Rollins Chapel
October 26, 2006
Richard R. Crocker, Ph.D., College Chaplain
Luke 5:1-16
What is true happiness? It is a theme that I have been exploring on many
levels. As some of you know, I am teaching a section of Writing 5 which
explores the subject of happiness mainly from a social psychological point of
view. But here, in this chapel, in this service, we can approach the subject
from what we consider a more authoritative source - from the source of
faith.
The beatitudes lend themselves supremely to our consideration. They are the
essential teachings of Jesus that tell us how to be blessed, or how to be
happy. The Greek word, makarios, can be translated either as blessed or happy;
the ambiguity enriches the meaning of both words. Blessed usually carries a
deeper connotation than happy; in the Greek, the words intermix. Perhaps the
phrase "truly happy" points us to the meaning that we are
seeking.
I want to talk about true happiness as we begin a new chapel season because
I think most Dartmouth students - and others - are interested in being happy. I
do not think most are particularly interested in being blessed. We see
happiness as something that we can achieve through good fortune or hard work -
mainly hard work. Being blessed, on the other hand, seems something that is
beyond one's control. It is a spiritual concept that is fuzzy at best and
meaningless at worst. But the worst thing about being blessed is that we have
to depend on someone else - that our fate is not in our own hands. Being
blessed is not something that we can achieve. But if being blessed is really
true happiness, then perhaps it's worth reconsidering.
Dartmouth students and staff, like those at most prestigious colleges, are
high achievers. Because we have worked hard and done well in school or sports
or "activities", and because that hard work has brought us success in
the college admissions or employment game, we logically conclude that hard work
and talent will make us winners in the game of life. And of course the score in
the game of life is kept by achieving more and more recognition, or more and
more wealth, or more and more status. This is the gospel of the Ivy League -
and, very likely, of our culture as a whole. But it is not the gospel of Jesus
Christ.
If we are to take the beatitudes as a central summary of the teachings of
Jesus, a compendium of sayings collected by his disciples, we must conclude
that Jesus taught a very different idea of what it means to be truly happy, or
blessed. It is the very opposite of what most of us understand. Instead of
wealth, Jesus extols poverty; instead of joy, mourning; instead of pride,
meekness; instead of vengeance, mercy; instead of sophistication, purity;
instead of warriors, peacemakers; instead of triumph, persecution. Now, we say,
if this is what it means to be truly happy, or blessed, we see why people
prefer the superficial kind of happiness- the kind that can be more easily
obtained by being better at something than most people are, or through
medications like alcohol, or landing a great internship. These beatitudes are
not enticing.
For most of its history, the Christian church has tried to make the
beatitudes more appealing. We see it this process at work even in the gospels.
We have the beatitudes in two places - in Matthew, which I read, and in Luke.
The church has preferred Matthew. Why? Just take the first one: Luke says:
"Blessed are the poor." Matthew says, "Blessed are the poor in
spirit." AH! There's an out. I don't have to be poor to be truly happy -
just poor in spirit. Perhaps I can do that! Which did Jesus say? We would
probably prefer his having said "poor in spirit", but most scholars
say the simpler version, simply blessed are the poor, is most likely the
earlier, and Matthew's version represents a later clarification. For most
of us rich people, Luke's version is just impossible.
And that, said Martin Luther, is precisely the point. Luther saw the
beatitudes as teachings which are so impossible to fulfill that their chief
purpose is not to be a code for Christian living, but rather a demonstration
that such perfection is impossible. Their effect, according to Luther, should
be to make us realize our utter inability to live as Jesus taught, and so to
make us rely only on God's mercy for our salvation. It is a clever tactic of
interpretation, and perhaps it is even correct. But something about that
interpretation strikes me as too easy. I don't believe Jesus gave his disciples
teachings whose chief purpose was to show them what they could not do. Rather,
hard as it may be for us to even think of living according to these counsels, I
believe that we are continually called to examine the direction of our lives by
them.
And so, in the course of the sermons at chapel for the next few weeks, I
will take each of these sayings, one by one, and talk about what it might mean
if we took them seriously - if we judged our lives and our notions of true
happiness by them.
Today, I will say only this: simply listening to these sayings challenges us
in a very basic way to re-examine the course of our lives. Without even paying
close attention to each one, as I hope to do in this series, the effect of
hearing them simply read is to make us really uncomfortable. We want to dismiss
them - either, as Luther did, as impossible counsels of perfection, or, as most
do, as the quaint ruminations of an other-worldly religious figure who did not
have the benefit of a good education. But some of us are challenged to take
them as the teachings of the one whom some of us call Lord, and whose words we
recall: "why do you call me Lord, Lord, and do not do what I tell
you?" (Luke 6:46)
Such is our uncomfortable dilemma. It is a dilemma that I hope we will
explore together. And it is appropriate that we begin this exploration today,
in this newly renovated chapel, where stained glass windows that have been
covered for over forty years are now visible once again. The windows were
deemed offensive in part because of their Christian symbolism. And they are.
Almost everything about Christianity is offensive to a gospel of achievement.
What are we to do, except cover it over?
Perhaps Luther was, in a way, right; to know how far short we fall from what
is truly good is all we can know. Being truly happy, being blessed, rests upon
the acceptance that God gives us despite our failures and in spite of our puny,
overblown notions of success. Perhaps this is the poverty that Matthew tried to
soften by calling it "poverty of spirit."
But there is one part of this passage that we can easily affirm. It is in
the last section. "You are the light of the world." Now there's
something we believe, isn't it? We've been told it often enough - that we are
special, that we have great talents, that we are the future - whether we means
us as special individuals, or us as a college, or us as a nation. But what I
think Jesus meant when he said this was that his disciples - that is, those who
took his teachings seriously - were the light of the world. They were the ones
who, despite their apparent foolishness, would guide the world to sanity, to
healing, to renewal, to salvation.
May we be blessed by coming to know what is true, and living it. Amen.
Copyright © 2006
Richard R. Crocker
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