Great Realities That Go Astray – Atonement

Palm Sunday (April 12), 1981
Port Charlotte

re-written from:
April 11, 1954
Bridgeport

The hosannas sounded then. They sound today. Amid the long days of Lenten solemnity, Palm Sunday erupts in a moment of triumph.

In the Christian scheme of salvation, the Palm Sunday pageant begins the week of climax with a joyous overture to a drama of courage, fellowship, betrayal, rejection, and defeat. The curtain falls – but the curtain rises on Easter Sunday, with the believers ecstatic with the assurance that their Lord has risen and that life is life everlasting.

The Christian worship of centuries has made the Palm Sunday procession a central part of the way God fulfills a divine plan. The predictions of the children of Israel, made hundreds of years before, are believed to have been fulfilled. This is not an ordinary victory pageant or a hero’s parade – this is God, who has foreordained these moments from the beginning of the world. In the atoning death on the cross, God, and in his incarnation as the Christ, the second person of the Trinity, saves all humankind from the sin of [the] Fall. So goes the plan of Christian theology.

As we see the religious advertising, look to the TV and radio evangelists, feel the emotion that seems to be at the core of the vast majority of Christian groups, we become aware that this doctrine of human salvation through Christ’s atonement is the central certainty of the Christian plan of salvation. “And I, if I be lifted up, shall draw all men unto me.” Thus says the gospel writer speaking for Jesus.

Most Christians respond with a surge of enthusiasm as well as increased sense of their own guilt when they are reminded in forceful and picturesque terms that in Christ Jesus, very God of very God, is the only salvation for sinful men and women (that is, for those who believe in him).

Even though recognizing that this doctrine of the suffering servant who redeems every believer pulls at the heartstrings, nevertheless the scheme of the only human salvation through the atoning death of Jesus Christ is a reality that has gone astray. The scheme seems simple on the surface: [mankind] is depraved, the inheritors of the original sin of Adam. Because of this depravity, men and women are incapable of saving themselves, so God becomes man and saves his believers.

There is, first of all, the confusion that exists in the minds of the believing Christians as to just what this doctrine means. Few will actually discuss the hows and whys of this doctrine, central to orthodox Christianity. The truth is, there is no doctrine about which those who believed it differ more than the explanation of the atonement of Jesus.

In the early centuries of the Christian church, the church fathers generally held that by Adam’s sin, and by our own, all humankind was lost to the Devil. Jesus Christ, God in the flesh, ransomed men and women from the Devil through the atoning death on the cross. But even though ransomed to the Devil for all humankind, the Devil could not hold him because God was sinless. The Devil was tricked and Jesus arose from the dead.

But this doctrine began to bother some thinking persons. It was a nagging theological concept to believe that there was a being, the Devil, almost as powerful, if not as powerful, as God himself. Such a conclusion amounted to believing that there was more than one God. It was just as disturbing to think that God, in cheating the Devil of his ransom, was guilty of the type of sharp practice for which a merchant would be [written up] by the Better Business Bureau.

Then along in the 11th century, Anselm, a noted scholar, formulated a new view which attempted to get around these difficulties. Anselm said that man owed a perfect obedience to God. But because the human was by nature sinful, because he was of Adam’s seed, he/she was incapable of perfect obedience. Therefore, men and women could not pay their just debt of perfect obedience to God. So God, in his yearning and love for the human family, became man and ... Jesus was able by his death on the cross to pay the debt of perfect obedience. “Not my will, but thine be done.... Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit.”

This was accepted by many. It is still the basic atonement theory for some schools of thought. But again, when we look at this calmly, there are many objections. To each proposition, the question “why?” can be asked without a satisfactory answer. If God were all-powerful, every proposition of Anselm’s scheme seems a useless sort of thing, other than God was playing an amusing game with himself.

Other theories have made appearance. You would not want me to take time to speak of them at length. There was the so-called criminal law theory that god by his nature was forced to punish men and women for depravity and sinfulness. But God in Christ became a willing substitute and accepted the punishment which was deserved. Therefore there was no further claim on any sinner who became a believer.

But all of these and other various schemes of supernatural atonement have at least three serious flaws. First of all, they attribute to God a poorer character than we look for in a good person. A human being of honor does not kill the innocent so that the guilty may escape their just punishment. Neither does a just person exact punishment against the son for moral wrong committed by the parent. Are any of these complex, not to say, primitive ideas about the atoning death of Jesus any real credit to a god many think of as love? Sir Oliver Lodge, speaking years ago of an old theory of atonement, said, “none but a cur will ask for the punishment due him to fall on someone else, nor rejoice if told it had already so ‘fallen.’” (HIBBERT JOURNAL, Jan. 1914) For God to decree that Jesus must bear the punishment for my sins or your is just morally irresponsible.

The second flaw in these supernatural theories of the atoning death of Jesus is that the nature and character of [mankind] is misrepresented. Our generation needs no particular reminders that men and women are not perfect. They are guilty of enormous errors and evils. Certain gross burdens that humanity bears like war, treachery, and intolerance seem to be handed generation to generation. Yet to infer from such evidence that men and women are depraved by nature and incapable of achieving salvation is to conclude more than facts warrant. Children are born without moral stain. They are born with the urge to struggle for food and comfort; they are born with the urge to be loved and to love; they are born with physical, genetic inheritance that can be molded or led in many ways. But babies are not squirming bundles of original sin.

If the human family’s long history of misdeeds and the long list of persons who have bent toward evil is evidence for human depravity, what about the much longer list of good people – the “millions who humble and nameless the straight hard pathway trod?” There are more good people than bad people in every generation. Were that not so, human society could not have continued. So if it may be submitted that humanity’s many misdeeds are evidence for depravity, may it not also be submitted that the greater score of goodness is evidence for the essential worth and potentiality of the human personality?

The third mistake in all these miraculous atonement ideas is that they make all meaning to Jesus’ life conditional on three ideas: belief in his alleged miraculous birth, his crucifixion, and his alleged physical resurrection. It makes salvation dependent on belief in these three events. Only one of these events, the crucifixion, has probable historical truth. This third mistake is perhaps the most serious problem, because it separated Jesus’ death from his life. Jesus’ death is important to us only because of the kind of life he lived. It is doubtful Jesus ever said much about death. He said a great deal about life. “Which one of these sons did the will of his father? Go then and do likewise.” He healed the sick, he did not say you will be healed because of my atoning death which is to come. Is it not our verified experience in all the tide of events that make up our lives that it is not alone what we believe, but what we do, that changes things[?]

We know that people who accept the miraculous supernatural salvation schemes are not necessarily better for it. Many times persons will keep their religion in a tight compartment and never permit any religious principles to leak out and change the course of their conduct for the better. The so-called believer may be no more trustworthy in the everyday affairs of life than the person who makes no loud claims for his “saved” condition.

But even though these difficulties exist with the various atonement issues, most of us respond with the emotional feeling of considerable depth to this holy week. We feel the impact of the triumphal march into Jerusalem, we long to participate in the feeling of splendid fellowship that marked the last supper, the gloom and defeat of the cross of execution touch our hearts with sorrow, and the new life, the triumph of Easter cause Christians to affirm, “alleluia.”

We thrill at the events in Passion Week even though we are aware of the origin of the ceremonies. Our historic Christian worship is a blend of the Jewish worship and custom and the worship practices and customs of the Grecian-Roman-Asian world. The blending took many centuries. The Yom Kippur [CJW note: at a different time of y] was and is a Day of Atonement for the Jewish people. The Greco-Roman world worshiped many dying-rising savior gods. They observed the vegetable and plant life of the world of dying in the [season of] Fall. They were dependent upon this vegetation. When spring came and new shoots came through the ground, the people rejoiced. The god of growing things was born again. The[y had] vegetation gods, and they had various names for various times and lands: Osiris, Attis, Adonis, is to name but a few. The early Christian missionaries blended the Jewish and Pagan festivals into the new Christian religion. It was the melting pot brewing, just as the melting pot in America has blended many peoples and their customs.

But back of the social origins of the spring festivals of dying atonement and living resurrection, there is a reality. When we lose touch with this reality we may lose touch with what is both wonder-full and poignant in the affairs of human beings.

This is the reality – that whenever persons are made redeemed [CJW note: made better], whenever good is made to flower from evil, whenever persons are made whole and more honorable, there is always suffering and sacrifice by those who are the keepers of the dream. Always when there are human beings who have sought to free persons from the chains of ignorance, or the slavery of tyranny, or the dungeon of low ideals, or the post-house of selfishness – these saviors of humankind have always generated conflict, hatred, and bloodshed. The persons who seeks to bring light of knowledge and to extend the hand of justice – it is he or she who is crowned with thorns and lynched on the Calvarys of the world.

John Murray Atwood always emphasized that “anyone who undertakes to teach or advocate new truth, running counter to traditional doctrine, always encounters opposition. If he/she persists and is faithful, opposition becomes bitter; first there are attempted bribes, then threats, and if he/she still persists the outcome may be death.”

It has always been so. We may predict with some assurance that it will always be so. Four hundred and fifty years before Christ there lived in Athens a poor, homely, fat man. He was a teacher and he tried to impart to his students the inquiring mind. He taught them to ask questions. He asked questions. He questioned the tyrants of his day who demanded complete and unquestioning loyalty. And so he was silenced: he was ordered to die in the fashion of his time. So Socrates died with creeping paralysis caused by the cup of hemlock. Yet his sacrifice, his atonement, if you please, is one of the reasons why our civilization has had the great advantage of the gains that were achieved by minds that were free.

Look at the saviors of humankind – the have suffered for you and for me. They have atoned for us. When the Swiss confederation was seeking its political independence, in a day when political independence was unknown, they had much to overcome. The armies of the Holy Roman Empire were well-armed and well-trained. The Swiss had few arms and smaller armies. In one battle the Swiss were armed only with axes and they marched toward enemies who came towards them armed with long lances. It would seem that the long lances would cause death and defeat before the brave Swiss could get close enough to struggle hand to hand. Then one of the Swiss patriots suddenly dashed forward and gathered into his one body a number of the lances. The line was breached, the Swiss were able to close in, and win this battle for their freedom. Arnold von Winkelried was a savior for his nation. In his death, his countrymen were freed. He atoned.

So with Jesus. He came into the city whose welcoming cheers were to turn to shouts of “crucify him.” He was the same man, whether applauded or stoned. He was faithful to the vision he saw and tried to make it real by his personal example and his teachings. Throughout the bitterness of the mockery that was called a trial, then along the painful way to the cross, he did not forget his family, his friends, his ideals, or his God. His was the nobility of all the faithful who perform sacrifice that humanity may be healthier, better, and live in a more just society. This was sacrifice of a man who remained true to the best. By his sacrifice, he like another later savior, Lincoln, “belongs to the ages.”

How much more moving is this real atonement of human beings to whom life is sweet. There is no sorrow or tragedy if an all-powerful God merely comes to Earth and Judas, Peter, and Pilate are but puppets being yanked hither and yon playing their pre-determined roles. The old idea just does not identify God closely enough with the moral struggle.

The reality for us is in seeing that the atonement, whether by Jesus or any of the other great friends of mankind, is actually a disclosure of unconditional caring working in and through human efforts.

The reality of the atonement is that suffering has moral power, when a great cause demands suffering.

[CJW note: King: “unmerited suffering is redemptive.”]

We live in an age which is making what may be a great and tragic mistake. So many slide into the rut of thinking that religion is for the purpose of curing little pains, of making people feel self-satisfied and comfortable. The reality of the atonement is that the cross is not merely an exciting word for people who let religion get to their emotions. [CJW note: pre-empted meaning] The cross is the symbol of the inescapable way that the world is made better by the willing devotion, faithfulness, trust, and sacrifice of humankind’s known and nameless saviors. The reality for them is that they become aware of what atonement really is – at-one-ment with the moral fiber of the universe, at-one-ment with the God they worship, or at-one-ment with the difficult but necessary goals of justice, mercy, and love.

The Providential Seed Corn – and the Puzzle of Thankfulness

November 24, 1965
Plainfield

Also,
November 20, 1977
Lakeland

The Providential Seed Corn – and the Puzzle of Thankfulness

In November – December 1620, before deciding to settle Plymouth, the Pilgrims reconnoitered other parts of Cape Cod. In his unorthodox book of the Pilgrim adventure, SAINTS AND STRANGERS, George Willison has a fascinating chapter, “Babes in the Wilderness.” Monday, the 13th of November, 1620, was a day when the women went ashore to wash the heaps of clothes and bedding soiled in the long voyage. Sentries guarded them while excited children ran up and down the beach. Some men repaired the longboat; others dug clams on the tidal flats to make a succulent feast.

Two days later, sixteen men led by Captain Myles Standish, set off to explore the best possible place of settlement. Soon they glimpsed five or six Indians, whom the Pilgrims called “Savages,” but the Indians darted off into the woods. The Pilgrims pursued; and if the native Americans had hostile intentions, nothing could have been easier than an ambush. But there was no trap.

Near what is now Truro, on Cape Cod, Captain Standish and his company came on several clearings which the Indians had used as cornfields. They noticed sand piles covered with grass rugs, which although the first pile they investigated was a grave, others proved to be underground enclosures for corn stored in large baskets – three or four bushel capacity. This of course was the Indian seed corn being stored for next year’s crop. The Pilgrims simply helped themselves to other people’s property without permission and with no compensation. Willison writes, “This was just plain larceny of course, but the Pilgrims were inclined to regard it as another special providence of God. And in a sense it was, for without this seed corn the would have had no crops the next year and all would have starved to death. As it was, they just barely managed to squeeze through.” (p. 150)

When one thinks about it, this is a variation on a thanksgiving theme, is it not?

Can taking other people’s property, just because one needs it, be called the “providence of God?” The question may seem irreverent, because haloes have been shining over Pilgrim memories for quite a while, but supposed it happened to you today? Suppose some ragged invaders of a different skin color helped themselves to your stores of food at the beginning of Winter? And it was food you could not possibly replace? The Pilgrims were people of the Book – the Bible, we are told. What happened to the commandment “Thou shalt not steal?” Judgment at this distance of 345 years is unnecessary and futile.

But we might well think back with gratitude on the forbearance of the Americans to these invaders. Slaughtering the Pilgrim Company would not have been difficult. Continued harassment would have caused an utter failure of the Company, particularly that first dreadful Winter. Furthermore, the continued history of relations between colonizers, and later our nation with the Indians reflects little glory and much shame upon us for the broken treaties, the imposed degradation and nearly complete extinction of the American Indian cultures by the invaders from Europe.

So in moments such as these, we would feel some sense of repentance; we would not only admire the Pilgrim fathers, but also the Indian brothers, for without the forbearance and peaceful attitudes of these so-called “savages,” the Plimoth Plantation would have been no more enduring than that ill-fated colony of Englishmen on Roanoke Island in Virginia.

Such gratitude may be a variation on a theme, but an aspect we should recognize more than we do.

And so they survived.

Attached:
November 21, 1954
Bridgeport

The Religion of the Third Feast

When the settlers at Plymouth gathered the following year to give thanks, to feast and to enjoy the friendship of their Indian neighbors, an American tradition began. Because we are Americans, we are emotionally conditioned to think of Thanksgiving as a celebration born on the shores of Massachusetts Bay, [345] years ago. That’s a long time ago. The tradition of a government of free men under self-imposed laws that was born in the cabin of the Mayflower at the beginning of that great adventure was a heritage that grew and culminated in the American Revolution with goals of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; was a tradition that then exerted a cleansing moral force on some of the infections of tyrannies that had hung on: slavery, voting franchise for everyone regardless of wealth or poverty or sex, free public education, and new in our time the legal removal by the Supreme Court of the stain of discrimination because of skin color. There are many ways that the Pilgrim tradition has enriched us, freed us, and put pressure on us to discipline ourselves.

But the Thanksgiving tradition is older than the Pilgrim’s feast in 1621. Thanksgiving is an ancient ceremony with roots in the very beginnings of our ancient Hebrew religious culture.

The reading from the old scripture of Leviticus (23/ 33/38) tells the story of the Feast of Tabernacles (or Booths). This scripture is the written record of ceremonies even more ancient. The Feast of Tabernacles, or Sukkat (Succoth) was the celebration of the final harvest home of the fruits and olives. It was a time of rejoicing. In early times the whole Israelite population lived for a week in the open, sheltered by temporary tents of palm branches. As time went on their descendants observed the ceremony in various ways. When the temple was built in Jerusalem, Sukkat became a time of pilgrimage to that most holy place where sacrifice was offered. In many Jewish homes, even to this day, the rooms are decorated to take on the appearance of booths. Our harvest feast of Thanksgiving is in one sense the Americanized version of the old Hebrew feast of Tabernacles.

This Feast was the third of the great religious festivals when Pilgrims marched to Jerusalem. Christianity has many parallels. The first feast, Passover, became Easter for Christians. The second, the Feast of Weeks, is somewhat less known in America, but in most Christian countries is observed as Pentecost, or Whitsunday.

Thus the meaning of Thanksgiving stirs our feelings because not only does it appeal to our patriotism, and to our pride in the faith, courage and resourcefulness of the Pilgrims, but also because Thanksgiving stirs our religious feelings at depth. (More than that one of the days when human affection is ...)

In addition, the intensity of our emotions is reinforced because this Autumn ceremony of thankfulness for harvest home is not alone the product of our Hebrew and Pilgrim heritage.

The Pilgrims may have been as much inspired by the Indians as their Hebrew heritage. A. Hyatt Verrill, explorer, scholar of Indian cultures, author of many books, who died in New Haven just a few days ago, made a very interesting claim in his book, THE REAL AMERICANS. Mr. Verrill noted that the “Indians’ seasonal dances and ceremonies (were) numerous and of many kinds ... in the Eastern states the Algonquin tribes such as Delawares, Shawnees, Iroquois, Mohicans, Massachusetts ... and others hold a great autumnal or crop ceremonial feast. (Hundreds of years before the Pilgrims landed) The Indians gathered to give thanks to the Great Spirit and lesser deities for abundant crops, good hunting and fishing. Dances were held ... Drums of a special form were thumped .. A new fire symbolic of a fresh start in life was kindled and there was a great feast with venison roasting ears, wild turkeys, squash pumpkins, pudding.” Mr. Verrill believed that it was from this great Indian ceremony that we derive our Thanksgiving.

One of the most shameful, as well as least known sections of American history has been our inhuman treatment of the Indian tribes who lived on the North American continent when the Europeans began colonization. When history is looked at with some objectivity – when we forget the way we have been conditioned by the “western” movies and the lurid books – we become aware that the Indians of this continent were friendly and hospitable to the newcomers. They were far more friendly to the Europeans than the third and fourth generation Americans were to later immigrants from across the sea. The causes of so-called Indian massacres can be found in broken treaties, in natural retaliation against the brutality, ignorance and greed of the white men who came across the sea. If the Indians had not been friendly it is obvious that there could have been no settlements established.

When the Pilgrims held their great feast of thanks to God they were under the influence of Indian culture as well as Hebrew culture – and the culture of the American Indians was far more advanced than we have ever realized or admitted. The Indian tribes were deeply religious. For the most part they lived in peace with other tribes. Their family life was wholesome and taught high values to the growing children.

One of their Thanksgiving prayers has been translated thus:

“We give thanks for the corn and beans and quashes that give us life;
We give thanks for the wind which moves the air and blows away diseases;
We give thanks for the sun which has looked on us with a kindly eye;
We give thanks for the moon and stars which give us light when the sun is gone;
We give thanks to the Great Spirit, who is all goodness, and who directs all things for the good of his children.”

Furthermore, the religion of the third feast has even deeper roots than already described. Nearly all peoples, all over the world, have had harvest ceremonies and feasts. The wonder of growing things that are nourishing and pleasant to the taste has always gripped the imagination of human beings. Persons survive because of growing things. The record of history, and the events of pre-history which we can assume from tribal memories, folk songs and remnants of ancient ritual – all these confirm the intensity with which seedtime, growth and harvest have always captured the religious feelings of persons of all-time, everywhere.

As far as can be learned, not all harvest festivals were the same everywhere. Variations occurred because of such factors as the most important food crop, the climate, and the relative state of cultural advancement. However, the essential rituals in primitive harvest ceremonies were: 1) propitiatory rites, 2) observances to secure fertility, 3) the offering of first-fruits.

Most of our beliefs are survivals, refined and enlightened, of these primitive expressions. The universal elements of Thanksgiving or harvest festival still basically express the same emotions. We are false to our human heritage if we discard or ignore these basic feelings. But w are also traitor to humanity if we ignore the advances and enlightenment won for us by human beings who refined the barbarisms by unselfish acts and by radiant influence, causing more light to shine on ancient symbols and sacrifices.

Thus the religious meaning of Thanksgiving can best be apprehended by looking at the ancient and primitive ways, and then taking them to our hearts with the refinements of the best of civilization.

First the people of the pre-historic past observe the ingathering of the crops with propitiatory rites. They believed that all things were occupied by spirits. There was the corn-spirit; the tree spirit; the spirit of every vegetable. The people believed that when these were taken for food, the spirits would be angered unless they were placated. So ceremonies grew around the harvest. The corn spirit had to receive some attention or it might be angry at the persons who harvested the golden ears. The vine and tree had to be placated when the grapes and fruit were taken for human use.

Out of this primitive fear of the spirits of growing things has grown, gradually, the spirit of thankfulness to the Power people call God. This world, our home, furnishes us with food, warmth and shelter. There is a spirit of mysterious growth. It does not matter too much, I suppose, if we call that spirit God, Yahweh, Allah, Manitou, or whatever. In the city, particularly, where we are too far from the soil, we have a particular need to remember to be grateful for life and for the harvest which sustains it. Thanksgiving is a time to be thankful for harvest home – for harvest home means life for us and all we love.

The second of the worship elements that the primitives observed was the ritual to insure that the fields would be fertile another year. The rites were primitive. Many peoples included the sacrifice of a human being, the ashes of the sacrificed one being scattered on the fields so that the following year a good crop would grow. As persons gradually became conscious of the value of human life, there was refinement in ritual until animals were sacrificed, and as time went on even that custom was abolished.

But even though the sacrifice of human life no longer would be tolerated, the basic obligation of conservation and restoration of the “holy earth” is ours nevertheless. More and more we must realize that the organic elements of the soil must be restored if abundant, nourishing crops are to be continued. We live in a world where the net population is increasing at a fearful rate. If ever our world is to see a relaxing of tensions between the “have” and the “have-not” peoples, there must be an adequate food supply. Conservation of the soil, forests, water supply, restoration of the mineral elements of the soil removed by crops, all measures which will increase food supplies must be taken in our world if human life is to continue.

(Constant struggle between competing interests)

The battle that Theodore Roosevelt fought and won for conservation in early 20th century America can be lost in our day if we forget the necessity of keeping forest reserves, game preserves, water supplies flood-control and power achievements beyond the power of greedy, short-sighted men.

[Editor’s note: the following is in the Bridgeport sermon, but apparently excised for Plainfield and Lakeland:

There are additional perils. The new noun in our language, “fall-out” refers to the fact that as a result of atomic and hydrogen experiments, many places in the world, even our own country, have experienced rainfalls of radioactive dust. So far, we are told, except for the unlucky Japanese fishing vessels, these “fall-outs” have not been [of] sufficient intensity to represent a danger to human life. A good many people, even the conservative and militant Winston Churchill, are greatly concerned that if these fission experiments continue, the fall-outs will be deadly enough to poison our soil, to make the fruit and all growing things, for which we are thankful, deadly for human beings.

We may have to make a different kind of sacrifice than the primitive peoples to [ensure] the fertility of the earth. We may have to take steps that will halt the rain of death; even if these steps mean that we may have to revise our accepted ideas about individual sovereignty and our notion that we have the right to tell the rest of the world to go hang.]

The third primitive ritual observed in the shadowy and ancient past was the offering of the first fruits to the god and gods. Not only were the fruit and vegetables brought to the altar; and the fatted calves burned in the altar flames; but in more fearsome days the very first child of a man and woman was consecrated to a fiery death in the gaping mouth of Moloch.

Early peoples felt these heartbreaking acts were necessary to appease the anger and desires of the gods they worshiped. No longer do we roast our first-born at the altar of religion. (Although the Mars still receives his tributes). We do not decorate our altars with fruit and vegetables. When churches did, of late years it was for the purpose of feeding those who were in need.

As men advanced in understanding they recognized that rather than destroying humans and vegetables on the altar as a thing pleasing to God, they increased their responsibility for the welfare of their fellow human beings. (Amos: “I hate, despise, but let, righteousness,” etc.)

Thus the Hebrews in their Feast of the Tabernacles refined and humanized the meaning of the festival. In addition to the more original elements of harvest ritual and thanks, the Feast of Tabernacles became the occasion when the Hebrews remembered with gratitude the wanderings of their ancestors who roamed the wilderness for many years, sheltered by tents. The booths (or tents) in houses or in the fields where the Israelites should dwell for 7 days in commemoration of the feast is a reminder to them that their ancestors thought enough of their unique religion and culture to want to be freed from the chains of slavery; to venture into unknown perils for the sake of freedom and for the chance to live their lives in the way they believed to be right. “Let my people go,” said Moses to Pharaoh. When Pharaoh hardened his heart, the people went anyway. They sought freedom. Their courage is one of the great parts of our heritage as well as the heritage of the Jewish people.

Philo, the Alexandrian, one of the greatest Jewish philosophers who lived [around] 200 BC, said of this harvest festival of tabernacles, “it teaches equality, the first principle and beginning of justice ... (as well as) the witnessing of the perfection of all fruits of the year, and the giving of thanks to the being who has made them perfect.”

Thus the first-fruits in our day must be a recognition that life is given to us for moral uses: that God is best served by serving the needs of our fellow-men.

We are all tempted at times to be like the boy in the nursery rhyme (with a little poetic license)

“Little Jack Horner, sat in a corner,
Eating a (Thanksgiving) pie.
He put in his thumb and pulled out a plum,
And said, what a great boy am I.”

But that is not the best of our heritage. From the Jewish people, and from their moral growth that added justice and righteousness to the necessary components of the harvest festival came also the idea of the synagogue. This is a time in Jewish congregations when the institution of the synagogue receives special recognition. We would do well to be glad that the Jewish people evolved this institution for it was a fore-runner of real democracy. In the synagogue all men were equal in the sight of God; no priest, no person or privilege could claim special distinction; all souls were equal as they sought to learn more of what religion is and what religion does. The church fellowship has incorporated many of the best ideas of the synagogue; democracy in church policy; the value of every person; the necessity of learning the facts of religion as well as learning to respond emotionally to religion.

So amid next Thursday’s celebration of family, food and the spiritual fragrance of happiness together, may it be that we will experience a drive to real thanksgiving – be part of conserving a world of hope for all persons; a drive to be working members of a world synagogue dedicated to learning more so that all people may obtain justice and a satisfactory life in which everyone can rejoice and give thanks in freedom to the God who is the creator of all persons everywhere in the world.

Spiritual Values Permeating Christmas

December, 1954
Bridgeport

Christian, in Pilgrim’s Progress, anxious to know the way, consulted Evangelist. “Do you see yonder wicket gate?” asked Evangelist.

Christian strained his eyes to look but was forced to reply, “No, I see nothing.”

“Do you see yonder shining light?” Christian answered, “Yes, I think I do.”

“Then,” said Evangelist, “keep the light in your eye and go directly up thereto – so shalt thou see the gate.”

Most religious liberals understand the cultural universality of the Christmas story; its kinship to and blending of the folk-strains of many religions and tribal memories.

Most religious liberals do not believe that Jesus was God. They believe that a man, Joseph, was Jesus’ father legally, spiritually and biologically.

Despite our rejection of the belief that God came to earth in some special way in the baby Jesus, we can experience and share values of thrilling emotional intensity and demanding ethical drive in the Christmas story.

In his poem, “Nightmare for Future Reference,” Stephen Vincent Benet touches us with ultimate horror when, as a result of the third world war with its smashed cities and pulverized people, the birth rate drops to zero, there are no more babies. “They aren’t being born.”

The candles of Christmas can be festival lights of gladness when we recognize the wonder of life’s beginnings. The story of the baby Jesus batters our hearts. His story is the story of all babies. The soft skin, flower hands, all the ineffable beauty of cradle innocence, make us aware of wonders and creative mystery beyond the power of words to express . Our emotions are painfully sensitive to glorious hopes and shadowy fears.

Then, too, whatever else God may or may not be, he must be at least incarnate in the spirit of love. Babies are born in stables, caves, ranch-houses, and mansions. The universal message of Christmas is that everyone shares in the mystery and power of life and love. In the warmth of Christmas happiness we discover anew that the human family is one. In the sobbing happiness born of creche, balsam scent, carols, candles, and children’s laughter we affirm again that “peace on earth, goodwill to men” is not sentimental nonsense, but the goal of all peoples; and we affirm that we can compress all our worthwhile dreams in a baby’s cradle and illumine them in his smile.

Rev. Carl J. Westman
First Universalist Church
Bridgeport, Connecticut

Worship

November 20, 1957
Akron
Originally Bridgeport February 21, 1954

(HASTINGS) phases: Anointing, Asceticism, Atonement, austerities, baptism, celibacy, chastity, communion, confirmation, confession, consecration, dance, deification, devotions, devotional literature, expiation, fasting, feasting, human sacrifice, hymns, images, idols, initiation, mysteries, oaths, ordeal, penance, pilgrimage, prayer, priest, priesthood, processions, prophecy, propitiation, purification, sacraments, sacrifice, secret societies, tabu, totemism.

--- There are wonders to worship ----- There are weaknesses to worship

There must be many weaknesses in an organized worship because there are so many persons who are consistently absent. There is the story about a man who asked an acquaintance, “why don’t you go to church?” “Too far.” was the answer. Then the second man inquired, “Why don’t you go?” and the answer was, “We live next door to one, and I hate to get all dressed up just to go that little way.”

In a story of the Virginia Colony of 1611 (Behold Virginia, by Willison) there is told the story of how the workers in the colony were compelled to attend church twice a day under military escort. After the bell “had tolled the last time, the (sentinels) searched the homes and commanded everyone who was able to walk to go to church right away. After the last had entered the church, the Captain of the Watch locked the doors and laid the keys before the Marshall, who then called up the roll – and woe to him who was absent without excuse.”

Many church leaders are proclaiming that the United States is the most religious country in the world, and furthermore that we are in the midst of the greatest revival of religion in our history. If this is so, there must be great weakness in worship, for during this so-called peak or religious consciousness, the national average would demonstrate that less than 1/3 of all church members are in their pews on Sunday. The ultimate in advertising weakness in worship is the church that has the slogan, “every Fourth Sunday is go to church Sunday.”

On the other hand there must be strength and wonder in worship because the converse proposition can also be stated, “why do so many people go to church?” We do not have to leave our homes to get the news; we can speak with our friends just by lifting the telephone; we can listen and see religious services through the airwaves; there are countless other and more glamorous attractions to capture our attention and money on Sunday and no longer are there soldiers whose duty it is to round us up and escort us to morning worship.

But worship has enough power so that in some neighborhoods the home-owners object to a new church because the church traffic, crowds, and noise would destroy the residential character of the neighborhood and interfere with their privacy. (Not a thrill for liberals).

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“Let righteousness pour down as a mighty stream.” When you read your N.T. again, count the number of times that Jesus conducted a worship service. “We will now chant Psalm 8!” Isn’t that a striking thought – if Jesus didn’t conduct worship services, why should we? Jesus thrust upon men’s consciousnesses the need for love and service. His whole life was worship. Even Paul, with all his submerging of the religion of Jesus, insisted upon right living and real faith, rather than the performance of ritual acts.

These germinating ideas which are at the heart of worship are the clues to the weaknesses, but also to the wonders of worship.

We no longer offer gifts on an altar in the old sense. But many people come to watch someone else worship, as in olden times people watched the priest slay the animal. One of the most devastating criticisms of the lack of depth of persons in responding to worship was made by a TV comedian. Henry Morgan remarked that he went to church with a friend. As they were coming out Morgan was impressed by the apparent fact that his friend had not felt a thing as far as that worship service was concerned.

Then Morgan went on to say, “Most people go to church the way they go to a filling station. They drive in Sunday morning and say to the attendant, ‘fill her up!’ They expect a full tank of grace. While waiting, they fall asleep and they wake just in time to have the attendant check the tank for the milk of human kindness. They throw a tip into his little basket and leave, figuring they have got enough to last all week. With most of them it runs dry before Sunday night. What they forget is that it is not only last year’s model, but that each year it suffers more and more spiritual depreciation.”

Henry Morgan’s parable has kinship with the criticism that is made at times of persons leading worship (SS and church). You have heard it

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You will find great weakness in worship if you come merely to be entertained. There was a time, perhaps, when the church service offered the most fascinating entertainment. The preacher might have been the most eloquent voice available. The organ and choir the best music, the Sunday clothes the most recent fashion parade. If that was ever true, it certainly is not so now. Let’s face it, -- in terms of entertainment, the church cannot compete with Sullivan, I Love Lucy, Wyatt Earp, the $64M question, Fight Night on television, Bishop Sheep, Elvis Presley or the Cleveland Browns.

There are persons who seek diversion when they attend church. They feel some sort of detached power when watching others worship; they find places where their particular prejudices are tickled rather than challenged; they manage to discover a preacher occasionally who is an entertaining performer. But the real wonder of the worship experience is lost when such are the attractions.

So much for some of the weaknesses of worship. But the worship service is still at the center of organized life of most churches. If there were not some values of deep intensity available, this would not be so.

Paul in his address to the Athenians in the market place, says, “[God] hath made of one blood all nations of men to dwell on the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitations. They should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him, ... for in him we live and move and have our being.” Paul is saying that we are made for worship. If this be so, when worship becomes weak and flat, then we are denied the full flavor of that which is an essential part of ourselves.

The custom of weekly Sabbath was a development in religion. At first worship coincided with the seasons, when man had reason to be more aware of the mysterious powers that surrounded and enfolded him: seedtime, harvest, the shortening and lengthening sun. But the custom of one day a week set apart for worship had a dual purpose.

First of all it was to be a day when man should consider their creation and existence, when they reflect upon the mysterious, divine source of being. At the same time there was the purpose of a day of needed rest for weary bodies. To overlook either of these functions today is to deny the satisfaction of needs which the human being has recognized for hundreds of generations. Sunday, for many, has become a day of recreation. Too many times the other function is overlooked – that it is a day of RE creation also.

We cannot capture for ourselves the wonder of worship unless there is a renewal of reverence. In spite of the aroma of piety that is popular today, is not reverence a disappearing emotion? How often are we caught up by the holiness of the world that veritably our breath is taken away? Yet we miss so much when we hurry reverence out of our lives. Reverence is something that captures us, -- sometimes with the beauty of a flower, the glorious colors of a sunset, the smile of a child, the calm tragedy of aged life for whom the sands are running out, or the power of the fellowship of worship which runs from “heart to heart and from hand to hand.”

It was said of ancient Israel that Solomon’s temple was such a revered holy place that “all people longed to come there for pilgrimage and worship.” Psalm 84 which begins “how amiable are thy tabernacles, O Lord of Hosts! My soul longeth, yea, even fainteth for the courts of the Lord; my heart and flesh crieth out for the living God. Yea the sparrow hath found a house and the swallow a nest for herself where she may lay her young, even thine altars, O Lord of Hosts, my king and my God. Blessed are they that dwell in thy house; they will still be praising thee.”

The psalmist expressed the longing of the people of the outlying regions for the opportunity to worship in the Temple. Such a pilgrimage meant so much to them that they envied not only the priests and attendants, but even the sparrows which nested there.

But we cannot hope to the feel the edge of such deep religious feelings unless we renew the spirit of reverence. The conviction persists that there is something more penetrating than habit or social pressure in the great ceremonies of life which the church and the synagogue celebrate: birth, bar-mitzvah, confirmation, church membership, marriage, death. The church is the framework for the celebration of life.

There are people who do not need the regular practice of worship at a set hour each week to plunge to the depths and climb to the heights of this religious spirit of reverence. They can go by themselves by the river’s brink, or in the forest and come to that awareness of beauty, order, and creation which is beyond words. But most of us need the regular habit of worship to condition our emotions, to participate in that feeling which combines in thrilling intensity, joy, sorry, tragedy, and hope. If we enter “into his gates” with hope fullness and teachableness we can learn to appreciate inwardly (in the words of C F Von Weizacher) “body and soul are not two substances, but one, (it is) man becoming aware of himself in two different ways.”

Such may be the reward of reverence illustrated in the gospel according to Luke when it is said of Jesus that “when he was demanded of the Pharisees, when the kingdom of God should come, he answered them and said “the kingdom of God cometh not with observation: neither shall they say, Lo, here! or Lo there! for behold the kingdom of God is within you.” Such an awareness is the wonder of worship.

But worship, whether kindled by a babbling brook, or conditioned by the regular habit of being one of a company of worshippers, cannot rest with the spirit of reverence as a detached, vague, feeling.

Worship, reverence, must be keyed to life itself. The philosopher Immanuel Kant once defined religion as the “attitude of viewing all our duties as divine commands.”

Worship is one of those rare opportunities each of us has to be completely honest with himself. You do not have to be in tune with the preacher to meet yourself as you really are. One man leaving a church said to the minister, “I want to thank you for the sermon, it did me a great deal of good.” The minister was pleased and remarked that not always did he know if his sermons reached people. The worshipper smiled apologetically and said, “I wasn’t speaking about your sermon. I left you a long way back. I was speaking about the sermon I preached to myself after I stopped listening to yours.” You can’t wash the new car in church, you can’t catch up on the housework, -- but there are a few places so well suited for grappling with the real problems, wrestling with the tensions that make us fearful, arrogant, rash or enraged.

It has been said about Immanuel Kant, whom we quoted, that he formed the habit of “thinking about his problems while gazing at his neighbor’s weather vane; and when the neighbor removed it from his building, Kant considered suing him because he claimed its absence interfered with his work.” The weather vane had become the trigger to his thinking.

When a person comes to group worship trying honestly to see himself as he really is; and his fears and hopes for what they really are; then worship can be a healing function of the spirit and the worshipper will go on his way clean and rejoicing. And that’s the wonder of worship.

Lastly, but primarily, worship can create wonder when it is related to conduct. John Murray Atwood emphasized that worship is a way “of winning a man to certain principles and implanting them.” Unless the spirit of worship improves conduct, or holds a person fast to high principles and noble duties, then it is of little purpose, In his words, “day by day, in the common round and in emergencies, if we are going to do well and faithfully, meet the danger, perform the hard duty, do over the oft-repeated tasks, we reach up unconsciously for perseverance, for fidelity, for patience, for courage, for determination, for good-will, for integrity, for love – for God, and find ALWAYS when we do, if we attend to the experience, that there is an upward surge of emotion that enables us to carry on. He girds us when we know it not.”

The Hebrews in the great devotional literature of the psalms, asked, “What does Jehovah require of his worshippers?” In Psalm 15, there is illustrated the temple liturgy performed at the door. The pilgrim asks, “who can worship at the temple?”(1) The priest answers (2-5) those who are honest and righteous, truthful, who refrain from gossip and slander, who do not harm their friends, do not insult neighbors, do not despise the reprobate, who honor those who fear the Lord, who keep an oath, who do not take interest.

Was this not demonstrated in the life of Jesus in the story of the temptation? Jesus resists powerful and seductive temptations to use his time, power to conduct himself so as to glorify himself. Jesus calls on those inward reserves of patience, courage, determination and integrity. He resists the temptation in a mighty tide of moral resistance, and when he does, we are told that Lo angels ministered unto him.

That is the wonder of worship.

The Pursuit of Happiness

July 25, 1954

Bridgeport (GL ’52)

Carl J. Westman

When the American colonists declared their right to revolt against the then existing government, they affirmed that human beings were endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights: life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

We live in a time when human lives are valued little in most parts of the earth, when liberty has become compromised and destroyed under the guise of patriotism in those areas controlled by the Soviet giant. Even more alarming, liberty is becoming a virtue that is questioned by many in our land where the right to freedom should be most proudly and most fearlessly upheld.

The third unalienable or right which John Hancock and his co-signers claimed was the pursuit of happiness. I want to talk about that. If life is cheap and liberty threatened, most assuredly we can state also that happiness is a condition which affects so many of the world’s inhabitants that it is no exaggeration to say that when you encounter a person who seems to be happy, something rare has been discovered. Robert Louis Stevenson once said that “there is no duty we so much underrate as the duty of being happy.”

A manufacturer or retailer, whether he sells automobiles or laundry soap, never fails to portray the users of this product in the advertisements as happy people. The implication is that if one smokes a certain cigarette, drinks a certain brand of beer, wears a suit sold by a particular store, then he will be as happy as the model who joyfully displays the item.

Is not most everyone looking for happiness or more happiness? Does not everyone feel that he could be happier than he is now? The glittering neon, the stale air and the brassy hollow laughter of many places of “entertainment” are unmistakable signs that the pursuit of happiness is a very elusive quest.

The dictionary provides us with the definition of happiness. It is a “state of well being characterized by relative permanence, by dominantly agreeable emotion ranging in value from mere content to positive felicity and by a natural desire for its continuance.” The root of the word “happiness” indicates that are originally it was synonymous with luck, good fortune or unpredictable happening. Does one have to be lucky to be happy? Is it enough to be merely contented? Cows are supposed to be contented. But even if this doubtful condition were true, who wants to be a cow? Furthermore, if happiness is merely an unpredictable result of blind chance, how can we defend the founding fathers belief that the pursuit of happiness is an unalienable right?

Ecclesiastes, the gentle skeptic, devotes a number of chapters to this question of happiness and does not arrive at any hopeful conclusion. He discusses the number of the activities of men in an effort to discover if happiness can result.

He reasons that if work were the wish of God then surely a man’s labor should bring him happiness. But in his observation he sees many cases where work does not bring happiness. Therefore he concludes that it is vanity, that is, empty, useless.

This philosopher than argues that men have no control over the events of their lives, that everything has been for ordained by an arbitrary, uncaring power. Therefore any hope that a man can achieve happiness by his own efforts is quite useless. That too, is vanity.

He goes on describing in number of events in the human pageant which are obstacles to happiness: the difficulty of obtaining justice in the courts, the futility of trying to overcome oppression, the power of competition and jealousy to prevent happiness; the well known condition, true in his day and in ours, that riches will not buy happiness; and the difficulty of retaining wealth after one has achieved at – all these he classifies as vanity.

He comes to the mournful conclusion that man’s search for happiness is doomed to failure. Labor and toil, he concludes, are our lot, and a sorry lot at that, with no more substantial reality than shadows.

What can be said in answer to this wise skeptic, whose agnostic writings should be good evidence that the Bible is man’s word not God’s?

The second great source of unhappiness is illusion. The great illusion, or mistake, is that happiness is conceived to be something to be won, like first place in a race, or acquired an as one might acquire a Persian rug or an original by Rembrandt. Most of us will readily repeat the trite epigram, “money won’t buy happiness,” but then we feel driven to qualify the statement by adding something like this, “but it’ll buy the kind of misery that is easiest to endure,” or, quoting Sean O’Casey, “money doesn’t buy happiness, but it quiets the nerves.” Such significant remarks demonstrate that we have a haunting, vague feeling that there is something vitally amiss with the attitudes we find so common, whether expressed or unexpressed, “what do I get out of it?” “what’s in it for me?” Some time ago a well known weekly magazine described how the wives of young executives in the business and professional world must observe certain unwritten laws of behavior if the husband is to advance in his chosen job. The choice of Home, automobile, even one’s closest friends, is dictated by the demands of the particular business for which the husband works. The article, even if true only in small measure, is a savage indictment of what our modern civilization may do to the worthwhile things of humanity. To some, as to the particular group in the magazine on article, success is the key to happiness.

Success, like acquiring Persian rugs, or original paintings never seems to reach a sufficiency. Like eating peanuts, the more you consume, the more you seem to want, even though additional quantities are wholly unnecessary.

In our day, we’re very much a under the influence of what is sometimes called “gracious living.” Comfort, ease and luxury are the keynotes. There’s nothing wrong with being comfortable – unless we make the mistake of thinking that comfort is synonymous with real happiness. Dr. Ralph Sockman, whom many of you have heard, once reminded his congregation that the function of the church and its ministry was to “comfort the afflicted” and “afflict the comfortable.”

If it is part of the task of organized religion to transfer some of the burdens to the shoulders of those who are at ease in Zion, then we can rule out physical comfort as the equivalent of happiness.

Is then, poverty, sackcloth and ashes the answer? In the old storybooks there appeared the story of the king who was desperately unhappy man. He sent for his philosophers, wise men, and counselors and told them that he wanted to be happy and relied upon them to tell him how we might achieve that goal. All offered solutions which failed. Then one sage told the king that happiness could be his if he would wear the shirt of a happy man.

All the king’s soldiers and messengers were sent throughout the kingdom to find a happy man. Nowhere did they find one. All men were unhappy. Finally one was discovered – a tramp taking his ease in the shade of a tree. The king’s messenger then demanded that the tramp give his shirt to the king so that the king might be a happy man. The tramp laughed, opened his coat and showed the messenger that he had no shirt.

Perhaps because of the influence of that story, for a long time I was under the illusion that the knights of the dusty roads, the romantic characters who traveled in boxcars and cooked delicious Mulligan stew in tin cans were carefree in happy, glorying in the beauties of nature and the joys of irresponsible comradeship. Like the other youthful ideas, the glamour rubbed off of the “picturesque” hoboes when I discovered that these wanderers are among the most tragically unhappy people in our whole civilization. The reason they travel the roads is because they find a living in one place impossible for them to cope with. The incidence of crime, insanity, suicide is far greater among these so called “romantic” wanderers that among other people. To yield to unrestricted wanderlust is seldom a triumph for happiness. Most often it is an admission of misery.

If happiness is not necessarily tied in with acquiring comfort, goods, power or success; and if on the other hand happiness has no relationship to poverty and irresponsibility, then what is it? Is happiness even more of an illusion than these other experiences of life?

Happiness, it seems to me, is not one of the quantities of life. It is not a thing like an upholstered chair or a rare stamp. Rather, happiness is a quality of life. Most certainly it is not a quality of life confined to a particular social structure, whether high or low. Happiness is not the possession of any particular country or particular time. Happiness cannot be packaged – but it can be demonstrated.

Happiness can be demonstrated by an attitude toward the universe. The fears that corrode happiness can be overcome by a confidence in the WORTH of this vast and mysterious condition in which we find ourselves. The fear of death that gnaws at life’s joys need not be a burden if we accept the reality of death. If we realize, without apprehension, that the end of our bodily existence is as natural a fact as the creation of life within the mother’s body, we need not fear. We fear not the rays of tomorrow’s sun although their power will surely appear to us. The next hour may bring disaster and pain – but need we fear it now? We are limited in many ways – inability to overcome the death of the body whether through age, illness, or chance – that is one of the limitations we must recognize and accept.

In the 144th Psalm the Hebrew singer says as his closing line, “happy is the people whose God is the Lord,” In addition to the feeling of at-homeness in our universe, we need another ingredient to this mixture of life’s elements which will give us a chance for real happiness.

Happiness can be demonstrated by refusing to accept the illusion that happiness is something that can be found by searching for it, as though it were an acorn and we were squirrels. (Gumpert) in his book likens the search for happiness to an incident in World War II. During the war years there arose a report that the German Luftwaffe was treating the crews of that air force with injections of adrenal hormones which enabled them to fly without any physical interference at 40,000 feet.” The rumor was false, but when it reached Washington in 1941, the Army and Navy called on the accelerated research program for the investigation and production of adrenal cortical hormones. The end result of this stimulated interest, though not useful for the war effort, was the discovery of the powerful substance for the treatment of arthritis,” which promises so much relief for a most crippling illness. Happiness too, comes unsought. Happiness comes only when we are able to look for something else.

There used to be a song, “wishing will make it so.” But it won’t. Happiness comes only from a worthwhile loyalty to important things. If everyone tried to live the motto of the Boy Scouts, to do a good turn to someone every day, then happiness would result. The secret, if it is a secret, of happiness is what you give – not what you get. I hope I haven’t told you the story (at least not recently) about the preacher who agreed to fill a supply [sic] preaching assignment in a small church in an isolated area. The preacher took his young son with him for company. As he entered the little country church, he saw a collection box placed on a stand near the entrance to the church auditorium. Thinking it a collection box for world service or relief, the preacher, hoping to set a good example for his son, who was watching him intently, placed a fifty cent piece into the slot of the collection box and went on into the church. He conducted the service and after the concluding hymn greeted the small congregation that had come to the service. As he was leaving, one of the deacons came up to him and said, “we believe in a voluntary offering to pay for the preacher in this church,” Turning to the collection box, the deacon unlocked it, removed the cover and shook the contents into the preacher’s hand. One fifty cent piece rolled out. The preacher thanked the deacon politely, although a bit ironically. The preacher and his son went to the car and started the trip home. The boy said nothing for a time and then remarked, “you know day, if you had put more in you’d have gotten more out.” So with the quality of happiness.

I think probably the most important thing that Jesus ever said was that group of suggestions for noble living that we call the beatitudes. It may be that they represent a more detailed exposition of that most vital sentence of the master, “he who loses his life shall find it.”

The beatitudes, each of with begins with the word that is translated “blessed”, are a little clearer when we realize that in place of the word “blessed” we can substitute “happy” without any inaccuracy of translation. When we do we are confronted with the true insight that the pursuit of happiness cannot be the pursuit of happiness, but the pursuit of noble ideals and high conduct. The happiness must come unsought.

”Happy are those who feel their spiritual need.” Life is lived on more than one level. If we confine our efforts, our ideas, to the material, the appetites of the body, we might occasionally be satiated, but we won’t be happy. But when we feel the need to achieve spiritual and moral goals and purposes; when we live on higher levels by seeking to translate those moral goals into conduct, then says Jesus, “happy are we.”

“Happy are the mourners.” Was Jesus joking in poor taste? Can mourners be happy? I think he was saying with condensed wisdom that the fact of our mourning, if it is a sincere mourning and not the expression of guilt or hidden satisfaction, is proof that something very precious has been present. A relationship has been achieved which had introduced into life a quality of happiness that arose above the fundamental needs to breathe, eat, and sleep.

“Happy are the humble-minded, for they will possess the land.” If you are satisfied with today’s work well done, even though tomorrow you may want to achieve better, then you will not vainly pursue the foolish goals of more and more goods and more and more power, merely to attempt to satisfy a lust for wealth and power.

And so Jesus enumerated these qualities that make for happy of “blessed” living: those who are determined that justice and righteousness will prevail; the merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers; the honest martyrs – all these says Jesus, are happy.

Jesus was not deceived by that seductive illusion that happiness is tied up with anything but achieving the qualities of life. And happiness can never be found if only itself is the object of the search.

Happiness is a by-product of high religion. Because if, as the psalmist told us, “happy is the people whose God is the Lord,” and if we affirm, our Universalism is concerned with moral insights and affirmations of the ethical qualities that are possible in the scheme of living, then perhaps we may devote ourselves to life and liberty. The pursuit of happiness can be forgotten, because if it comes not as a result of our dedication to the good life, and real liberty, then it can come not at all.

Amen.