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What does it mean to be happy? Part 2

Jeremiah 23.1-6, 2 Corinthians 12.2-10, Mark 6.30-34

The Christian approach to happiness finds it through engagement not detachment, through loving God and others as much as we love ourselves.

Like a Greek philosopher, Jeremiah sees the ideal leader as someone who should, above all, be wise and just, although he uses a very Biblical term to sum up what he’s looking for - righteousness. A righteous leader will not only be at peace within themselves, but they’ll make other people happy too. The opposite of being like this - being unwise, unjust and self obsessed - is evil. It doesn’t lead to happiness, it brings woe upon the leader. Woe is the very opposite of happiness, it’s unhappiness, and that’s what the bad leader is going to reap.

Of course, Jeremiah is thinking about kings, but his prophecy can be applied to any sort of relationship where people are called upon to to guide and inspire one another - marriage, parenthood, relationships between workers and their supervisors and managers, between congregations and their stewards and ministers, between friends. We can all bring happiness to others by being considerate and thoughtful, and that is the only way for us to find lasting happiness too. The alternative, behaving in a destructive and self obsessed way, only does harm to all concerned.

Paul says that once, in a vision, he was caught up into Paradise. But that isn't where he found the happiness he boasts of to the Corinthians. Instead, he tells us that God's power is perfected in weakness and so he will boast about the times when he was unwell, when he faced insults, hardships, persecutions and calamities, for it was then that he was able to rely solely on Jesus for any sense of contentment in life. This is stoical even by Stoic standards. Paul is content to find meaning and happiness in every moment of his life, whether good or bad, simply through knowing that he belongs to Jesus. It’s not happiness based on achievement, or wisdom, or roundedness, or a belief in oneself. It’s not about floating free, above all the troubles that might otherwise weigh him down. It’s not even happiness based on detachment from all these things that are happening to him, although it’s perhaps closer to the Buddhist way of thinking than to any of the other philosophies and ideas that I’ve mentioned. Instead, though, it’s happiness based on trust.

Interestingly, in our Gospel reading Jesus does encourage his disciples to make some time for themselves. He certainly doesn’t see work, even a vocation to be an apostle - someone commissioned by him to go out and spread his message - as the route to happiness.

Elsewhere he says we are to love others, but only as much as we love ourselves. Yet Jesus isn’t offering happiness through self discovery, or through the Stoic path of living in the moment. His instruction to the disciples to be by themselves and rest awhile comes close, like Paul’s prescription, to the Buddhist way of detachment. However, the defining hallmark of Jesus’ way to fulfilment is compassion. It is in showing compassion to others that he finds the true way to live.
The Bible’s recipe for happiness has three key ingredients, then - righteous living, trust and compassion. These are what we need to seek if we wish, in the words of the song, to ‘Be happy!’

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