Happiness is fleeting and contextual. But even in the depths of anguish, we can know joy. (Listen.)
‘It might seem crazy what I’m ‘bout to say …’: but sometimes when the sun is shining and the birds are singing and the house is cleanish and the garden’s flourishing and everyone’s cheerful and I have a bit of money in my pocket, I dance around the kitchen to Pharrell Williams’s smash hit, Happy.
‘Clap along if you feel like a room without a roof,’ he sings, and I smile and shimmy my shoulders. ‘Clap along if you feel like happiness is the truth,’ and I do something dorky and hilarious with my arms. Because, in his words, ‘I’m a hot air balloon that could go to space, with the air, like I don’t care …’
Record scratch. Because there’s the rub. Most of the time, I do care. A lot. The song goes on to say, in effect, tell me all your bad news, whatever, it’s not going to bother me: ‘Because I’m happy.’ But the reality is that bad news does affect me, because I love and care about people, and I love and care about the world. The reality is that bad news often makes me bewildered, or angry, or sad; and today, after the disastrous referendum result, I’m feeling all these feels plus so much more.
Does this mean that people who love and care should feel miserable all the time? Of course not, no. We can and should dance around the kitchen to cheerful songs when we can; we can and should laugh and celebrate the many good things in this life. But to laugh and celebrate in the face of suffering, and to declare that your problems don’t affect me, is simply callous. When someone says, ‘My heart is breaking,’ or ‘My people are in anguish,’ we don’t go, ‘Talk to the hand: ‘Because I’m happy!’’
And yet, of course, some Christians effectively do this; they effectively ignore the cross. They think that, if their faith is strong enough, nothing bad will ever happen to them. Some of them even go so far as to accuse others who are sad or suffering of a lack of faith. We got some of that when my mother was very ill; quite frankly, it was spiritual abuse.
When people are suffering, the Bible doesn’t tell them to buck up, she’ll be right mate, get over it quicksticks. Instead, it tells us to weep with those who are weeping. And when Jesus cries out in anguish from the cross, no voice from heaven tells him, ‘Cheer up, son, it’ll all be over in a minute.’ Instead, the people who love him stand vigil to the end, as he hands his life, anguish and death into God’s hands.
And yet the Apostle Paul writes, ‘Rejoice in the Lord always; again I say, rejoice!’ Maybe those relentlessly happy Christians think he’s telling us to walk around with a rictus grin and pretend everything’s okay, but I don’t think so. Paul’s not writing from a sunny kitchen, or any other happy, cheerful or salubrious location. Instead, he’s writing from a harsh prison in Rome where soon he will die.
He’s already endured hunger, persecution, shipwreck, whippings, beatings, and all the rest. He knows physical suffering. Even worse for him, the gospel message he shared has been undermined, even rejected, by many, and the faith communities he so lovingly established and so carefully instructed appear to be falling apart. His life and work look to be a total failure, which will end in the shame of execution by the state.
Meanwhile, the church itself is about to go through terrible times under Emperor Nero. Christians will be used as burning torches in the Emperor’s gardens; Christians will be thrown to the lions at the stadium. So Paul isn’t happy and nor is the church; and much worse is yet to come.
But ‘Rejoice!’ says Paul. ‘Don’t worry about anything.’ I think we can agree he’s not a fool. He knows his life is nearing the end; he knows the church is both falling apart and being persecuted; he knows God is not a superhero who will swoop down and magically fix everything. But he also knows something else: that nothing is wasted, nothing is lost, when placed in God’s hands.
This is the mystery of the cross. It’s the faith that pain and suffering, even death, can be used for the salvation of the world. And it’s the faith that when we trust God and allow God to use our lives, God can shape them for a greater purpose. Our troubles won’t go away, but when placed in God’s hands, they become part of a larger story in which suffering is in some way redeemed. It’s the great cosmic project in which the world is filled with God’s goodness and healing and peace. In this larger story, we may or may not see results in our lifetime, and we may or may not find happiness: but we will absolutely know joy.
Happiness? It’s fleeting, temporary, context-dependent. And it’s a matter of chance; indeed, the word is from the Middle English for ‘luck.’ Some people are indeed lucky. They are born into enough love, money and opportunity. The world around them approves of their body, sexuality, and gender; their skin colour and ethnicity; their neurology and social class and everything else. They live in circumstances in which they can flourish; it’s easy enough for them to feel happy.
Others are less lucky. There are things about them that aren’t universally appreciated, accepted or understood, and often multiple things intersect in the same person. Poverty and queerness and disability and abuse, say, or being both Indigenous and autistic. So they spend their lives on Struggle Street, or perpetually braced against the next misunderstanding, the next hostility, the next persecution, the next rejection. Study after study after study shows that being forced to live like this all the time, and being told in ways big and small that people like you are of little worth, is terrible for your mental health; happiness becomes much more elusive.
So when you are free from fear, and free from care; when things are going well and the sun is shining and there’s a bit of money in the bank, it’s easy enough to feel happy. But a bit less luck, or one record scratch moment, and it’s over.
Joy is different. It’s much bigger than happiness, and much more enduring. The Greek word is chairo; it means ‘the culmination of being.’ It’s something we are promised in Christ, and it’s a sign that all the parts of our lives have been brought together in God: the good, the bad, the ugly, the shameful, the painful, and everything else. So joy is what happens when we let ourselves be integrated, and experience the fundamental connectedness of all things.
Joy, then, is not dependent on context or happenstance, nor does it indicate the absence of suffering. Instead, it’s a gift we are given when we open our hearts to God: even or maybe especially in times of anguish. And when we seek God’s will more than our own comfort or happiness, our suffering is written into a bigger story and we need no longer be afraid. Because when we give our lives to God, we can trust that the things that we are taught to fear—suffering, rejection, anguish, even death—will be redeemed. ‘Don’t worry about anything,’ writes Paul: not because our troubles will evaporate, but because uniting with God brings purpose and joy, and joy is an antidote to fear.
So in these days of terror and sadness, in this time of myriad personal and public griefs, in the bleak and terrible NO from the Australian electorate, in the anguish of many First Nations people, in the wounds of the earth and the worries about climate and the cries from Israel and Palestine and everywhere else, I urge you to turn, turn, turn again to God.
‘Pray about everything,’ encourages a man who knows suffering. ‘Tell God what you need. Thank God for what God has done.’ Place every aspect of your lives into God’s hands, and trust that God will use it all for the healing of the world. And then, writes Paul, ‘God’s peace, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.’
Your troubles will not go away: but you will know peace.
Your suffering will still be with you: but you will know courage.
Your body will still ache with terrible grief: but bubbling away below the surface in a never-ending stream, you will know the power and the goodness of joy. Thanks be to God: Earth-Maker, Pain-Bearer, Life-Giver. Amen. Ω
Reflect: When have you known intense joy? Was it at a time of ease, or a time of difficulty? Think to some of the darkest moments of your life: were you ever then surprised by joy?
A reflection by Alison Sampson on Philippians 4:1-9 given to Sanctuary on 15 October 2023 © Sanctuary 2023 (Year A Proper 23). This sermon owes a massive debt to Anne Robertson’s sermon, Joy or happiness? (2006). Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash (edited). Sanctuary is based on Peek Whurrong country. Acknowledgement of country here.
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