Prosperity In Poverty Series

After his return from church one Sunday, a small boy said, "You

know what mommie? I'm going to be a preacher when I grow up."

"That's wonderful," said his mother. What made you decide you

want to be a preacher?" The boy said thoughtfully, "Well, I'll have

to go to church anyway on Sunday, and I think it would be more fun

to stand up and yell than to sit still and listen." Happiness is yelling

rather than listening from the perspective of a small boy. From the

perspective of a mother, however, happiness is a small boy who sits

still and listens. Happiness is obviously different things to different

people, and even different things to the same person under varying

circumstances.

Someone has said, to be happy with a man you must love him a

little and understand him a lot. To be happy with a woman you must

love her a lot, and not even try to understand her. Whatever you

think of that, there is no doubt that happiness means something

different to each of the sexes. It also varies according to the interest

of persons. The poet Gray said, it would be a paradise of happiness

for him if he could lie on a sofa and read new French romances

forever. Doremas Hayes, the great Mennonite scholar wrote in

response to that ideal of happiness: "To lie on a sofa and read French

novels forever would be no paradise for some of us. It would be a

purgatory by the end of one month, and it would be the blackest

depth of hell in less than a year."

We met a couple who bought a shirt for their overweight boy, and

it had these words printed on it-Happiness is suppertime. Not long

ago the sign at the Holiday Inn read, "Happiness is eating in the

Camelot Room." But we all know that the pleasure of eating does not

make life happy in any lasting sense. And there are many in poor

health who do not even enjoy the temporal blessing it can be.

Happiness, as we generally think of it, varies with the winds of

circumstance. We tie happiness so closely to emotion, and nothing

could be more variable than feelings. We can feel happy today, and

depressed tomorrow, depending on the news, the weather, or any

number of circumstances.

Jesus is not interested in this kind of subjective haphazard

happiness. He goes to the inner man, and speaks of a happiness, or

blessedness, which is a matter of character and being. It does not

depend on external circumstances. Happiness rises and falls, but

blessedness is a kind of happiness that remains steady in spite of the

variations in feelings. The Beatitudes of Jesus are attitudes of being.

Happiness in the highest sense depends on what you are and not what

happens to you. There are many others who have arrived at this

conclusion, but no one has been so paradoxical as Jesus. He tells us

that happiness is found in just the opposite direction that men are

going in search of it. It seems like nonsense to the world to find

happiness in poverty, mourning, meekness, and persecution.

Even Christians wonder what Jesus means by these apparently

contradictory statements. We must recognize that Jesus is

challenging the world's whole system of values. Many worldly people

speak highly of the Sermon On The Mount and the Beatitudes

because they are not aware of the radical nature of what Jesus is

saying. A true understanding of His concept of happiness will

transform the life of any person, and radically alter their character

and conduct. The Interpreter's Bible says, "The Beatitudes, far from

being passive or mild, are a gauntlet flung down before the world's

accepted standards. Thus they become clearer when set against their

opposites. The opposite of poor in spirit are the proud in spirit. The

opposite of those who mourn are the light headed, always bent on

pleasure. The opposite of the meek are the aggressors. The opposite

of the persecuted are those who always play it safe."

If we intend to be happy, from the perspective of Jesus, we will

come into direct conflict with the standards of the world. This can

and does lead to opposition, and persecution, and a great deal of

subjective unhappiness for the Christian. Any way you approach it

the Christian life, at its best, is a paradox. By means of what the

world calls unhappiness, we can be happy in the highest sense, but the

consequences may be subjective unhappiness in relation to the world.

This paradox becomes easier to grasp if we distinguish between

subjective and objective happiness. Almost everyone who writes

about happiness thinks only of the subjective side-that is how a person

feels and thinks. Jesus deals with objective happiness, that is how