Sermons

All Saints Sunday

Sunday 2 November at 10am

David Paton-Williams
Readings: 1 John 3 v1-3 and Matthew 25 v1-12

True Happiness (2nd Nov)

What do you want for your children?
What would be your greatest desire for them?

Many of us might automatically respond:
* for them to be happy
* for them to be healthy
* and for them to be at least comfortably off

But I wonder, if we think more deeply about it, whether we would say that health, wealth and happiness really are the most important things in life.

Take happiness for example.

Those who make their child's happiness their overriding goal, quickly end up spoiling them and making them self-centred.

And would we want that for our children?

And if we simply set out to be happy how likely are we to succeed?

After all happiness is actually a by product of other things
- things like good relationships founded on the ability to trust and communicate and forgive
- or things like satisfying work that comes from finding the right way to fulfil our gifts and abilities.

And happiness comes from being a generous person

- in the Bible Jesus is quoted as saying that: "There is more happiness in giving than in receiving"

And being a thankful person has the same effect.

I always remember a little old lady called Mary. Her husband had died, she had no children of her own and in her old age she had cancer and was housebound.

But Mary told me that she spent ten minutes every morning counting her blessings. "And that" she said "is why I am such a happy person".

So if we want our children to be happy, we need to help them have other qualities and abilities and values from which a deeper, truer level of happiness can flow than superficial pleasure-seeking.

In our gospel reading today - known as the Beatitudes Jesus speaks about that deep level of happiness and some of the things that bring it.

And they are quite challenging words for us,

"Happy are they who are sorrowful, who mourn."

Would we want that for our children?
Of course we wouldn't want our children to be sad. But those who never known sadness have never loved.

And wouldn't we want our children to have the ability to love? to be people who can be open and vulnerable, rather than living in isolated fortresses where nothing and nobody can touch them.

"How happy are those who hunger and thirst to see right prevail. How happy are the peacemakers."

What sort of values will our children grow up with?
Will they grow up with a desire to make a difference to our world, even to take risks in order for others to have peace and justice?

Gayle Williams was killed in Afghanistan because she had gone there as a Christian, committed to improving the lives of people there. I am sure her parents were worried for her but I am equally sure that they were proud of what she was doing, even though there was a risk involved.

No parent would want their child to be killed at an early age but should we not aspire that our children have a strong sense of values that look beyond their own comfort and well-being?

"How happy are the persecuted."

People the world over suffer persecution for their faith.

Again we dread our children being bullied or mistreated but would we not want them to grow up with the confidence to stand up for what they believe in, to be brave, to be faithful, to have integrity even if that costs them.

"How happy are the humble, the lowly, How happy are the merciful and the pure in heart"

Do we want our children to have these sorts of personal qualities, these ways of treating others, or do we actually believe that assertiveness, arrogance and hard-heartedness are the way they should go.

And what about "How happy are the spiritually poor, how happy are those who know their need of God."

Because behind these Beatitudes, behind all of Jesus' words, is the conviction that our ultimate happiness, our ultimate health and wealth, lies in God.

Those who know their need of God, says Jesus, are on the path to true well-being.

Today is All Saints Sunday

Some saints have their own special day when we remember them, but all Saints Day is the day when the church gives thanks for all the ordinary saints who don't have a special day of their own, a day for all the ordinary millions of Christians.

Because in the Bible a saint isn't just one of the special people, but is any Christian - anyone who walks the path of faith

Does it sound completely daft to say that we should want our children to be saints - not plaster-cast goody-two shoes but people
- who know their need of God,
- who hunger and thirst to see right prevail in the world
- who are workers for peace,
- who are humble and merciful,
- who able to mourn because they are able to love
- who are prepared to be faithful and courageous even at a personal cost.

Because to all of these, says, Jesus, belongs the Kingdom of God, all of these says Jesus are truly blessed, truly happy

Would we not want that for our children? Come to think of it would we not want that for ourselves?

Amen.

© St Edmund's Church, Roundhay