The Greek words for “Blessed” in today’s gospel means happiness: “Blessed – happy – are you,” says Jesus. Here are some other wise words on the subject of happiness: “nobody is in any doubt about what it is that all men and women want, only about what it means. What everyone wants is happiness, despite Marx and Nietzsche’s withering opinion that only the English desired that. But [their remarks were] a smack at the peculiarly anemic version of happiness espoused by the English Utilitarians, for whom happiness is an essentially unproblematic issue, reducible in effect to pleasure. But”—and here is the rub—“to attain happiness I must sometimes pass up on short-term pleasures.”
Following the tradition begun by Aristotle, many thinkers have believed that life is about seeking happiness; but this happiness is not the stuff of short-term pleasures, the fulfillment of bodily passions; nor is this happiness the stuff of selfish pleasure-seeking at the expense of others. Rather, happiness is best enjoyed with others, and involves taking responsibility for others as well as yourself.
Into this long tradition of people who have sought happiness I want to put Christ’s words from today’s gospel. “Blessed are you who hunger now, for you shall be satisfied. Blessed are you who weep now, for you shall laugh. Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude you and revile you, and cast out your name as evil, on account of the Son of Man! Rejoice in that day, and leap for joy, for behold, your reward is great in heaven; for so their ancesters did to the prophets.” What can Jesus mean here? What does this say to the human condition that strives to be happy? Can Jesus really mean that we should give up enjoying ourselves, so as to be blessed by God?
Well it is certainly possible that this is exactly what Jesus is saying. We must allow our human ideas of happiness to be called into question by Jesus’ words. Perhaps the poor and hungry really do have something to teach us—we should at least not be blind to their example. Perhaps Jesus really is calling us to come into greater conflict with those around us, in witness to our Lord. Let’s be serious about that possibility.
But today I am going to suggest another explanation of Jesus’ words. How can you be happy when you weep, or when you are hungry, or when you face persecution? It may well be the case that these words were recorded by the first Christians (they are found both in Matthew and Luke, which we heard today) because they were words of great comfort for those who suffered for their faith. Jesus was preparing disciples for the troubles they would experience when he left them. Luke’s Gospel, and the book of Acts which goes with it, constantly talk about the persecutions that the first people to call themselves “Christians” would face. The disciples would indeed be reviled: they would be battered and bruised for their faith, and eventually die the death of martyrs. And this they did—did throughout the first centuries of the church—so that we who live in an age where Christianity has been established in many places, don’t need to face the horrific persecutions that our Christian forebears did. For this we should be happy.
In a letter from the first century, the judge Pliny wrote to the Emperor Trajan about the Christians he was trying, with these words, “They affirmed the whole of their guilt, or their error, was, that they were in the habit of meeting on a certain day before it was light, when they sang… a hymn to Christ, as to a god, and bound themselves by a solemn oath… never to commit any fraud, theft or adultery, never to falsify their word, nor deny a trust when they should be called upon to deliver it up; after which… [they] reassemble to partake of food.” Pliny writes to ask the Emperor what exactly it is these Christians are doing wrong. They are ethically upright, they sing harmless songs, and they gather on Sunday to share a meal – the meal we call the Eucharist.
Which brings us to Jesus’ words to those who hunger. Jesus is telling us that happiness and joy are very much a part of God’s plan for humanity; for those, at least, who live in the Kingdom. And the early Christians would probably have had in mind the Eucharist as the place where that Kingdom was made present here. There could be happiness in the midst of suffering in this shared meal. The Eucharist was a time for rich and poor, for happy and sad, for slave and free to share bread and wine. No ordinary meal either, but one in which Jesus the King was made present.
“Woe to you that are full now, for you shall hunger” said Jesus. But the bread that those first Christians ate, which we eat now, and the wine—Jesus’ own body and blood—both feeds us and leaves us wanting more. We who have a foretaste of the Kingdom can never be satisfied, can never be “full”, until we are granted a place at the heavenly banquet which will follow the resurrection of the dead. We who share the Eucharist can enjoy ourselves here, can taste the kingdom now, but our happiness will not be complete until we are with our Lord in heaven. He is the first fruits of the dead (as St. Paul reminded us in our epistle), but the fruit of new life is promised to us too whenever we eat the Eucharist.
And Jesus’ words those who weep? Those first Christians themselves wept over the deaths of their loved-ones, just as we do today. The catacombs were the underground places where they went to mourn their dead not, as people sometimes think, to hide from the Romans. They were burial grounds not hiding places. And they were places where early Christians gathered to share the Eucharist, to share the meal that united the whole community, living and dead.
But what about us here and now? How we can be happy in this life? Well, there are three lessons we can learn from the early Christians. First, happiness as I’ve said already is not about seeking after short-lived pleasure—Aristotle said we should be prepared for it to take an entire lifetime and I think the early Christians agreed. Happiness, or blessedness as Jesus calls it, involves facing up to the difficult things of life, not simply trying to run away from difficulty.
Secondly, happiness involves commitment: for Christians that means commitment to Christ and to one another. We need to be aware that happiness is larger than just ourselves—it is to be measured in the happiness we share.
Thirdly, happiness is about good old-fashioned fun! We are a community gathered for a family feast, just as our Christian forebears were centuries ago. Let us enjoy ourselves then; let us relish this foretaste of the heavenly Kingdom. But let us not forget those who hunger, who weep and who mourn… or those who have gone before us to make possible what we have today.
