Collect for Lent:
Almighty and everlasting God,
you hate nothing that you have made
and forgive the sins of all those who are penitent:
Create and make in us new and contrite hearts
that we, worthily lamenting our sins
and acknowledging our wretchedness,
may receive from you, the God of all mercy,
perfect remission and forgiveness;
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Collect of the Day:
Most merciful God,
who by the death and resurrection of your Son Jesus Christ
delivered and saved the world:
Grant that by faith in him who suffered on the cross,
we may triumph in the power of his victory;
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen
A news report came out a few days ago that has fascinated me. It is the ranking of 149 countries of the world according to how happy its people are. Finland came in at #1, for the fourth year in a row, followed by Iceland, Denmark, Switzerland, and the Netherlands. Afghanistan came in last. Ireland was 13th, the United States 14th, and the United Kingdom 18th.
This is a report that comes out each year, apparently, around the time of 20th March, which the United Nations has designated as the International Day of Happiness. The source of the idea was the Asian country of Bhutan, which since the 1970s has valued national happiness more than the economic measure of Gross National Product.
I heard all this, and I kept wondering, “How did they measure happiness? What criteria did they use to come up with this ranking of countries?” Apparently the ranking usually is based on the results of something called the Gallup World Poll. In case you don’t know, Gallup is a company based in Washington, DC, that conducts all sorts of surveys and polls. In their World Poll, they interview adults in 160 countries. This year the happiness ranking for countries also focused on the response to Covid-19.
I still wanted to know how they measure or define happiness. The United Nations says that three key aspects of well-being and happiness are to end poverty, to reduce inequality, and to protect our planet. So I wondered if these kinds of measurements were how they ranked the countries. This would imply that people are happiest in countries where people are well-off financially, there is little inequality between social groups, and people are ecologically aware. I am not sure this necessarily follows.
What these measurements do not take into account, at least as they have been reported in the news, is people’s spiritual welfare. Someone can be financially well-off and still be unhappy. Someone can live in the best country in the world, whatever that means, and still be unhappy. To be happy, people need to have a spiritual foundation to their lives. They need to believe that no matter what happens, in the words of the great mystic Julian of Norwich, “All shall be well, all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.”
In the reading from the Book of the prophet Jeremiah that we heard this morning, there is a key to happiness. Now mind you, Jeremiah was not the happiest guy in the world, and he lived during a very unhappy time. If you know the word “jeremiad,” which means a long, mournful complaint, that word comes from this prophet. His book is full of long tirades against various people, especially the rulers of Jerusalem. He was writing during a time when Jerusalem is being conquered and destroyed and its people carried off into exile.
A few of us learned something this past week about Jeremiah. On Wednesday, we had a game night via Zoom, with various trivia quizzes. One of them involved hearing a quotation and guessing whether it came from the singer Taylor Swift or from the Book of Lamentations in the Bible. The prophet Jeremiah wrote the Book of Lamentations during the destruction of Jerusalem. It is not a happy book. Believe it or not, it was hard to tell the difference between quotes from Lamentations and the lyrics of Taylor Swift, which perhaps says something about Taylor Swift’s lyrics or maybe how happy she is, but I don’t know anything about that.
But in the reading today, the prophet Jeremiah says that God will make a new covenant — a new agreement — with the people of Israel and Judah. God had made a covenant with them before, but they broke it. But this new covenant, God will write on their hearts — meaning it will be a deep part of them, inseparable from who they are. God says through Jeremiah, “I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. … they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more.”
And one of the psalms given for today gives words that a person could say to God in response to this promise:
“With my whole heart I see you;
do not let me stray from your commandments.
I treasure your word in my heart,
so that I may not sin against you. …
I delight in the way of your decrees
as much as in all riches.”
We do have God’s laws and covenant written deep in our hearts, or most people do. It is what leads to a conscience. It is what leads to that aching feeling that there is something more to life when all we have been doing is going through the motions. It is what leads to that longing for happiness, as though we know it’s possible. It is what drives us sometimes, perhaps in desperation, to pray or to worship. God’s word really is there within us, drawing us closer to God, our Creator and the source of all life and all love. God came among us as Jesus Christ to show us just how close to us God really is, that he could become one of us, live as we live, and be subject to all the joys and sorrow and temptations that we also face. Jesus Christ becomes the means, the way, for our own lives and souls being transformed, because he rose above death and evil in his Resurrection, and draws us with him.
The key to happiness is to have a spiritual foundation for our lives, to trust in God, to turn to God in good times and in bad, to ask for help, to seek forgiveness, to give thanks in all things. Yes, it helps to be financially secure, to have good friendships and loving relationships, to live in a peaceful place, and to fit all sorts of other criteria we might come up with. But God comes first. God always comes first.
So back to the ranking of the countries on a scale of happiness. This year, as I said, they included the response to Covid-19. So how do we respond to this ongoing pandemic, a year into it now? One key is to take things as they come, not to expect a return to life as it was in 2019. We do not know what life will look like, exactly, as we move into the future, but it will not look like life in 2019. So the key for all of us now is to recognize that God in Christ is the foundation, the source of all wisdom and happiness and serenity and security. Keep our hearts and minds fixed firmly there, respond to life and loved ones as needed at any particular moment, and pray in all things. And believe and trust, with Julian of Norwich, that “All shall be well, all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.”