November 3, 2002
Matthew 5:1-12
Happiness or Joy?
It's been about a year now since the word Enron first entered our everyday vocabulary. Since then we have seen a parade of unprecedented corporate implosions. No one saw this coming, but should that really surprise us? Maybe we should have seen it coming. Perhaps the whole business is inevitable conclusion to the greed hysteria of the so called "new economy" of the mid and late 90's.
I saw a rather clever description of the Enron Affair this week. Perhaps you've seen it. It's an over-simplification of course, but yet contains some pertinent points. It's a definition of various types of political/economic systems based on the personal ownership of two cows. For example:
Feudalism: You have two cows. You keep the cows but your king takes most of the milk.
Fascism: You have two cows. The government takes both, hires you to take care of them, and sells the milk.
Totalitarianism: You have two cows. The government takes them both and denies they ever existed and drafts you into the army. Milk is banned.
Capitalism: You have two cows. You sell one and buy a bull. Your herd multiplies, and the economy grows. You sell them and retire on the income.
Enron Venture Capitalism: You have two cows. You sell three of them to your publicly listed company, using letters of credit opened by your brother-in-law at the bank. You then execute a debt/equity swap with an associated general offer so that you get four cows back, with a tax exemption for five cows. The milk rights of six cows are transferred to a Cayman Island company secretly owned by a majority shareholder who sells the rights to seven cows back to your listed company. The annual report says the company owns eight cows, with an option to buy a ninth.
In response to the Enron collapse there is a church in Houston that responded in a unique way. When Enron laid off some 4000 people last thanksgiving, Palmer Memorial Church was profoundly impacted. This congregation had numerous members who were directly affected. The pastor of the church, Pastor Jim, knew that the Christmas holiday, not to mention the long-term future for these many families, looked pretty bleak.
Pastor Jim sent out an e-mail newsflash and encouraged those affected to join
him for lunch and a prayer. Within 48 hours he met with over 100 people, some
from his church, some not. That meeting led to the startup of an online
job-bank-web-site sponsored by the church. A support fund to help families as
best they could with basic needs was established and some half million dollars
was received in a month.
In the face of such a gargantuan debacle maybe such efforts seem like merely a pittance, but yet here is a congregation that in the face of such unmitigated greed and overstatement of self-importance chose to take on and live and respond with a different attitude - we might call it a "beatitude attitude."
They bless and have been blessed. They work for healing and have been healed. They pray and have been prayed for. They hunger and thirst for others and have been filled. They are gentle and have inherited the earth. They are poor in spirit , but rich in self-sacrifice. They are merciful and have received mercy.
The beatitudes are many things, but for sure I believe they are descriptions of people who live by a different economy - little pictures of a different culture - a different mind set. It's the economy of God; the culture of God; the kingdom of heaven.
The Greek word, "makairos" translated
"blessed" literally means "abundant joy."
These eight aphorisms are a kind of prescription for "makairos,"
- joy. Often the word is translated
"happiness," and numerous biblical translations do, but I believe
that is a weak and watered down translation - a compromise. Joy and happiness
are not necessarily the same thing. Happiness is a word
we largely equate with accumulation of stuff: financial security, being
comfortable, nice things, status, success, good health, etc. Happiness is what
the executives of Enron we after. Biblically speaking joy is something
entirely different and is not nearly so fickle as happiness. Joy is not
self-generated, but is something that comes as a surprise from God and is
lasting and sustaining, even in the midst of difficulties and struggles. As the
world defines it, happiness is something earned, striven for, and accumulated,
and I might add, is also incredibly unstable, shallow and fickle - here one
minute and gone the next. Joy is a gift that comes unexpectedly from God,
penetrates to the depths of the human soul, is lasting and ultimately eternal.
These beatitudes are a flat out enigma for the person who comes at them with the mind-set of the world; the mind-set of the type of corporate ethic that has been exposed in the past year. The world knows what it means by happiness, and ruthlessly pursues it, but is clueless when it comes to joy. This was demonstrated to me this week when I plugged the word "joy" into several popular search engines on the Internet. I got a whole host of web-sites to surf about "happiness" but not a solitary one about "joy." We simply don't get it!
The world simply does not understand joy. It's a foreign concept. It's sheer
mystery. But, when we look through these beatitude knotholes what we get a
glimpse of is an entirely different experience than what we would name as
happiness. It's a experience foreign to most of us. We see the power of God at
work in ways that are deep and profound and can only be described as
"makairos" - joy!
The beatitudes are an attempt to describe the indescribable; to articulate
mystery; to paint a picture of hidden truth. Jesus speaks of an experience of
fulfillment that is not based on what we can build, control, or accumulate,
but he speaks of a fulfillment of what God is able to bring through the channel
of faith and paradox. It's an experience that is not dependent on the state of
the world around you; in fact it's an experience that can be known, even and
especially, when the world let's you down, or the things that you have built and
accumulated ring hollow and crumble around you. Let's look at a few.
*Jesus says, "Blessed are you when you are poor..."
The world says, "That's nuts! Poverty of any kind is to be avoided. Invest, accumulate, grab what you can, make a deal, and you will have instant gratification.(heaven on earth)
Jesus says "Not true! Surprise!" He means that all
our craving for stuff only covers up how desperately empty and shallow and
impoverished we really are. It is only until we risk to divest
ourselves for the sake of others that we will ever know anything about what it
means to be really full.
*Jesus says, "Blessed are you when you mourn..."
The world says, "You're kidding aren't you? Grieving is horrible!"
Jesus says, "Surprise. There's more!" He means that grief is a place where all of our clamor for happiness is unmasked for the sham it really is. Yes, grief is the experience of profound loss when we know we are empty and powerless in the face of change, deterioration and death. However, the experience of grief provides a unique opportunity for the strength of God to sustain us. Grief uncovers our need to be connected with someone or something other than what is finite and fickle. It is in the ashes of grief that hope is born. I believe for a Christian the older we get the more joy we should feel because that time is drawing ever closer when we will know the joy of seeing God face to face. But, that doesn't seem to be the way it is for most people, even most Christians.
*Jesus says, "Blessed are the merciful..."
The world says, "Show no mercy. Mercy is weakness. Mercy will take to places and people you don't really want to go or know. People of mercy are nothing but enablers. "
Jesus says, "Not true. Surprise!" He means that when we show mercy perhaps it is precisely then we reflect the attitude of being most Christ-like. Only the eyes of mercy understand Jesus when he says, "If you do it to the least of these... you do it to me." Only a heart of mercy can cause you to reach beyond the protective shell you have constructed around your life. Only the merciful mind sees the connection between the mercy Jesus lavished upon you on the cross and the mercy you are to show others.
*Jesus says, "Blessed are you when people hate you, and revile you... on account of me."
The world says, "That is sick. It's sounds masochistic and twisted."
Jesus says, "Nothing is further from the truth. Surprise!" He means that few of us know the privilege of suffering solely because we are followers of Jesus Christ. In fact we are so fearful and frightened by the prospect of feeling uncomfortable and uneasy in any way that we are willing to make all sorts of compromises to make sure we keep it that way.
But any sort of risk, however small, we might take for the Lord Jesus Christ really does help us sort out what our loyalties really are; who or what it is we are really following; and what's really important. Jesus is declaring that "makairos" is found in the decisive courage, the resolute obedience, the unshakable trust that is forged from following the Lord where leads; the lord who risked all for us.
Today I pray that you will know joy; that I will know joy; that we together will know joy. I pray that we will experience the astounding mystery that Jesus describes in these "beatitudes" - so much so we'd even be willing to set aside our fickle pursuits of happiness. I know that if we do, our experience of joy in this life will be a glorious fleeting glimpse of the joy that is yet to come, waiting for each of us in heaven.