A recipe for happiness
Introduction
Discipleship and the Beatitudes
The first few
Sundays of Ordinary Time are devoted to the theme of discipleship—the following
of Jesus. The Beatitudes embrace the spirit of that discipleship.
As a newly ordained
priest still in seminary training, I preached my first sermon on the Feast of
All Saints,
The gospel that
day (as it still is today) was the gospel of the Beatitudes. In those days I
had as good a memory as I have today, so I had to write the initials of each beatitude
on my fingernails--four on one hand and four on the other. (You weren’t allowed
to use paper notes in those days, as second-class preachers do now). Then I proceeded
to preach eight sermons. That was fifty years ago. Since then I’ve grown wiser:
I now preach only one sermon at a time. It might not be brief (as you sometimes know), but it’s
certainly only one sermon.
Two
accounts
Beatitude comes
from the Latin beatus. It means
blessed. The Beatitudes are those sayings of Jesus which begin with “Blessed. “
Blessed are the poor. Blessed are the hungry. Blessed are the merciful. Those “blessed sayings” of Jesus
were put together in a kind of litany form and were recorded for us by both Matthew
and Luke (Mt 5: 1-12; Lk
The two
accounts have differences. They differ in number. Matthew lines up eight beatitudes
or blessings. Luke lists only four, and
they are followed by four “woes” or curses, if you will. “Woe to you who have everything now: you’ve
had your easy life.” “Woe to you who are full now: you’re going to go hungry”
(Mt
The accounts differ
also in tone. Luke seems to be standing
in the
Matthew, on the
other hand, seems to be standing in the
In the
valley or on the mount?
The two
accounts of the Beatitudes differ also as to place. Where did Jesus preach his homily on the Beatitudes?
Up on a mountain top or down in a valley? Strange to say, that famous homily,
which we have always called The Sermon on the Mount” seems to have taken place
down in a valley somewhere. Luke writes, "Jesus came down from the
mountain and stood on a large
level plain and there began to preach saying, `Blessed are the poor--period’”(Lk
Matthew, on the
other hand, says, “Jesus went up the mountain and there began to preach saying,
`Blessed are the poor in spirit’” (Mt 5:1). So we’ve always called it “The
Sermon on the Mount.” Matthew sees Jesus as high on a mountain like a second
Moses. Just as Moses promulgated the Law of the Old
Testament from the lofty heights of
Mt. Sinai, so now Jesus promulgates the Law
of the New Testament from a lofty height.
Just as Moses, the lawgiver, held in his hands the two tablets of stone with
ten commandments carved on them, so now Jesus, the New Testament lawgiver,
bears in his arms one tablet of stone on which are carved eight beatitudes
enshrining but one single and simple message. It is a counter-cultural message to
go forth and bless whatever the world curses, and curse whatever the world
blesses. And it makes the promise that if you do that, you will, indeed, be
happy.
Counter-culture
is not some high-fluting concept for theologians to spin. Counter-culture is
about us human beings down in the valley swimming up stream against the current
as we strive in the spirit of the Beatitudes to become the human beings we were
created to be. That’s salvation! It’s also fulfillment, and fulfillment is
happiness. At the end of the day, counter-culture isn’t being cantankerous;
it’s simply wanting to be happy.
A counter-cultural eye
One day Jesus and the
apostles were in the temple near the treasury. The apostles were feasting their
eyes on the rich and famous tossing in their huge donations. But the eye of Jesus lighted upon a poor
little widow dropping in her two copper coins. Jesus called over to the others
saying, "Come here and feast your eyes on this. This little woman gave
more than all the others put together" (Mk
Our culture with its
mighty mass media leads us and our kids by the nose. It has us all feasting our
eyes upon the very rich and famous. It has us drooling over movie stars and
sport stars, whom we fans turn into spoiled overpaid brats. Jesus feasting his eyes
upon a poor widow throwing in her two copper coins and calling over to us to
feast our eyes on her as well is quite countercultural. Blessed are those whose
eyes can see what Jesus saw that day near the temple treasury when the little
widow threw in her mighty mite.
A counter-cultural CEO
When CEO Aaron Feuerstein’s fabric mill burned down
in December of 1995, he didn’t take the insurance money and run. He stuck with
his 2400 employees and continued to pay his employees in full, at a cost of 1
½ million dollars a week and at an
average of 12 ½ dollars an hour. In a
culture that spawned the mountainous corporate greed of Enron, Aaron is a
counter-cultural superstar. Even Corporate America was stunned by the fiscal
insanity of such a superstar. It couldn’t
resist the temptation to name him “CEO of the Year.” Truly blessed is a rich man who is poor in
spirit.
A counter-cultural consumer
The story of Jerry Quinn
broke into the news recently. He’s 52 years young, owns a bar and
restaurant in
In a culture which leads us and our kids by
the nose down the path of wild consumerism in which we buy not the things we
need but all the thing we want and all the things we don’t need, Quinn is
a counter-cultural superstar. He is
truly blessed. Though he owns a bar and a restaurant, he’s still very poor in
spirit.
Conclusion
A recipe for happiness
Our culture
celebrates movie stars and sport stars with infinitely more fan-fair and pay than
it celebrates firemen, policemen and teachers. Our culture tells us how to lose
weight without any physical effort, how to become rich without working hard and
how to become smart without studying. Our culture even tells us how to keep
dirty bathrooms smelling clean with some sort of super spray instead of with an
honest-to-God pail of good hot soapy water and a lot of elbow grease. Our
culture keeps beating its message upon
our psyches saying, “If you like it, do it. If you don’t like it, don’t do it.
If it takes efforts, avoid it. If it’s painful, it’s bad. If you want it, don’t
wait for it.”
In such a
culture it is impossible to make any sense out of the Gospel Beatitudes which declare blessed a poverty we should never want to eradicate,
a hunger and thirst we should never want to quench, and tears we should never
want to dry up. In such a
culture it is impossible to make any sense out of the Gospel which declare public
servants such as firemen, policemen and teachers, and little
people like Mother Theresa, Jerry Quinn
and Aaron Feuerstein far more blessed than all those superstars in our super
bowls?
Well, it’s been 54 long years since my
first big preaching production when I needed eight fingernails for my eight
sermons. Hopefully, like good cheese, I have become better with age. The message of the Beatitudes is single and
simple: Go countercultural. Go and curse what the world blesses. Go and bless
what the world curses. Do that for your own sake first, and then do that for
the sake of your children who will never be countercultural until you first
are. Go countercultural, and you shall be truly blessed--truly happy. It’ll form
you into the image after which you were created, and that’s fulfillment, and
fulfillment is happiness. The Beatitudes are not a sack of sadness. At the end
of the day they are a recipe for happiness here below in the valley. And for those
who believe, they are also a recipe for happiness up there in the lofty heights
of eternal life.
Ite Missa est! Go countercultural. It
will take you down the road that leads to
[1]
Luke again seems to stand in the
[2]
Matthew again seems to
stand in the