The Secret to Joy and Happiness

Readings for the Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 23 Year C)

Jeremiah 29:1, 4-7
Psalm 66:1-11
2 Timothy 2:8-15
Luke 17:11-19

This sermon was preached by Fr. Daniel London at Christ Episcopal Church in Eureka CA on October 13, 2019. 

There is a spiritual practice that instantly brings happiness and joy to the practitioner. The more we practice this discipline the happier and more joyful we will become. In fact, studies have shown that this practice actually changes the molecular structure of the brain and makes one healthier and feel more at peace.[1] This practice also makes you experience overflowing abundance in your life. You might think I’m making this up, but I’m not. It is a spiritual practice that is built into our liturgy here at Christ Church and the Scriptures invite us to engage in this practice more frequently than anything else. Do you want to know the secret to joy and happiness?

At the altar, I invite us to practice this discipline that brings joy during what is called the Sursum Corda, the lifting up of our hearts. I say, “The Lord be with you.” You say, “And also with you.” I say, “Lift up your hearts.” You say, “We lift them to the Lord.” Then I say, “Let us give thanks to the Lord our God” because “it is a right and good and joyful thing, always and everywhere to give God our thanks and praise.” The most frequent command in all of Scripture is “Praise the Lord! Give thanks to God!” And it is by practicing gratitude that we can enter into abundance and joy right now. I invite you to close your eyes and think of three things for which you are thankful, no matter how trivial or trite they may seem. Don’t you instantly feel a little lighter and happier? The more we practice this gratitude the happier we will be.

Our readings this morning as well as the Collect all invite us to practice gratitude. The Collect invites us to appreciate the thousand little graces that always precede us and follow us, wherever we go. The reading from Jeremiah invites us to appreciate all those things we can so easily take for granted: our homes, our gardens, our home-grown food, our family, our friends, our city and our common welfare. The Psalm reminds us of all the ways God has pulled us through difficult times and has brought us out into a “place of refreshment.” In 2 Timothy, Paul rejoices in God’s chesed (remember from last week?), God’s steadfast and faithful love. Paul rejoices in the truth that even when we are faithless, God remains faithful. In the Gospel, Jesus heals ten lepers of their disease, but only one returns to give thanks and praise his healer. And Jesus responds by saying, “Get up and go on your way. Your faith has made you well” In the original Greek, he says, “Anastas poreuou he pistus sou sesoken se,” which can also be translated as “Rise and continue to pursue this practice, this way of living. Your trust and gratitude have made you healthy and whole.” Since I mention the Greek there, let me also point out a word in verse 16 in which the healed leper prostrated himself at Jesus’s feet and thanked him. The word for “thanked” there is euchariston. Does that sound familiar? Euchariston? It sounds like Eucharist, which is exactly what we Episcopalians call our primary worship service: the Eucharist, which means Thanksgiving. Whenever we gather for Eucharist, we gather to give thanks to God and experience the joy that inevitably results from that gratitude.

I will admit that I am personally not great at practicing gratitude. I am tempted to focus on what I lack and I can easily turn a blind eye to the abundance that is all around me. (Experiencing a 24-hour-long power outage certainly helped me appreciate all the gifts that I so often take for granted. Don’t it always seem to go that you don’t know what you got till it’s gone?) This is partly why frequent Eucharist is so vital for people like me. We need to be reminded regularly of all God’s blessings and mercies, which are new every morning. We come to church not out of guilt, but because we want to be happy and to experience joy through the communal practice of giving thanks to our God, and because, my friends, it is not joy that makes us grateful; it is gratitude that makes us joyful.[2]

Like most weeks here at Christ Church, there was a plethora of opportunities to gather and give thanks to our God and thus receive the abundance that is right in front of us, that has already been given. On Wednesday (the day of the power outage), the ECW gathered in Lewis Hall for noonday prayer, followed by a presentation by Renee Ross on the spirituality and wisdom of the great female leaders of early Christianity known as the Desert Mothers. And then that evening, several of us gathered for Compline prayer in the chapel, which was lit only by beeswax candles and portable lanterns. While officiating Compline, Kirsten Sumner reminded us that this last week was St. Francis week, which began last Saturday with our Blessing of Animals and Sacred Saunter at Sequoia Park. She hand wrote the Prayer attributed to St. Francis about 20 times so that we could all pray it together by candle light. On Friday, many of us gathered at the home of Daniel and Steve to bless and warm their beautiful new house and to give thanks with their friends and neighbors. And yesterday, the vestry gathered at the chapel of our parochial mission church in Trinidad for a daylong retreat, which included noonday prayer on the beach, surrounded by a gentle fog. And now here we are celebrating Eucharist together, giving thanks to our God. And this afternoon at 3 PM, we will offer a free organ concert by young Christopher Houlihan whose performances have been called “miraculously life-affirming.”

The spiritual practice of gratitude invites us to enter into the abundance that is all around us by simply receiving what already has been given, especially here at Christ Church. May we cultivate this attitude of gratitude every day and every moment; and may the following poetic words of George Herbert be our prayer: “Thou that has given so much to me, give one thing more—a grateful heart; Not thankful when it pleaseth me, as if thy blessings had spare days; But such a heart, whose pulse may be thy praise.” Amen.

[1] https://www.collective-evolution.com/2019/02/14/scientists-show-how-gratitude-literally-alters-the-human-heart-molecular-structure-of-the-brain/?fbclid=IwAR1dfA5s6sHLguvZZFFxNdLqm5inLsW1FbFaBb5vuI5ti-ahZc6u_KgYGXg

[2] Quote attributed to Brother David Steindl-Rast. See Gratefulness, the Heart of Prayer: An Approach to Life in Fullness (Mahwah NJ: Paulist Press, 1984).