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Happy are those whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.  Happy are those to whom the Lord imputes no iniquity, and in whose spirit is no deceit.  (Psalm 32:1-2)

It is usually taken that humans are universally in search of happiness, and that this is an unqualified good.  A whole nation (our neighbor to the south) has built its common enterprise on ”life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” because their founders saw that these were self-evident goods.  Those who are aware of the classical underpinnings of this statement may assert that our contemporary view of happiness has changed from what the American founders meant (we tend to think of happiness as an emotion, whereas the classical view was to see it as a kind of virtuous well-being), but it is nevertheless true that the pursuit of happiness was considered something that every human would want to be involved in.  Few of us would want to quarrel with that idea.

But happiness to many of us is both elusive and confusing.  It is a pursuit that continually remains just that.  We know the usual list of happiness-helpers that we tend to resort to: consumer purchases, body image, life-style freedoms, fame and fortune, the list goes on.  But what if we keep missing the most important, and most basic ingredient of happiness?  What if happiness was deeply connected to a kind of soul freedom that is simply based in being free from corruption and deciet, a soul that is forgiven and knows it is, a soul that is deeply connected to the God of forgiveness.  Such is the view of the Scriptures and an important clue to happiness that I am beginning to see in more everyday terms.

I don’t want to be trite or cliche about this because some of you will think that what I am saying is a common place.  Everybody who follows Christ knows this.  But I am not so sure.  We pay lip service to the reality of forgiving grace but we hardly see the pragmatic importance of living in this happiness.  There are enough unhappy church people around to tell me I am not mistaken.  I have come to know — through life experience and practice — that a sin-burdened soul is miserable and a sin-relieved soul is joyous.  I have taken note of that as a pastor who watches souls, and I have come to know that for myself.  As a sinner, and as a forgiven sinner, I have learned the deep connection between the two states and how my soul feels in both conditions.  This is really a truth that you can empirically test out.

I began this morning by reading the above statement from Psalm 32 and I was immediately drawn into that blessed (read: happy) state that this happiness is real for me — I am forgiven, my sin is covered, and God holds nothing against me.  And somehow the Spirit helped me experience the joy of it all.  This is the gospel of course, but I am one who needs to experientially connect to it in order to live by it.  I took time to revel in the joy of sins forgiven and this joy became my strength for today.

How about you?  It is really difficult to live with a burden of guilt, or if you are not aware of your failiings, then the murky unclarity of a burdened and troubled soul.  Perhaps you are just confused as to why you are unable to be happy.  May I gently point out a deep connection that you probably need to make?  For there is a kind of misery that goes quite deep, and which cannot be solved by trivial solutions.  And there is a kind of happiness that is just as deep, for in the case of deep misery only forgiveness will lead you back to joy.  You can really test this out.  It is a practical truth.

“you became imitators of us and of the Lord… [you] became imitators of the churches of God in Christ Jesus that are in Judea…”  (1 Thessalonians 1:6; 2:14)

Paul’s letter to his friends in Thessalonica reminds us of a basic principle of spiritual formation.  It is the priniciple of learning by copying, of becoming by doing.  It is a way we all have experience with, not only as children, but also in the formation of our spiritual selves.  The principle is this: in order to gain some new quality of character, or to become something we are not, we copy a model or example that best represents what it is we want to become.  Once we see an example we admire, we do what they do.  And in the doing, we begin to take on the qualities of the example.

We might be impressed by a generous person.  We see how they give, repeatedly, without much fanfare, in all kinds of circumstances and situations.  And their life to us speaks of this beautiful deep abundance, a freedom we want for ourselves.  So we copy their way, and practice repeated and generous giving.  And what happens?  Over time, the behavior engenders the quality we seek.  We become increasingly generous of heart, with a freedom that emulates the model.  We become something like the example we have copied.

Of course, the key here is to have a model to imitate and that can often be the problem.  Sometimes our imagination is limited by a lack of examples.  In that case it is helpful to push away from our local group, gain a wider perspective on the world, become a reader, seek new circles of relationship, engage in cross-cultural experiences.  The models do reveal themselves if we look.

We may seek to be a good listener, or a courageous leader, a kind nurturer, or a diligent student.    Whatever it is that we seek to become, we first seek out models that we can emulate.  These models show us in living form how such qualities can actually be lived.  And then we do what they do.

CS Lewis famously talked about this principle in Mere Christianity when he talked about “dressing up as Christ”.  He called this the good kind of pretending:

where the pretense leads up to the real thing.  When you are not feeling particularly friendly but know you ought to be, the best thing you can do, very often, is to put on a friendly manner and behave as if you were a nicer person than you actually are.  And in a few minutes, as we have all noticed, you will be really feeling friendlier than you were.  Very often the only way to get a quality in reality is to start behaving as if you had it already.  That is why children’s games are so important.  They are always pretending to be grown-ups — playing soldiers, playing shop.  But all the time, they are hardening their muscles and sharpening their wits so that the pretense of being grown-ups helps them to grow up in earnest.

We have much to learn as adults from this basic insight into the formation of childhood identity.  And it needs to be asserted that, as adults, we are not beyond the possibilities of growing into new ways of being.  The Thessalonian Christians practiced this way of imitation and became a living example for others.  Though they were steeped in a culture of violence and degradation, they were transformed by the gospel that came in word and power.  They turned from imitating the degraded examples of their idols to the maginificent example of Jesus and his follower Paul.

My intention today is to practice the good kind of pretending.  Because of God’s help, I can act graciously when I don’t feel like it, I can make courageous decisions when my anxieties seem to point in another direction, and I can learn to trust when I want to be in control.  The model I will keep before me will be my Lord Jesus.  I will also consider how his life is reflected in the example of people I admire, people like Paul the apostle and others.

Who do you know that you would like to imitate?  What qualities do you need to “dress up” in?  This is practical wisdom and not a trick of psychological conditioning because, as Paul said, “our message of the gospel came to you not in word only, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit”.  It is by this power that we can become what we see in Jesus.

“Remember the Lord in a distant land” (Jeremiah 51:50)

Elie Wiesel is the famous author and interpreter of the holocaust, the writer of Night and some other forty books, and winner of the 1986 Nobel Peace Prize. He experienced the holocaust as a young Jew, survived it, and gradually realized his call to write about it. He is one of those “great souls” as David Aikman called him, a voice that I am continually drawn to for the insight he has on the human condition. One of his most important messages is the need to remember rightly, to remember both our sufferings and the good that comes to us. Without memory, he says, we cease to live redemptive lives but endlessly repeat the sins of our human past. Only from the place of memory can we learn wisdom. Here are a few excerpts from his 1986 Nobel lecture:

Stripped of possessions, all human ties severed, the prisoners found themselves in a social and cultural void. “Forget,” they were told. “Forget where you came from; forget who you were. Only the present matters.” Night after night, seemingly endless processions vanished into the flames, lighting up the sky. Fear dominated the universe.

New Year’s Day, Rash Hashana, is also called Yom Hazikaron, the day of memory. On that day, the day of universal judgment, man appeals to God to remember: our salvation depends on it. If God wishes to remember our suffering, all will be well; if he refuses, all will be lost. Thus, the rejection of memory becomes a divine curse, one that would doom us to repeat past disasters…

For us, forgetting was never an option. Remembering is a noble and necessary act. The call of memory, the call to memory, reaches us from the very dawn of history. No commandment figures so frequently, so insistently, in the Bible.

Elie Wiesel is one of those rare voices that speak with an eloquence born out of intimate knowledge. His call to remember is profoundly right, and a necessary message for our time.

This morning, my reading through Jeremiah brought me to this most important text: “Remember the Lord in a distant land; and let Jerusalem come into your mind” (51:50). The story of Jeremiah’s prophecy and Israel’s forgetfulness had brought them to this moment, the beginning of Israel’s exile in Babylon. From this point forward, their memory of Jerusalem will be crucial to their survival as a people. Few nations survive apart from their own land. Jeremiah’s call to remember was the call to “keep in mind” the whole long story of Israel, their covenant connection to God, their understanding of the character and faithfulness of the God who had called them into being, their record of sacred history which guided them, and their hope for the future because of all this. Remember the Lord.

We live in a forgetful age. We have enjoyed an unparalleled time of material prosperity and peace but we hardly know the history that provided this possibility. We assume that we are where we are because we are innovators, entrepreneurs, change-agents. We have little appreciation for the spiritual grounding of our culture, the Biblical moorings which have allowed us to reach our present heights. We cannot remember such things because we have been cut off from the essence of our past. Our celebration of the youth culture has placed too much pressure on those without memory to interpret life for us. And those further along the road of life have not always developed the necessary skill and understanding of life’s greatest lesson. Experience, it seems, easily collapses before the gods of innovation and change. But let me simply assert what Jeremiah asserts: that whether we realize it or not, memory is necessary to survival; spiritual survival, to be sure, but also human survival.

This command to remember the Lord is one of ultimate hope. As for me, this morning, I have been recalling all the way God has led me and spoke to me. I dare not forget, for myself, but also for the sake of those I am called to serve.

One of the most influential voices in my life has been that of James Houston, the distinguished and now retired professor of spirituality at Regent College, Vancouver.  His influence on so many of us is hard to calculate, mostly because of his way of being personally open and engaged but also because of the keen insight he has had on the issues of ministry and spirituality in our present era.  He represents both a scholar’s mind and a pastor’s heart, qualities that I have come to embrace for my own life and ministry.  I offer up the following review of his book The Mentored Life with the hope that you would begin to explore the writings of James Houston, not only because of the quality he offers in his writing but also as the best example of the mentoring he is so keen on promoting.

Continuing my interest (fascination really) in words and language, I am making available a piece called A Voice to Speak.  This is a call to develop our voices as representative voices of the voice of God.  I assert that Jesus learned his voice through sustained development and that, ultimately, his voice was a pure reflection of the voice of God in Scripture.

I would be interested in your comments on what you think the present issues are in contemporary speech about God.  There are several ways to address this topic: current tastes in our church communications, current tastes in the Oprah-ized world of spiritual talk, and current conversations you are having with friends about God and faith.  The questions for me are these: how do we choose the voices we listen to for guidance in spiritual matters, and what criteria do we use to make such evaluations?