directly from Psalm 137): “Babylon, you destroyer! Happy is the one who pays you back for every deed you did to us! Happy is the one who seizes your children and smashes them against the rock!”

Back to Psalm 1. The truly happy person does not “follow the advice of the wicked,” that is to say, allow themselves to be tempted into justifying their participation in the sin of selfishness. Contrary to wickedness, which opposes God’s will, the truly happy person “takes delight in the LORD’s instruction.” You’re probably familiar with Hebrew word for “instruction” or “law.” It’s torah, and for the people of Israel torah indicates a rich heritage and collection of commands, laws, legal guidelines. I read somewhere that the torah contains 613 commandments. So it is in meditating on and reciting these that true happiness is found.

The problem is that the temptation to wickedness doesn’t leave us alone when we read scripture. This is why we always pray that God’s Spirit would inhabit and illumine us before we read from the Bible, to combat the temptation to listen selfishly. With so many commandments, it can be tempting to cherry-pick our favorite ones that agree with what we already think or feel. I’m sure you’ve seen people doing this…using scripture to justify their own wickedness. Just because they’re quoting scripture doesn’t make their intentions in doing so any less wicked. With so many commandments, it can be easy to miss the forest for the trees. Fortunately for us, Jesus reminds us of the forest when he summarizes all of the laws in these two commands: Love God and love your neighbor.

Thus we cannot cherry-pick from any of the other commandments in order to do harm to God or our neighbor. I mean…we can, but it won’t really make us happy. When asked about the secret to finding true happiness, the Archbishop Desmond Tutu has this to say: “Ultimately our greatest joy is when we seek to do good for others.”[1] Is that really all there is to it? If we can somehow find a way to bypass the temptation to care so darn much about ourselves all the time and look for that of God to celebrate and serve in our neighbor, then we’ll find true happiness.

Tutu continues: “It’s how we are made. I mean we are wired to be compassionate. We are wired to be caring for the other and generous to one another. We shrivel when we are not able to interact. I mean that is part of the reason why solitary confinement is such a horrendous punishment. We depend on the other in order for us to be fully who we are….Unfortunately, in our world we tend to be blind to our connection until times of great disaster.”[2] And then the Dalai Lama jumped in to the conversation (that’s right, the Dalai Lama, a Buddhist, and Archbishop Desmond Tutu, a Christian, are profoundly close friends who do not demean or belittle one another for their different faiths. They love, and respect, and cherish one another finding joy in the relationship and wisdom in the places where they don’t see eye-to-eye)…anyhow, as I was saying, the Dalai Lama spoke up to add this: “From the point of view of one’s own happiness, [money or fame or power] are shortsighted…One individual, no matter how powerful, how clever, cannot survive without other human beings. So the best way to fulfill your wishes, to reach your goals, is to help others, to make more friends.

“How do we create more friends? Trust. How do you develop trust? It’s simple: you show your genuine sense of concern for their well-being. Then trust will come. But if behind an artificial smile, or a big banquet, is a self-centered attitude deep inside of you, then there will never be trust.” When I hear the Dalai Lama say this, I think of the Pharisee who spoke up after Jesus summarized the two greatest commands, “Love God, and love your neighbor”, to ask the question, “But who is my neighbor?” He was asking for the sake of drawing a line, to limit the scope of God’s command. The Dalai Lama continues, “If you are thinking how to exploit, how to take advantage of [your neighbor], then you can never develop trust in others. Without trust, there is no friendship…Friends for money, friends for power are artificial friends.”[3]

What would it take for you to be truly happy? To know and do God’s will. What is God’s will? That you love your neighbor and do them no harm. Who is your neighbor? Everyone, including, and especially, those whom your inner wickedness would tempt you to reject. To follow such teaching will make some of the things we do or say seem foolish when judged by the wisdom of the world. But Euripedes once wisely quipped that when you “speak wisdom to a fool he will call you foolish.” I would rather be seen as foolish for pursuing true happiness through God’s wisdom, than to be the miserable fool who keeps on sinning against others hoping that it will make him feel better. Love. That is all there is to being truly happy. Love. Love. Love. Amen.

[1] Lama, Dalai, Desmond Tutu, and Douglas Abrams. The Book of Joy. Page 59.

[2] Ibid. Page 60

[3] Ibid. Page 61-62