Tag: Happiness

Are the rich fit for the kingdom of God? Here’s the test.

David HerbertLeave a comment

A sermon for September 28th 2025 – the 15th Sunday after Trinity (Proper 21C)

All three readings, (Amos 6:1a, 4-7, 1 Timothy 6:6-19, Luke 16: 19-end) address the issue of wealth. (There is far more in the Bible about wealth and riches than about sexual morality, though that is hard to believe when we listen to the politics of the church).

Amos condemns those who are at ease in Zion, those who feel secure in Samaria – the notables of the first nations.
He condemns those who lie on beds of ivory, and lounge on their couches, who drink wine from bowls and massage themselves with the finest oils, but who don’t give a fig about those whose lives are ruined.
For Amos, they will be the first to be exiled.
The revelry of the loungers shall pass away – and we will be all the better for that.
Now, there’s a phrase to conjure with. “They shall pass away” –
dead, no more, nada – thank God –
and those who are the victims of their indifference will breathe a sigh of relief.
What use are the loungers to the world?

The kingdom of God does not belong to the comfortable and secure,
but to the last, the least, and the lost.

Then Paul, in his letter to Timothy talks about the great gain in godliness combined with contentment.
He doesn’t condemn people for having things but warns against wanting more and more.
True wealth is “godliness with contentment”.
That’s the way to be happy.
Paul warns Timothy about the dangers of desire.
“Those who want to be rich fall into temptation and are trapped by many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction.”
The danger of desire is that it makes us restless, blind to our neighbour, and forgetful of God. When we chase being first we often step over those who are last.
When we crave more, we forget those with less.
When we seek security in wealth, we leave others lost.

Paul warns that desire blinds us to our neighbour.
And Jesus shows us the tragic result – a rich man so blinded by wealth that he couldn’t see Lazarus at his own gate.

Isn’t it interesting that nobody knows the name of the rich man?
But we all know Lazarus.
The rich man has been forgotten.
That phrase again – he is passed away. He is no more. He is dead.
He is in torment for the torment that Lazarus went through at the rich man’s gate.
He was covered with sores,
and was so hungry he’d have gladly eat the crumbs from the floor of the rich man’s table.
See how the dogs came and licked his sores.
The compassion of the dogs is such a contrast to the indifference of the rich man.

The rich man was at his gate, on his doorstep.
Compassion was surely in his reach.
But he’d made wealth his wall,
and when death came, that wall turned into an unbridgeable chasm.
He passed away into torment, dead to the kingdom of God.
Whereas Lazarus is carried by all the angels to be with Abraham – carried as one of the people of God.
“The loungers shall pass away” says Amos.
And in this parable, the rich man – nameless, forgotten – has passed away.
Dead to God’s kingdom, dead to compassion, dead to life.

We are a rich nation.
And yet, how often we choose not to see the plight of the poor.
The men, women and children arriving in small boats —
are they not Lazarus at our gate?
They lie at the threshold of our common life, in need of compassion.

And here’s the Gospel twist:
Lazarus means “helped by God.”
God helps the poor, the overlooked, the forgotten.
They are not abandoned.
And in God’s strange mercy, they are also sent to help us.
Lazarus is not just a man to be pitied — he is a gods­end.

How the rich man needed Lazarus.
At the end of the parable, he begs Abraham to send Lazarus back to warn his brothers.
But Abraham replies:
They already have Moses and the prophets — they should listen to them.
He could also have said:
They already had Lazarus — lying at their gate.
That was their opportunity. How many more chances do they need?

Lazarus is the examiner of compassion,
who stands at the door and knocks to see if any love of God lives in this household.
This is where the kingdom of God begins: in the last, the least and the lost whom God helps.

The rich man failed the test.
He failed the test to help the ones God helps.
He was like those condemned by Amos – a reveller, a lounger,
and he becomes one of the first in the gospel to go into exile, into torment, into unending death.

Can a rich man ever enter the kingdom of God?
Yes, but only if they help the ones God helps.

The tragedy for the rich man was that he never recognised Lazarus as the gift God had sent him. Wealth had become his wall against him.
When death came, that wall turned into an unbridgeable chasm.
The rich man passed away nameless, forgotten, as Amos warned.
“The revelry of the loungers shall pass away.”

But Lazarus —
helped by God, sent by God —
was lifted up and carried by the angels to the bosom of Abraham.

Pope Francis reminded us that the poor are our evangelisers.
They proclaim the gospel to us.
They show us the face of Christ.
They test our compassion
and teach us where the kingdom of God begins (and where it ends).

So the question is this:
will we see these godsends at our gate,
within our reach, and open the bridge of compassion?
Or, will we, like the rich man, turn away and pass away?

Making connections for International Happiness Day

David Herbert2 Comments

Today is the International Day of Happiness, a day dedicated to happiness by the United Nations. The International Day of Happiness website makes the point that our “happiness is part of something bigger”, wanting me “to create more happiness in the world around me”, “to connect”, “to help make the world a more connected place by sharing something positive with others”. My contribution to that is to share the brilliant TED talk by Martin Seligman on “positive psychology”.

Happiness is something to aim at, but the selfish pursuit of happiness will be self-defeating and will thwart personal happiness. My guess is that the UN intention is that we should be concerned for everyone else’s happiness – and that we should make that our business. The General Assembly passed this resolution on June 28th 2012:

Conscious that the pursuit of happiness is a fundamental human goal,[…] Recognizing also the need for a more inclusive, equitable and balanced approach to economic growth that promotes sustainable development, poverty eradication, happiness and the well-being of all peoples, Decides to proclaim 20 March the International Day of Happiness, Invites all Member States, organizations of the United Nations system and other international and regional organizations, as well as civil society, including non-governmental organizations and individuals, to observe the International Day of Happiness in an appropriate manner, including through education and public awareness-raising activities

Many people have written about happiness and how we find it. Christopher Jameson, Abbot of Worth Abbey and author of Finding Happiness, finds happiness in the way of life based on the Rule of Benedict. He writes:

All too often, happiness is narrowed down to mean feeling good. There is of course nothing wrong with feeling good but such a narrow definition leaves little room for the delight of virtue and the joy of grace. To find happiness, we need to broaden our definition so that feeling good is put into the wider context of doing good and knowing good.

Where do we find happiness? Viktor Frankl was a leading psychiatrist in Vienna, working at the Rothschild Hospital. There he risked his life and career by falsely diagnosing those who were mentally ill so that they would not be euthanized by the Nazis. He had a visa to move with his new wife to America, but, by then in 1941, the Nazis had already started rounding up the Jews to take them to concentration camps. The focus was on the elderly and Frankl knew that it wouldn’t be long before his parents would be taken away. He had to decide between a new (and “happy”) life in America, or staying to be with his parents so that he could help them adjust to the trauma of camp life. He decided to stay. He survived the camps and found there much that confirmed his theories of meaning in life (logotherapy). He wrote Man’s Search for Meaning. He describes his work in the camps as a continuation of his work in Vienna, working, for example to establish suicide prevention centres for young people. It was all about helping people to find meaning in their lives, helping them to discover what they wanted to live for. For Frankl, happiness ensues – it comes after meaning.

What sets people apart is the pursuit of meaning. Happiness without meaning is shallow, selfish and short-lived because it depends on “happinings” (I just noticed the “pinings” in that word). I think this is what the United Nations intend: that we find happiness through (in the words of Christopher Jameson) “knowing good” and “doing good”. To underline that the UN Foundation and Pharrell Williams are inviting people to sign the Live Earth Petition to persuade world leaders to commit to tackling climate change.

Happiness is blessing. It is the subject of Jesus’ sermon in Matthew 5. For Jesus there is no happiness without meaning. Happiness is life giving, not life-taking. He begins many phrases with the words “you are blessed when ….. you’re poor in spirit, when you mourn, when you’re meek, when you hunger and thirst for righteousness, when you’re merciful, when you’re a peacemaker ….”

PS There is a rare clip from 1972 of Viktor Frankl delivering a powerful message about the the search for meaning.

>Finding Happiness

David HerbertLeave a comment

>It was good to hear Christopher Jamison on R4 this morning. He is Abbot of Worth Abbey and has written a book called Finding Happiness.
He says definitions of what happiness is are hard to find, but most boil down to being about “feeling good”. Life isn’t like that though because we have good days and bad days – as well as sickness and suffering. He made the point that happiness is about knowing good and doing good.
He also referred to good worship being an experience of the imagination of God.