The Hardships of Happiness

Scriptures: The Third Sunday of Easter, A.D. 2016 C

Homily:

Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

What makes you happy?

That seems to be the trillion-dollar question these days. Happiness has become all the rage lately, with books, articles, television series, and seemingly endless scientific studies all attempting to unlock the secret to happiness. As if it were a secret.

Now, ideas as to what might make us happy flow in abundant supply. Every advertisement we encounter in television, film, radio and periodical, ultimately claims that the ad’s given product—shoes, phones, beer—will make us happy. Self-help books, fitness gurus, diet regimens all get in on the act. And it seems clear that the two biggest lies in this whole tangled web are: (a) that happiness is all about you; and (b) that happiness is all about money. Spend enough, and spend it on yourself, and you just might fill that void inside. We all tend to live as though this were true, though deep down we all know that it’s not.

Everybody’s heard the platitude, of course, that money can’t buy happiness. But this isn’t mere sermonizing anymore. Today we live in the age of statistical research! And the numbers make it pretty clear that there is a connection between money and happiness up to a certain point—really a surprisingly low point—where income is enough to cover securely the basic necessities of one’s family. After that, it doesn’t matter if a household pulls in $50,000 or $100,000 or a cool million every year. It won’t make us any happier. Money only takes us so far. And there’s a lot of data to back this up.

But if the relationship between money and well-being is complicated, the correspondence between personal relationships and happiness is not. The activities most associated with daily happiness are socializing after work, having dinner with others, and romantic time spent with one’s spouse. Simple things. We might be surprised at how important neighbors turn out to be. Countries with high social trust have happier people, better health, more efficient government, more economic growth, and less fear of crime—regardless of whether actual crime rates are going up or falling down. It’s hard to be afraid when you’re among friends.

According to one study, belonging to an organization that meets just once a month grants the same boost in satisfaction as doubling your income—so there you go, Lions. According to another, the psychological benefits of marriage stand equivalent to an extra $100,000 a year! So it’s more than worth it even when we drive each other crazy.

The bottom line is this: people feel happy, healthy, and whole not when we focus on ourselves and on our stuff, but when we have community and purpose in our lives. It sounds like common sense—it even sounds a little hokey—but it’s as true today as is has been in every generation since the Garden of Eden.

In our Gospel reading this morning, brothers and sisters, we have a bit of a treat to enjoy. That’s because the story we’ve just heard comes from the very last chapter of the Gospel According to St John—the epilogue, really, of John’s Gospel. And it is rich both in comedy and in poignancy. The whole thing really is kind of funny, when you think about it. Our story takes place after Jesus’ Resurrection, when several of the Apostles have gone out fishing all night long, only to have caught nothing. Plenty of people in this congregation know what that’s like. And at daybreak, someone appears along the shore in the hazy twilight of dawn.

“Children,” He cries out, “you have no fish, have you?”

To which they rather sheepishly, but honestly, reply, “No.”

“Cast your net to the right side of the boat!” He says. Oh, sure, thank you, like we hadn’t thought of that. Cast our nets on the other side, brilliant. But they do as they’re told, and suddenly they have so many large fish—153 of them—that the nets threaten to burst. It’s really kind of comical.

John blurts out, “It is the Lord!” Thank you, Captain Obvious. And Peter, who’s been fishing in his undergarments, gets so excited that he throws on his outer robe and abandons ship, jumping right into the sea. Note that he puts on clothes to jump into the sea rather than paddle the scant 100 yards to shore. Classic St Peter. Peter’s always rushing in, blurting out, or running off. And you’ve got to love him for it. I can only imagine that John, in retelling this story for his Gospel, must have done so with a wry grin.

But isn’t that what we’d be doing, if Jesus suddenly showed up at our place of work?  Throw on the wrong clothes, fall in the water, fairly trip over ourselves that Jesus Christ, arisen from death, has come to have breakfast with us? It’s beautiful. Yet at this fresh morning feast, Jesus says to Simon Peter, “Simon, son of John, do you love Me more than these?”

Peter says, “Oh, yes, Lord. You know that I love You!” to which Jesus replies, “Feed My lambs.” Then again, Jesus asks, “Simon, son of John, do you love Me?”

And Simon Peter again says, “You know that I do!” and Jesus replies, “Tend My sheep.” And then a third time, Jesus asks, “Simon, son of John, do you love Me?”

And at this point, Peter’s feelings are getting hurt, and he says, “Lord, You know everything. You know that I love you.”

And Jesus says, “Feed My sheep. Very truly, I tell you, when you were younger, you used to fasten your own belt and to go wherever you wished. But when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will fasten a belt around you and take you where you do not wish to go.” He said this, John tells us, to indicate the kind of death by which God would be glorified in St Peter. And Jesus says to Peter, “Follow Me.”

Now what, you might ask, is going on here? We’ve transitioned, rather rapidly, from a light and happy scene, where Peter is absolutely overcome with wacky excitement at seeing the Risen Lord, to a somber and even unsettling conversation at the fire. The answer, of course, is that this is the scene of Peter’s redemption. Here he is redeemed, returned, repented to His God. And I do not mean repent in the sense of, “Oh, I’m so sorry. I’ll never do that again,” but rather in the older sense of the word: of repentance as God’s action of turning us back from our path of self-destruction to God’s path of life, fulfillment, community, and purpose. Once, Peter denied Jesus three times and abandoned His God to death on a Cross. Here, Jesus thrice reaffirms Peter’s love for the Lord, and redeems this scattered sheep.

Indeed, all our readings this morning have been about redemption and renewal: from our tale in Acts about how St Paul was transformed from the Church’s greatest persecutor to her greatest Apostle; all the way to Revelation’s promise that someday the entire world and the cosmos itself will be redeemed by Jesus Christ. But there’s a twist, you see. Because once we are returned, repented—once we are, in fact, saved in this life and the next by the unbreakable baptismal promise of Christ—our story doesn’t end with roses and sweet cream in the gardens. In the midst of Paul’s ecstasy at being brought to the living Lord, Jesus says, “I Myself will show Him what he must suffer for the sake of My Name.” And as Peter is forgiven and welcomed to the Lord’s feast, Jesus warns Him that someday, he, too, will suffer a death like Jesus did. Peter will find a cross of his own in Rome.

People often seem to think that salvation, and the Christian life that ensues, are either largely irrelevant or outright insipid. Sure, great, we’re saved by grace, and that’s nice and all, but now I’ve got to get back to work. The Word of God can sound boring, passé, because we think it’s once and done. We go on with life as before. But that’s not it at all. In fact, God has called each and every one of us here to a great and mighty mission. A mission filled with hardship and difficulty, with suffering and even death. But a mission also filled with excitement, humor, and purpose.

Every person here is called, gathered, forgiven, taught, fed, and blessed. And nothing can snatch from us the promises that God grants by Word and by Spirit, by Font and by Meal. But our mission does not end here. Mission means literally “sending out,” and we are indeed sent out as the Body of Christ into a needy world. We are sent out as teachers, parents, farmers, citizens, shopkeeps, into whatever vocation God has given to us, and we are called to fulfill these God-given offices with faith towards God and with love towards neighbor. And it will not be easy.

To live in community, to live with purpose, means constant challenge and self-giving. It means putting others first and taking risks to assert God’s will above our own. It ain’t easy. In fact, sometimes we’d love nothing more than just to be left alone. Yet, like Peter and Paul, we are called to a life far greater, far riskier, far weightier than the life we had before. But also to a life brimming with excitement, hope, love, joy, and a good, godly humor, for Christ is with us every step of the way.

When we seek our own happiness over others’, we fail to attain either. But when Christ leads us through the rough and rewarding path of community, we find to our shock that the happiness of others has become, and ever was, our very own.

In the Name of the Father and of the +Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.