What makes you happy?Happiness surveys come along every few years tracking what makes for a happy life. The latest survey I’ve seen is from the UK, it suggests that we are at our happiest in our mid-teens and mid-sixties.So, that happiness is either about looking forward with excitement or looking back with contentment.It doesn’t tell us much about happiness or how we can find happiness.It would be sad to think that but for these few brief years of our life happiness was beyond our reach!A Swedish survey on the other hand is more helpful as it gives us clues as to how we might open ourselves up to be happy each day.It recommends 6 ways to live well:Start the day with a fresh dip in the pool or if you don’t have a pool a cold shower!Find time to go out into the wilderness to be aloneDe-clutter your wardrobe and live with a few versatile garments.Take breaks during your working day to re-energise yourself.Learn to listen to others as they speak.Perform random acts of kindness. We might want to call this the Swedish beatitudes!Makarios – Happy or Blessed?The word often translated as ‘Happy’ in new translations and ‘Blessed’ in older translations is Makarios. Together these two words capture something of the sense of the Greek word.Makarios was not just a feeling like happiness but the fact of God’s blessing, and as a result of the knowledge of God’s blessing, flows the feeling of happiness, joy, peace, and contentment. It was a word used by the ancients to describe the life of the gods, and it remained in most people’s minds a dream beyond reach, an unattainable ideal, and yet an ideal we all reach for.The Beatitudes of loveThroughout history, humanity has attempted to achieve happiness in two different ways, either through grasping happiness or by going in the opposite direction and turning their backs on earthly pleasure. The painter Stanley Spencer in his attempt to find happiness tried both!From 1937 through to 1938 Spencer charted his sad attempt to find love and happiness. In a series of eight paintings, he records his difficult relationships with women, ironically naming the series ‘The Beatitudes’. In truth, they represent the very opposite, not happiness but misery. Having divorced his wife Hilda he sought out a new partner, Patricia Preece, showering her with gifts of perfume and jewelry, almost ruining himself financially.In this painting, we see two figures of Spencer one kneeling at Patricia Preece's feet in worship and the other facing his former wife, pleading, I think for forgiveness. Despite all his pleading and worship both relationships failed and Spencer was left bereft and alone. From now on he decided to live the life of a monk!Love and happiness could not be bought but are as Spencer discovered a gift we give to each other, a gift that comes with the blessing of God.The Beatitudes of JesusWhen we look at how Luke presents Jesus’ teaching we are confronted with an apparent contradiction. Those who are poor or hungry, weeping or persecuted are blessed and those who are rich or successful in life are condemned to hunger weeping, and woe!Strangely Jesus’ mission depended, according to Luke, on the generosity of a group of rich women. In contrast to Spencer, Jesus and his disciples lived entirely by gifts rather than by grasping, thanks to the hospitality of wealthy disciples.So behind this apparent contradiction, Luke is speaking about our attitudes to happiness: We can be both rich and unhappy or poor and happy depending on the way we live, as Matthew makes clear in his account of Jesus’ teaching by adding the words ‘In Spirit’.A person can be ‘rich’ because ‘blessed’ by God or ‘poor in spirit’ as we recognise our dependence on God’s goodness. Richness and poverty are judged not by what we have, but by what we give to each other. It is our attitude of heart and not our bank account that God looks at!Life in all its fullnessJesus embraced life he said that he had come to bring life in all its fullness. Happiness for Jesus was not cold showers every morning or even isolation from the world. Jesus made friendship, fun, and laughter as well as generosity, faithfulness, and prayerfulness, a priority in the community he created. He neither taught us that we could find happiness through renouncing the ‘Good life’ nor that we could find it by pursuing the ‘Good life’.Jesus's approaches to wealth and poverty in the beatitudes, then, go beyond our understanding of happiness as the outcome of what life brings us, or indeed what we achieve in life whether it is wealth or poverty, persecution or prosperity. Happiness is not something we can find for or achieve for ourselves, happiness is a gift of God. We must read Luke’s account of the Beatitudes in this light:‘Blessed are you who are poor for yours is the kingdom of God’ Luke 6:20We find happiness, Jesus says, when we approach life’s ups and downs in a spirit of humility, knowing that we are nothing in ourselves but rich in God’s goodness to us.Acknowledging God’s mercy and love in poverty and wealth, ‘in sickness and in health’, as the wedding vows express it. Every other road to happiness makes big claims for ourselves. The words used in many Self-help books that talk about self-realisation or self-fulfillment, assume we can achieve happiness through our efforts or indeed be denied happiness because of our needs. Happiness flows from the fact of God’s love for us and not from what life throws at us whether good or bad.‘Happy are you who are hungry now, for you will be satisfied’ Luke 6: 21Now that we no longer demand happiness as our right but as a gift from God, our desires are redirected to Him. The whole focus of our desires has changed, instead of focusing on ourselves and our needs, we are now God oriented as we seek to honour Him and give him thanks for the life he gives us. This person will be satisfied, Jesus says because the God to whom we turn is faithful and true and desires only what is good for us. This is true whether we find ourselves overcome by adversity as many of God’s servants have been through history or blessed with prosperity as we are.‘Blessed are you who weep now, for you shall laugh’ Luke 6: 21Adversity and pain, bereavement, and sorrow can bring us to our knees and, as Wesly commented, this is often the best place to start our journey back to God. When in our helplessness we turn to God for strength we find again that He is faithful, He can be trusted with our sighs and sorrows and will give us the strength to take us through.C S Lewis wrote two books on Pain, one an academic study ‘The problem of Pain’ that looked at the theological problems of suffering and a God of Love, and the other after the death of his wife Joy ‘A grief observed’ a cry for the heart as he agonised with his doubts about the God of love.Through his struggle to understand what God was saying to him he spoke of pain as a megaphone. Sometimes God in His love needs to break through our complacency or self-confidence, our pride or boastfulness in a way that helps us to our knees to seek His strength rather than our own. In my mind, the C S Lewis who wrote after the death of his wife, was a more humane and compassionate man who truly understood the problem of Pain.‘Blessed are you when people hate you when they exclude you and revile you …on account of the Son of Man! Rejoice in that day, and leap for joy for behold your reward is great in heaven’ Luke 6: 22-23Happiness then is not something that can be found by grasping or lost through misfortune or poverty, happiness is a gift from God to those who ‘Seek first the kingdom of God’.However, Jesus tells us we can also expect to be hated and reviled on account of our faith in God. The truth of these words can be seen down the ages as faithful Christians have faced persecution and death.As Jesus himself knew, a loyalty that seeks first the kingdom of God will confront powers and authorities, of regimes that set themselves up, over and above the Kingdom of God. Powers and authorities, like the Roman Empire, demand our worship, or in the case of modern tyrannies, obeisance to rulers who seek their own glory.We can be grateful that we do not live in such an age or under such a regime but we do confront a world that demands of us another loyalty, whether that be the power of money or the seduction of consumerism. These are gods that the Scripture calls idols, the gods of gold who do not see and cannot speak and who will, as we have seen throughout history, fail us.The Swedish beatitudes!The Beatitudes tell us that Happiness is for everyone at any age even in times of hardship. It points us to an approach to life that leaves space for the divine, for our neighbour, and space for ourselves. Perhaps then we might take time to read again that list of Swedish beatitudes:In the light of what Jesus says an early morning dip to freshen up might be a helpful discipline.That time in the wilderness a chance to wonder at the beauty of nature.That de-cluttering of the wardrobe is a useful exercise in saving the planet.Those breaks in the day may be a time to reflect on your life.Certainly learning to listen to others and practicing acts of kindness are at the heart of what Jesus meant when he spoke about ‘Seeking first the kingdom of God’So then, Makarios, the blessing of happiness, comes when we make time for ourselves so that we might have time for God and others in our lives. Rev Simon BrignallWe continue to uphold in our prayers the bereaved families of our parish.
We live in an age very conscious of The ‘Rights’ of the individual, an ideal that dates back and takes its inspiration from the foundation of the United States.Equality and LibertyThomas Jefferson famously stated the principles on which the American Constitution was founded“ We hold these truths to be self-evident:That all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”The problem, of course, is that sometimes these unalienable rights compete with each other. Take for instance liberty and equality. They so often clash, not only in Slave owning States of the United States but today in liberal Europe.Please allow me a moment to reflect on the competing rights of majority and minority communities in Europe and Latin America before moving on to the picture Luke gives us of a diverse community of very different people living in apparent harmony!In the debate between liberals and conservatives that has been provoked by the clash of cultures in Europe ‘Equality’ and ‘Liberty’ often come to blows. Where liberal values focus on Freedom, and the values of minorities claim protection under ‘Equality’ laws that ban ‘hate speech’ and discrimination, society struggles to find a place where cultures can live peacefully together. The freedom to say what others may consider offensive competes with the values of minorities. A similar clash of cultures can be sensed in many Latin American cultures where European and Amerindian cultures have lived uneasily together for 500 years. I once had a fascinating encounter with a young Chilean craftsman selling his art. His art is inspired by Mapuche mythology and culture and as we got into a conversation about Chile and its many communities I sensed a great deal of anger in his voice. As a Chilean of mixed descent, he had decided that his real identity was Mapuche and he had taken up their cause as his own. He felt more comfortable to be the victim of history rather than the victor. Where then can we come together, as both victim and victor? A Moral Vision for SocietyIs there a vision of society that can hold together the competing claims of different communities?Most of us despair of any resolution to these competing claims and retreat into our private world and yet the institutions that hold society together require from us all a moral vision that allows our private life and our public world to flourish together.Communities of all sorts have, of course, come together with a common vision that brings together men and women from a variety of backgrounds, beliefs, and talents. Artistic communities provide an example of how creatives feed off each other and in so doing grow in confidence and skill. Think of the impressionists who originally came together in Brittany inspired by its rugged landscape and sparkling light. Amongst them were several British artists committed to the ideal of painting ‘en plein air’. They returned to England to discover the same inspiration as they had found in Brittany in Devon and Cornwall. The leader of this group that came to be known as the Newlyn School was Stanhope Forbes whose painting ‘A fish sale on a Cornish beach’ 1885 was exhibited in the Royal Academy. Such was its impact that extra carriages were added to the Penzance to London train by the Great Western Railway to accommodate the number of submissions to the annual Royal Academy exhibition by the growing artistic community in Newlyn.Can we find a similar common vision that brings the diverse communities of Britain? I believe that Jesus offered such a vision, a vision that brought together a diverse group of men and women, rich and poor, Greek and Jew, intellectual and practical. At its core this is a religious vision and yet the values it expresses can and have been embraced by our secular society. it is often stated in our liberal cultures that religion belongs to the private realm and yet this is certainly not the case in many countries and indeed has only recently become the norm in Western European countries.Jesus liked to mix politics with religion and mention the unmentionable as well as questioning the unquestionable. His Vision of Society: He called it ‘The Kingdom’ which broke down the barriers between private and public, secular and religious, conservative and radical. The Calling of PeterHis actions in Luke’s account of the Calling of Peter illustrate something of his disregard for boundaries.He takes a boat and uses it for a pulpit.He tells a fisherman how to fish. In John’s gospel, he crashes a wedding party, interrupts a funeral, trespasses on others' land, he overturns the exchange desks of the money changers. The Kingdom of GodAt the centre of this blurring of boundaries, the clash of private and public interests can be seen in a new way.In Jesus' Kingdom, private and public interests are not competing claims but complementary gifts that enrich a community. He is building a diverse community of men and women who might have previously been enemies. Their private interests will always clash but they are held together in a team in which the whole is greater than the parts. Love is the only wayAt the heart of this new community is a new way of living together. ‘Equality’ and ‘Freedom’, as we have seen, lead us into competing with others so that our rights might be respected, but there is another way.The fishermen fish their way but Jesus proposes another way, and after a fruitless night of fishing Peter is ready to acknowledge his unworthiness. Peter is the first to recognise that he needs to change not only the way that he fishes, but the way that he lives. He surrenders his right to do things things his way to be part of a greater community. Team spirit “ If we can’t live together we’re gonna die alone” Not the words of Peter but of Jack in an Airplane crash drama as he attempts to bring together a group of survivors struggling to survive in their own way. Only together can they survive. These words though do point to a reality of life in 'Community', it requires sacrifice if we are all to survive.Another word for Sacrifice is love, indeed it is the plus side of Sacrifice reaching out to the other not just turning away from self. The remarkable fact of Jesus' group of followers was that it was so diverse. Tax collectors and terrorists as an example, there was a great need for love that reached out and embraced the difference in each of these disciples!Yet from this diversity sprang up a worldwide fellowship. What united them was not equality before the law or freedom of choice, but the love of ‘The other’ – those who were different and underlying that love, a recognition of our equality before God who both forgives our foolishness and fulfills our dreams. Conversations and CommunityMaybe our best contemporary examples of leaders who have embraced this inclusive vision of society are Nelson Mandela and Barack Obama.In his autobiography ‘Dreams of My Father’ Barack Obama tells of his struggles with his identity as a black man with a white mother. As a black man he tries to establish his identity in the history of oppression and injustice, but in attempting to establish his right over against others he is left unable to reach out across the divisions of society.This retreat into the politics of race, gender, and class can only be self-defeating.Like Peter he is brought to realise his failures in a profession he thought he understood, the delusions, the blindness, and the bigotry of this kind of identity politics. Instead, he finds answers in the engagement of others in a conversation with those who recognise they are not a community without those who differ from them. Underlying this political vision is the vision of Jesus for a Kingdom in which all are equal before God, bound together not by ties of race, gender, religion, or class but by a recognition of our incompleteness and our inadequacy without others. Without that community that God alone can bring together we can never truly recognise our potential as human beings. Only when we recognise the gifts that others bring by their difference can we become secure in our identity and offer up our gifts that will enrich others.Rev Simon BrignallPlease continue to hold in your prayers the Morris family, the Douglas home family, the Abel Smith family, and the Criddle family.
Today’s reading tells the wonderful story of two people, at an age when you might have expected them to have long retired from public life, but they are still active in the worship of the Temple and eagerly alert to the leading of God’s Spirit. All their longing is directed at awaiting the arrival of God’s Saviour and, unexpectedly they see God’s hand in the tiny child brought to them the future Saviour of the World.It is a remarkable story in that it takes place in a place we would not associate with new beginnings. It reminds me of the words of the poet Kahil Gilbran:‘The difference between my youth which was my spring, and these forty years, and they are my autumn, is the very difference that exists between flower and fruit.A flower is forever swayed with the wind and knows not why and wherefore.But the fruit overladen with the honey of summer knows that it is one of life’s home-comings, as a poet when his song is sung knows sweet content,’This poem hints at a free spirit resisting the constraints of convention and social expectation. At the end of the poem Kahil Gibran suggests that we should, maybe, nurture this freedom earlier in life, indeed somehow balance the responsibilities of adulthood with the free spirit of a child.That same balance of youth and age, experience and innocence, love and tenderness is caught in the beautiful portrait of ‘A Grandson with his Grandfather’ by Domenico Ghirlandaio 1494. The gnarled face of the grandfather speaks of a life lived suffering but still fresh with love for the young boy who looks so tenderly at the old man’s face.Simeon and AnnaIn the life of the two elderly people at the centre of this story, we find a harmonious balance between Spirit and Law, freedom and ritual, and establishment and dissent.The Temple was at the heart of Israel’s national life, a bastion of the establishment, a place of tradition and law, but it here that a child, the son of a carpenter is first publically proclaimed as the Saviour of the World.It is a remarkable story because it foretells the destiny of this child, how though rejected, he fulfills the demands of the Mosaic laws and is the means through which God’s grace is extended to the Nations.It is remarkable too because it speaks to us today of the same God of surprises who reveals Himself through unexpected people in unexpected places and in unexpected ways.Unexpected people: Consider what it meant for Simeon and Anna.Luke gives us a portrait of both:Simeon: ‘It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord’s Christ” Luke 2:26Simeon is a man led by the Spirit, and it is to the Temple that the Spirit of God leads him. Just as the Magi had been surprised to be led to a stable, I expect Simeon was surprised to be led to the Temple which the prophets said God had abandoned.Anna: ‘She did not depart from the Temple, worshipping with fasting and prayer night and day’ Luke 2: 37Anna passed her whole life in the confines of the Temple, caught up in the rituals and routines of daily worship but she too was open to God’s leading.They were both old and had waited many years but had refused to give up on the promise of God made to them that they would not die before they had seen the Messiah. As Paul says: ‘Love always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres’ 1 Cor. 13: 7.Love is the secret of staying open and alert to God into old age. Love enables us to see beyond the disappointment and pain that life brings to the promise of God.Unexpected places: Consider for a moment how unexpected it was that this fateful meeting of Mary and Joseph should coincide with the service rota of these two faithful servants of God in the Temple. Clearly, God’s hand was at work!Mary and Joseph had come to present their child to God. This followed an ancient ritual in which the firstborn male child was to be offered to God, just as Samuel had been given to God by Hannah. However, the law of Moses dictated that the child could be ‘Redeemed’ or bought back from God with an offering, in the case of the poor: ‘A pair of turtle doves or two pigeons’ Luke 24.This ancient ritual becomes the means by which God's plan of Salvation is foretold, for Jesus is himself offered to God as the sacrifice and becomes the means of Redemption not for himself but for the world.The voices of the prophets had long ago been silenced and the Glory of God had departed, but Simeon and Anna waited and watched and discovered in the ancient rituals of the Temple God’s plan of Salvation. In so doing Simeon prophetically proclaims the death and resurrection of the Christ.Today God still promises to meet with us amongst His people, the Church, for though we fail and forsake Him, though the Church often falls short of its calling, He remains faithful to His promises.Unexpected means: Consider for a moment how God chooses to reveal Himself to Anna and Simeon, through a baby child. Here is the secret of God’s love for He does not impose or seek to dominate us, but appears amongst us as a frail human being seeking our love.In Jesus Christ, we see God’s love for us shining out through his life, death, and resurrection.His ‘love is kind, it does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud, it is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs’ 1Cor 13: 4.Unexpected people, unexpected places, and in unexpected ways, we can so easily miss the love of God. We can miss it because we allow pain or disappointment to dull our faith. We can miss it because we allow anger, bitterness, or resentment to cloud our light. Or we can miss it because we fail to see God’s love revealed in the ordinary and everyday routines of life. The Spirit of God is at work in humble ways and with humble people but only to those who allow God’s love to keep them young.Anna and Simeon may have been old but they had been practicing the art of staying young throughout their lives, young in spirit and open to the new and unexpected just like a child.
At the start of any new century, it is natural to look forward and imagine a world shaped by new possibilities. The start of the 21st century began with the dream of a world no longer divided by ideological wars, instead, with the World Wide Web, and global markets opening up, we would live peaceful and prosperous lives. Inevitably the dream was shattered by the events of 9/11.At the start of the 20th century artists and poets dreamt of a world shaped by the new industrial forces that allowed humanity to reach out beyond the limitations of our bodies. To fly, to travel at speed, to conquer space and time. It was the age of the ‘Uber menschen’,Or ‘Superman’.The Italian poet Filippo Tommaso Marinetti captured this spirit in what he called a ‘Futurist manifesto’(1909). In it, he rails against the past and condemns the conservative forces that have held Italy back from the industrial revolution. He glorifies speed, and aggression, praising war for its purifying, ‘hygenic properties’.Here is a taste of the manifesto.“ We want to glorify war - the only cure for the world- militarism, patriotism, the destructive gesture of the anarchists, the beautiful ideas which kill, and contempt for women.’ Article 9“We want to demolish museums and libraries fight morality, feminism, and all opportunist and utilitarian cowardice.’ Article 10 The manifesto is horrifyingly prophetic of the age that witnessed the destruction of the First World War and the rise of Fascism, but it is also a testament to a spiritual malaise that has condemned humanity to war, oppression, and injustice down the ages. Jesus’ manifestoIt is this destructive, anarchic, malign spirit in humanity that Jesus confronted in what is sometimes called Jesus’ manifesto.In the Gospel passage in Luke 4: 14-21‘The spirit of the Lord is on me because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight to the blind to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour’ The ‘Jesus manifesto’ sets out his programme for the Kingdom that he had come to establish. However, this vision of a universal, inclusive family was received with violence by the crowds who heard, as this passage makes clear. The townsfolk of Nazareth were not interested in a universal family they wanted a kingdom for themselves.Vision or Mission?In setting out his manifesto Jesus rejects the options that lie behind most manifestos: Popularity, power, and prosperity. These were the options that Satan had offered to him in the wilderness.Populists offer vision, but often it is driven not by a sense of mission but by the seductive lure of power and domination. Jesus rejected these options as a possible route to success. He knows they could only lead to oppression and injustice, instead as his manifesto makes clear, Jesus has three fixed points on which he anchors his mission: The power of the Spirit, the proclamation of the Word, and the appointment, or as Luke calls it the ‘The anointment of God’.The power of the Spirit: ‘Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit’ Luke 4:14. The power that Jesus exercised came from God not from the crowds that followed him. It was a power that was able to transform the crowds into disciples and equip them for ministry.The proclamation of the Word: ‘He has appointed me to preach good news to the poor’. The message Jesus proclaimed was good news for everyone, but it was not a populist message. It called for a reordering of priorities and placed a value on the lives of the most despised in society.The anointing of God: ‘Isn’t this Joseph's son they asked’. Jesus was a local boy but his mission from God was to the whole world. Jesus had come not just for his own, but for those who were outside the community of friends and family.As a Church seeking to fulfill the Jesus mission, we too are to reject the tools employed by populist leaders relying not on human strength, but empowered by the Spirit of God, committed to the Word of God and compelled by God’s calling on us.Manifest or Mission?Though this passage can be understood as a manifesto, looking to a future world order, I believe, it is better understood as the fulfillment of the mission of a loving God who has from the beginning of time set his heart on restoring his creation, defaced by errant humanity, through His anointed Servant.Jesus manifesto echoes words written by Isaiah 500 years before:Isaiah 61: 1 – 4“The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor, he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted to proclaim liberty to the captives and the opening of the prison to those who are bound.”This ‘Manifesto’ might, in fact, be described in another sense of that word:Manifestation or demonstration is sometimes known by the theological term Epiphany. It is the unveiling of the anointed Servant foreseen by Isaiah. In this sense, Jesus is identifying himself as the Servant, coming to fulfill his God-given mission.Not Revolution but ‘Re-Creation’!Jesus’ mission is much more than a revolution, it is the ‘Re-Creation’ or rebirth of God’s creation through the death and resurrection of our Saviour Jesus Christ. His death, far from being the end of his career, was the fulfillment of it, the culmination of long years of prophetic words, now fulfilled in Jesus Christ.Luke gives us a sense of Jesus' ultimate victory over violence and death in the picture he paints of Jesus as he walks calmly through the crowds, intent on killing him.Luke 4: 29/30“And they rose up and drove him out of town and brought him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built so that they could throw him down the cliff. But passing through their midst, he went away.”Jesus, the victorious Saviour, just passes through this mob of violent humanity on his way to glory! Humanity has continued along the ruinous path of destruction for centuries, but Jesus, the Prince of Peace has given us another path that we are called to follow, empowered by His Spirit and guided by His Word. The peaceful Messiah has given us a vision of a world without war, without injustice, without oppression, in which the ultimate enemy, death itself is defeated and humanity restored to life in all its fullness.Rev. Simon BrignallO God of peace, you have established Jerusalem as the Lord’s house and place of peace, and have called on all who live there to love you and prosper. Instill in all – Jews Christians, and Muslims – a hunger for justice and dignity and a resolve to end the distrust that culminates in violence.Please hold in your prayers the grieving families of our parish, especially we pray for the Abel Smith family and the Douglas-Home family.
