Caroline Johnson thought she was going to be happy for the rest of her life. A few years ago she was chosen to be the subject of an episode of ABC’s “Extreme Makeover,” a TV program where they try to do your life over for you. Johnson had plastic surgery and they gave her a new nose, new teeth and breast implants. She was amazed at the difference it made for her. People looked at her differently. She had more self-confidence. But something happened to her happiness. After a while she felt the same emptiness creeping back into her life. “Once it wears off,” she says, “it’s just normal life again.”
She’s not alone, you know. Researchers have found the same phenomenon in newlyweds and lottery winners.[i] Changing your external circumstances can have a big impact on your life, but it’s no guarantee that you will live happily ever after. Happiness is not a winning number or a tummy tuck. There must be something more.
This is a hard question for us, particularly us Americans, because we have really struggled to create a happy nation. One of the symbols by which we are known throughout the world is the smiley face. We had a major hit song a few years ago by Bobby McFerrin called “Don’t Worry, Be Happy.” Foreigners wonder about us because we are known for having cheery dispositions and they suspect it’s a little artificial.
When Suzanne and I moved to England for a year right after seminary to serve Methodist churches there, one of the things we were told is that if we were to use the phrase, “Have a nice day,” it might be perceived as inauthentic. I thought to myself, “No problem. I don’t use that phrase. I’m going to be real.” But the first day that we were there in the church manse, our home for the year, a workman came to cut on the gas and as he was leaving I smiled and said, “Have a nice day.” Some habits die hard.
Here’s what I want to say today, though. Our impulse toward happiness is not wrong. In fact, God gives us that impulse. But the ways we go about it and what we think it is may be very wrong. John Wesley said it to his Methodists almost 300 years ago. “Who can blame you for pursuing [happiness]? It is the very end of your being.” But happiness is not what we think it is. It is not a “blessed out” emotional state or the way that we feel when things are going our way. Happiness is a theological state and it has everything to do with God. Our unhappiness is a result of the state in which we find ourselves – seeking God in things that do not lead us to God. Wesley put it this way, “You seek happiness in your fellow-creatures [and created things] instead of your Creator. But these can no more make you happy than they can make you immortal.”[ii] In other words, a nose job not only can’t get you into heaven, it can’t even make you truly happy because happiness is about your relationship to God.
Paul the apostle knew what mixed-up creatures we are. In fact, Ellen Charry, who teaches theology at Princeton, says that Paul’s writings in Romans 7, which we read this morning, “are among Western Christian psychology’s foundational texts, showing that the human soul teeters between its identity in the divine image and its fallen reality, seeking repair, release, redemption.”[iii] That is to say, that our souls are always being drawn in competing directions. On the one hand, we are made in God’s own image with all the potential and promise that implies. But on the other hand, we are continually struggling with the effects of sin and we are always in need of healing and liberation. Here we are at the beginning of creation in a wonderful garden walking with God, sharing an intimate life with each other and with all of the other creatures…feeling happy. But here we are, after Adam and Eve bite the forbidden fruit, dissatisfied with our lives, disappointed in our relationships, always wanting more than we have, using more resources than our environment can sustain, not taking care of our bodies and feeling distant and separated from God. Here we are remembering what we could be seeing glimpses all around us of the remnant goodness of the earth and ourselves. And here we are feeling hopelessly caught by the way things are.
This is a Christian way of looking at things. Other psychologies will tell you different things about who we are. Other psychologies will not talk about the soul – they will talk about the self. Other psychologies will talk about self-actualization and may see God as at best marginal to being healthy and happy, but certainly God is not necessary to wholeness. As Charry puts it, in these systems, “the spiritual life becomes an addition to a well-ordered self for those so inclined.”[iv]
I say this as someone who has a lot of respect for psychology and who has benefitted from it, but unless there is an openness to what
God wants to do with our souls, the possibility of healing in the Christian sense just can’t happen. Happiness in the Christian sense is about finding ourselves in God and resting our restless hearts in God. “The way to that goal,” again to quote Charry, “is coming to know, love, and enjoy God ever more felicitously in the company of other seekers.”[v]
Paul probably puts it better. He knew what it was like to live in this world as a conflicted human being. In this passage today he talks about a frustration that is common to any one of us who has ever tried to live better or even just to go on a diet. “I don’t do what I want to do,” Paul says. “I have the desire present within me, but I do not find the ability to do good. So the good that I would do I don't do, and the evil that I would not do, that’s what I do.”
Paul says all of this in the midst of a discussion about the Law, which every good Jew to whom he was talking would have seen as the highest revelation of what God wants of us. The Law was given to Moses and to us in order to show us the way we are supposed to live. And when we are able to recognize our failure to live up to what the Law requires, we are giving a backhanded compliment to the Law. We recognize that it is good; we’re just not living up to it.
This is Paul’s big insight, though: God gave the Law and implanted in us the desire to fulfill it. To put it another way, God gave us the means to love God and made us with a heart to love God. That should have been enough to give us communion with God. But sin has done something drastic to our souls. It has separated us fundamentally. We are split within ourselves. So strange things happen. We set our minds to do one thing, and we end up doing something else. We decide, “I am definitely not doing that anymore,” and guess what? We do it. Has this ever happened to you? It’s like there’s a faulty wire in there somewhere.
So this is our situation. We know the Law. We know there is a part of us reaching out to God. But we also know how we betray ourselves by pursuing things that lead us away from God. We are disordered and distorted. Finally Paul cries out in this passage and says, “O wretched man that I am, who will save me from this body of death?”
Well, who do you think will save me from this body of death? It’s Jesus. That’s the means that God has chosen to overcome sin and lead us back to our first love. It’s Jesus. When we forgot who we were, the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. It’s Jesus. While we were yet sinners, God sent the only begotten Son to live with us and die for us. It’s Jesus. When we rejected him, despised him, killed him on a cross…when we did the worst that we could do to love, that’s when God gave us the remedy. It’s Jesus.
So what Christian psychology always comes back to is this basic story that helps us understand who we are and where we’re supposed to look for help. Happiness for Christians is found in becoming ever more like Jesus. But we have begun to get it backwards. There are a lot of Christians out there who accept our society’s definition of what happiness is. We believe that happiness is about my individual emotional state and the role of the Bible is to give us some help so that I can be a happy person. The Bible can help me be successful, to be prosperous, to have a stress-free life. But that is exactly backwards. We don’t love God so that our lives and relationships can be easier; we live certain ways and carry out certain practices so that we can love God more. And sometimes our lives will be easier and sometimes they will be harder. But we will never be able to understand what happiness is until we see it through God’s eyes.
So we have been given this way of life that looks different from the rest of the world. From the perspective of the rest of the world, worshipping here on Sunday morning may seem like a nice thing to do, but it really has no meaning or value. Reading the Bible with its funny words and ancient ways and difficult stories seems strange. Building a community of caring that shares the joys and burdens of its members and extends itself into the world around us in service? That may be a quaint idea, but it doesn’t put us in the mainstream. Who does that?
Well, we do. We give ourselves to worship and study and prayer and peacemaking and fellowship because we are trying to find our way, our direction, our hope. And when we neglect these practices that are so central to who we are, we start to settle for less than true happiness.
One of the things that fascinates me is cave exploration. Last year our family went on a caving expedition in West Virginia and we spent several hours going deep into Organ Cave, with lights on our heads and scrambling over rock formations. It was great fun. But they told us that they have only explored about 40 miles of cave there and there is a lot more to be explored. The reason it hasn’t been explored more is because the unexplored sections are so far from an entrance that they are difficult to get to. It takes a day or more of traveling underground to get to them.
What that means is that when you get to an unexplored section and a new discovery you have made a major investment in going deeper. The reward comes because you have gone over a lot of familiar territory.
It is the same with the Christian life. There are rewards we can only know by staying with the program…by staying connected to God…by doing those things that Jesus told us to do. It is a journey of a lifetime, but it is the way of true happiness.
Brothers and sisters, we have not been living up to our calling. We have settled for lesser forms of happiness. We have settled for cheapened forms of faith that don’t ask anything of us. Following God is more than feeling good – it is feeling whole.
So where is God calling you to go? Tell me again why you can’t follow? Your life is hidden with Christ in God, according to the letter to the Colossians. Isn’t it about time you went to find it? Thanks be to God.
Romans 7:14-25a
For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am flesh, sold unto sin. Now I don't understand what I do, for I do what I don't wish to do, and what I hate, that's what I do. If I do what I don't wish to do, I concur that the law is good. As it is, it is no longer I who do it, but the sin living in me. For I know of nothing living in me, that is in my flesh, that is good. I have the desire present within me, but I do not find the ability to do good. So the good that I would do I don't do, and the evil that I would not do, that I do.
So if I do what I would not, I no longer do it but the sin living within me. Therefore I find this law: that the will to do good is in me, but evil is always ready at my hand. For I delight in the law of God in my inner self, but I see another law at work in my members making war against the law of my mind, and I am captured by the law of sin that is in my members.
O wretched man that I am, who will save me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord.
[i] Michael Mendelsohn, “Positive Psychology: The Science of Happiness,” ABC News, 1/11/2008, http://abcnews.go.com/print?id=4115033
[ii] John Wesley, Sermon 77, “Spiritual Worship”
[iii] Ellen T. Charry, “Augustine of Hippo: Father of Christian Psychology,” Anglican Theological Review, Fall 2006, http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3818/is_200610/ai_n17196791/pg_1?tag=artBody;col1.
[iv] Ibid.
[v] Ibid.
She’s not alone, you know. Researchers have found the same phenomenon in newlyweds and lottery winners.[i] Changing your external circumstances can have a big impact on your life, but it’s no guarantee that you will live happily ever after. Happiness is not a winning number or a tummy tuck. There must be something more.
This is a hard question for us, particularly us Americans, because we have really struggled to create a happy nation. One of the symbols by which we are known throughout the world is the smiley face. We had a major hit song a few years ago by Bobby McFerrin called “Don’t Worry, Be Happy.” Foreigners wonder about us because we are known for having cheery dispositions and they suspect it’s a little artificial.
When Suzanne and I moved to England for a year right after seminary to serve Methodist churches there, one of the things we were told is that if we were to use the phrase, “Have a nice day,” it might be perceived as inauthentic. I thought to myself, “No problem. I don’t use that phrase. I’m going to be real.” But the first day that we were there in the church manse, our home for the year, a workman came to cut on the gas and as he was leaving I smiled and said, “Have a nice day.” Some habits die hard.
Here’s what I want to say today, though. Our impulse toward happiness is not wrong. In fact, God gives us that impulse. But the ways we go about it and what we think it is may be very wrong. John Wesley said it to his Methodists almost 300 years ago. “Who can blame you for pursuing [happiness]? It is the very end of your being.” But happiness is not what we think it is. It is not a “blessed out” emotional state or the way that we feel when things are going our way. Happiness is a theological state and it has everything to do with God. Our unhappiness is a result of the state in which we find ourselves – seeking God in things that do not lead us to God. Wesley put it this way, “You seek happiness in your fellow-creatures [and created things] instead of your Creator. But these can no more make you happy than they can make you immortal.”[ii] In other words, a nose job not only can’t get you into heaven, it can’t even make you truly happy because happiness is about your relationship to God.
Paul the apostle knew what mixed-up creatures we are. In fact, Ellen Charry, who teaches theology at Princeton, says that Paul’s writings in Romans 7, which we read this morning, “are among Western Christian psychology’s foundational texts, showing that the human soul teeters between its identity in the divine image and its fallen reality, seeking repair, release, redemption.”[iii] That is to say, that our souls are always being drawn in competing directions. On the one hand, we are made in God’s own image with all the potential and promise that implies. But on the other hand, we are continually struggling with the effects of sin and we are always in need of healing and liberation. Here we are at the beginning of creation in a wonderful garden walking with God, sharing an intimate life with each other and with all of the other creatures…feeling happy. But here we are, after Adam and Eve bite the forbidden fruit, dissatisfied with our lives, disappointed in our relationships, always wanting more than we have, using more resources than our environment can sustain, not taking care of our bodies and feeling distant and separated from God. Here we are remembering what we could be seeing glimpses all around us of the remnant goodness of the earth and ourselves. And here we are feeling hopelessly caught by the way things are.
This is a Christian way of looking at things. Other psychologies will tell you different things about who we are. Other psychologies will not talk about the soul – they will talk about the self. Other psychologies will talk about self-actualization and may see God as at best marginal to being healthy and happy, but certainly God is not necessary to wholeness. As Charry puts it, in these systems, “the spiritual life becomes an addition to a well-ordered self for those so inclined.”[iv]
I say this as someone who has a lot of respect for psychology and who has benefitted from it, but unless there is an openness to what
God wants to do with our souls, the possibility of healing in the Christian sense just can’t happen. Happiness in the Christian sense is about finding ourselves in God and resting our restless hearts in God. “The way to that goal,” again to quote Charry, “is coming to know, love, and enjoy God ever more felicitously in the company of other seekers.”[v]
Paul probably puts it better. He knew what it was like to live in this world as a conflicted human being. In this passage today he talks about a frustration that is common to any one of us who has ever tried to live better or even just to go on a diet. “I don’t do what I want to do,” Paul says. “I have the desire present within me, but I do not find the ability to do good. So the good that I would do I don't do, and the evil that I would not do, that’s what I do.”
Paul says all of this in the midst of a discussion about the Law, which every good Jew to whom he was talking would have seen as the highest revelation of what God wants of us. The Law was given to Moses and to us in order to show us the way we are supposed to live. And when we are able to recognize our failure to live up to what the Law requires, we are giving a backhanded compliment to the Law. We recognize that it is good; we’re just not living up to it.
This is Paul’s big insight, though: God gave the Law and implanted in us the desire to fulfill it. To put it another way, God gave us the means to love God and made us with a heart to love God. That should have been enough to give us communion with God. But sin has done something drastic to our souls. It has separated us fundamentally. We are split within ourselves. So strange things happen. We set our minds to do one thing, and we end up doing something else. We decide, “I am definitely not doing that anymore,” and guess what? We do it. Has this ever happened to you? It’s like there’s a faulty wire in there somewhere.
So this is our situation. We know the Law. We know there is a part of us reaching out to God. But we also know how we betray ourselves by pursuing things that lead us away from God. We are disordered and distorted. Finally Paul cries out in this passage and says, “O wretched man that I am, who will save me from this body of death?”
Well, who do you think will save me from this body of death? It’s Jesus. That’s the means that God has chosen to overcome sin and lead us back to our first love. It’s Jesus. When we forgot who we were, the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. It’s Jesus. While we were yet sinners, God sent the only begotten Son to live with us and die for us. It’s Jesus. When we rejected him, despised him, killed him on a cross…when we did the worst that we could do to love, that’s when God gave us the remedy. It’s Jesus.
So what Christian psychology always comes back to is this basic story that helps us understand who we are and where we’re supposed to look for help. Happiness for Christians is found in becoming ever more like Jesus. But we have begun to get it backwards. There are a lot of Christians out there who accept our society’s definition of what happiness is. We believe that happiness is about my individual emotional state and the role of the Bible is to give us some help so that I can be a happy person. The Bible can help me be successful, to be prosperous, to have a stress-free life. But that is exactly backwards. We don’t love God so that our lives and relationships can be easier; we live certain ways and carry out certain practices so that we can love God more. And sometimes our lives will be easier and sometimes they will be harder. But we will never be able to understand what happiness is until we see it through God’s eyes.
So we have been given this way of life that looks different from the rest of the world. From the perspective of the rest of the world, worshipping here on Sunday morning may seem like a nice thing to do, but it really has no meaning or value. Reading the Bible with its funny words and ancient ways and difficult stories seems strange. Building a community of caring that shares the joys and burdens of its members and extends itself into the world around us in service? That may be a quaint idea, but it doesn’t put us in the mainstream. Who does that?
Well, we do. We give ourselves to worship and study and prayer and peacemaking and fellowship because we are trying to find our way, our direction, our hope. And when we neglect these practices that are so central to who we are, we start to settle for less than true happiness.
One of the things that fascinates me is cave exploration. Last year our family went on a caving expedition in West Virginia and we spent several hours going deep into Organ Cave, with lights on our heads and scrambling over rock formations. It was great fun. But they told us that they have only explored about 40 miles of cave there and there is a lot more to be explored. The reason it hasn’t been explored more is because the unexplored sections are so far from an entrance that they are difficult to get to. It takes a day or more of traveling underground to get to them.
What that means is that when you get to an unexplored section and a new discovery you have made a major investment in going deeper. The reward comes because you have gone over a lot of familiar territory.
It is the same with the Christian life. There are rewards we can only know by staying with the program…by staying connected to God…by doing those things that Jesus told us to do. It is a journey of a lifetime, but it is the way of true happiness.
Brothers and sisters, we have not been living up to our calling. We have settled for lesser forms of happiness. We have settled for cheapened forms of faith that don’t ask anything of us. Following God is more than feeling good – it is feeling whole.
So where is God calling you to go? Tell me again why you can’t follow? Your life is hidden with Christ in God, according to the letter to the Colossians. Isn’t it about time you went to find it? Thanks be to God.
Romans 7:14-25a
For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am flesh, sold unto sin. Now I don't understand what I do, for I do what I don't wish to do, and what I hate, that's what I do. If I do what I don't wish to do, I concur that the law is good. As it is, it is no longer I who do it, but the sin living in me. For I know of nothing living in me, that is in my flesh, that is good. I have the desire present within me, but I do not find the ability to do good. So the good that I would do I don't do, and the evil that I would not do, that I do.
So if I do what I would not, I no longer do it but the sin living within me. Therefore I find this law: that the will to do good is in me, but evil is always ready at my hand. For I delight in the law of God in my inner self, but I see another law at work in my members making war against the law of my mind, and I am captured by the law of sin that is in my members.
O wretched man that I am, who will save me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord.
[i] Michael Mendelsohn, “Positive Psychology: The Science of Happiness,” ABC News, 1/11/2008, http://abcnews.go.com/print?id=4115033
[ii] John Wesley, Sermon 77, “Spiritual Worship”
[iii] Ellen T. Charry, “Augustine of Hippo: Father of Christian Psychology,” Anglican Theological Review, Fall 2006, http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3818/is_200610/ai_n17196791/pg_1?tag=artBody;col1.
[iv] Ibid.
[v] Ibid.
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