The Myth about Feeling Good

In the movie, Castaway, Tom Hanks is a FedEx Executive who is in love. His fiancé is getting her PhD. She is bright, energetic and honest. Tom is busy as a Corporate Exec for this booming new business that transports packages at rapid speed all over the world. He frequently travels, eats a little too much, enjoys his life and feels content in every way.

Tom is about to leave for a trip on a FedEx jet. His fiancé begs him not to go. She says that she has a bad feeling about it, that something might happen to him. He laughs her off, kisses her, and boards the plane which is charted to cross the Pacific Ocean.

Something happens on that place that night. There is a storm and some kind of malfunction. The plane goes down. The crew dies, some of them right in front of Tom's eyes. He struggles to swim in dark waters and finds a flotation device. By the next morning, he awakens on an island. He is the sole survivor. The body of one of the crew members is there and some random FedEx packages are lying in the sand.

Tom begins to learn how to survive. He rapidly realizes that there is no one to help him. He unwraps the packages and makes the most of the contents: a pair of iceskates turn into knives, a volleyball becomes decorated and he even talks to it and befriends it. He finds a cave in which to sleep and he learns to fish. For four years, he lives on this island alone, staring at the small picture of his fiancé each night for comfort.

After four years of studying the seasons and the wind, some debris washes up on shore which includes material that could be used to make a sail. Tom builds a small raft and risks his life to find a ship or another shore. He is found by a vessel after days and days, when he is near death by dehydration, and he returns to life in America.

His fiancé, who thought he was dead, has now married another man. She has a daughter. She is no longer the person who he remembers, but she does tell him that she never believed that he was dead. And she tells him that she should have waited for him, instead she tried to replace him with another and her life became empty.

When she tried to fill the emptiness that he left by filling it with another man, it did not seem to work. And when he returned, there was no room in her life for the man who she loved most of all.

Jesus walked with us once. Becoming Christian means falling in love with him and wanting to see him, to remember him, to be blessed by him. It also means to realize that he is not with us bodily. Being Christian means that we miss him and want to see him. It means that we are empty. We are incomplete.

Americans have a simple goal in life. We want to be happy. And we believe that the highest goal in life is the happily ever after life. So we spend all our lives trying to be happy, trying to be fulfilled. And when we are not content, we feel that something is fundamentally wrong with us. We should be happier! So we exercise harder or read self-help books or take medications. This is the eternal myth-that you should be happy in this life.

So we begin the process of idolatry. Step back and think about the messages that bombard you on TV, on billboards, in magazines. If you eat this hamburger, you will be happy. If you go on this cruise, you will be happy. If you invest your money with this group, or lose this weight, or buy the right outfit, you will be happy. So we buy and eat and invest and go to the gym, but none of it makes us happy.

So we move to the second level of idolatry. We recognize that stuff will not fill us, so we aim for the perfect relationship. If only I had the perfect relationship, then I would be happy. Or maybe it's the perfect job and we seek, where everyone gets along all the time. So we try for these things, but we can't seem to establish the perfect relationship and our job is sometimes just a job.

So we move on to the final and most profound kind of idolatry. We start praying, serving God, worshipping in church. We do all these things faithfully, but we do not do them for God, we do them for ourselves, so that we will be happy.

The majority of the churches in this country promise that if you are faithful enough, you will find peace. You will be fulfilled, you will be happy. But here is the truth:

Jesus did not come to make you feel better. He came to save you.

God's first priority is not that you feel good. God has much more important things in mind for you. And God knows that when you suffer, you grow. In fact, being happy in a world where there is such suffering is almost unrealistic. How can you be happy when people are starving, when riots break out in Egypt and no one can agree on how to solve the deficit? How can you be happy when your children struggle or your parents age before your eyes? Isn't it realistic to wish that things could be easier, even for those of us who are incredibly fortunate? Is life really ever easy?

Jesus says that the point of life is not to be happy. The point of life is to realize that you are incomplete. You are poor, hungry, mourning and lost. You do not have everything that you need. The point of life is to realize that you cannot exist without God, that there is no complete without God, that you don't want anything as much as you want God.

Blessed are the poor, he said. Blessed are you when people you love die and you grieve for them. Blessed are you when you hunger and thirst for the world to be a better place, for you will be filled.

Let yourself be empty. Let yourselves be restless. Let yourself yearn for something more than this. Long for God. Wait for God. Hope for God. Blessed are you when you wake up to realize that you are incomplete without God.

People who are poor have no illusions about their fragility. They do not believe that they are in control of their lives. They know that they are helpless, dependent, alone. And when they realize these things, then they are ready to enter into relationship with God.

So harbor no illusions, no matter what you own or who you love. Your life is brief. Your belongings are impermanent. Your love is a reflection of the greater love of God. As the Psalmist says, You are a breath that comes and goes away. You are not here to stay.

If you are restless or dissatisfied, you are BLESSED. Do not shame yourself for not being happy all the time! You are not doing something wrong. You are searching and that, in itself, is good. You are looking for Christ in a broken world. Sometimes you see him, but other times you see his absence and you long for his return.

When Tom Hank's character realizes that his fiancé is gone, married to another man, he lays in his hotel room at night and switches the lights on and off to remind himself of the light in his cave on the island. Once more, he is lost. Once more, he is empty. The life that he longed for has slipped through his grasp. And he realizes that he has to start over again.

So the next day he leaves and drives out into the Midwest, leaving from Texas, out into the open plain. He does not know where he is going, only that his life has changed and he must change with it. And as with all those of us who are longing for something more, he looks ahead at the horizon and strains to see what is up ahead.

Hunger and thirst for righteousness, do not shame yourself for not being content. You were made for more than this. Much more.

- The Very Rev. Kate Moorehead

Monday, January 24, 2011