TRUE HAPPINESS
Philippians 2:1-13

A sermon given by the Rev. Richard H. Taylor
September 4, 2005 / 16th Sunday of Pentecost

As some of you know, I often outline my sermons weeks, more often months, before I preach them. I get inspired by a passage of scripture, I perceive a spiritual need in the congregation, an idea seems to seize me. So I outline the sermon, bringing it together with its scriptural text. If it seems urgent and alive, I pick a Sunday to preach it. It is only after all of that that I put a title on the sermon.

So awhile back I worked on today's sermon. Then I scribbled a title over the top of my notes, "true happiness." I looked at what I wrote. I actually had surprised myself. "True Happiness." I don't know if I have ever preached on happiness before. Those of you who know me know that I am kind of a serious guy. Sometimes deadly serious. When I've talked about growing the fruit of the Spirit, I've told my friends that the one I had the most trouble with was joy. I worry, and work, and wonder. I am not very giddy. I have never been quite exuberant.

But here I wrote down I was going to talk to you about "true happiness!" Like I know what it is! So I thought about that. Actually as I've gotten older, I think – maybe – I actually have figured out what it is. Not that I have captured it, nailed it down in my life, have it all the time.

But true happiness, I think I know what it is. Let me tell you how writing this sermon revealed that to me.

Several months ago I went to a funeral. I go to a lot of funerals, even if I am not leading them, to be supportive to family members. So I went to this funeral and the preacher was trying to help out the family. The preacher was trying to tell the family that their loved one was going to be happy in heaven. The preacher was trying to tell the family that heaven was a happy place.

So the preacher said that your loved one in heaven is so happy that they will no longer think about any of the problems they left behind on earth. Any problems your family has had, any tensions you have had, any worries you all have had, now they are completely free of that. They are so happy in heaven, they don't even think about your problems any more. Then the preacher said, why, your loved one "in heaven is so happy there, they wouldn't come back here even if they were offered the opportunity."

Now I know that the preacher was trying to be helpful. But I sat there saying in my head over and over again, "No, no, no!" The words of Frederick Faber's old hymn started singing in my head, "There is no place where earth's sorrows are more felt than up in heaven. There is no place where earth's failings have such kindly judgment given."

This is the place where God is. Are we supposed to be saying that when you get to be with God you forget about your family and all the people who loved you? If you get to be with God, and God offers you the opportunity to be with those who you care about, you will turn down that opportunity so you can go on enjoying yourself? Is heaven a selfish, my happiness only kind of place?

Heaven is supposed to have the mind of God. Heaven is supposed to be where you get closest to the mind of God. Heaven is the place where you are supposed to understand God better than you ever have before.

"Have this mind among you that was also in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but instead emptied himself, taking on the form of a servant; being born in human likeness, and being found in human form, he humbled himself…"

Have the mind of Christ, who did not grasp, but took on the form of a servant. When you get to heaven you get the mind of Christ, you take on the form of a servant. "There is no place where earth's sorrows are more felt than up in heaven."

I believe the whole company of heaven is praying for us. I believe the whole company of heaven is watching over us. I believe our loved ones in heaven are watching over us, saying "Oh, don't make that mistake I made." Saying, "Watch out for that evil." Saying, "Notice and love your neighbor." The true happiness of heaven is this mutual concern. Not only does God care for them, and they care for God, but they all care for each other, and they all care for us, and they all care for the creation. The energy left in creation after we die is an energy for good, an energy for love, an energy for servanthood, an energy for compassion.

The whole company of heaven finds happiness in prayer, happiness in intercession, happiness is deep and abiding concern.

So that's what I think true happiness is. Not grasping, but taking the form of a servant. Caring for others. Loving others. Caring and loving yourself as well. Have your mind be like the mind of Christ. Jesus was willing to leave heaven to come to this messed up Earth out of wondrous love.

"Out of the ivory palaces, into the world of woe, only his great eternal love, made my savior go."

That kind of love, that's true happiness.

So it has been a rough week for the world. A thousand deaths in Iraq, women – children, a country that has been so de-stabilized – for what?

And at home: Maria and Joshua's brothers, Marilyn's family in Biloxi. I've had to be worrying about our archival staff from Amistad in New Orleans. So many dead. Maybe a half million, maybe a million, homeless, jobless, unemployed. Disease, hunger, bodies floating in the water.

What can we do? Something more than sitting in front of the television, biting our fingernails like some crisis voyeur. The only road to happiness is servanthood. Do something, give something. Work to change the structures that have allowed all this to overwhelm us.

The only way to find any happiness in this is to take on the mind of Christ. Have this mind, the mind of Jesus. Stop trying to grasp equality with God. Take on the form of a servant. Be humble. Pray and give. And you will have some taste of heaven.

Amen.