Please hold a moment. “All of our representatives are currently busy. Please stay on the line and your call will be answered by the next available representative. The estimated hold time is currently less than 96 minutes. You are currently caller number 32 waiting to speak with a representative.” How does being placed on hold like this make you feel? Not very happy, right? I wonder if Jesus feels this same way when he calls us and we put him on hold. In fact, I wonder if we sometimes are subconsciously frustrated with ourselves for putting our own happiness on hold.
Let me explain. Fr. Robert Spitzer says there are four levels of happiness. These four levels of happiness are helpful for understanding The Would-Be Followers of Jesus story we just heard in today’s Gospel reading as well as for understanding the happiness level in our own lives.
Who wants to take a stab at what the first level of happiness is? I’ll give you a hint: St. Augustine lived much of his early life in this first level of happiness. What do you think it is? … That’s right, the first level of happiness is pleasure, the seeking out of immediate gratification and focusing on maximizing pleasure.
Jesus, his teachings and the teachings of his church sometimes mistakenly get characterized as being oppressive and as being anti-happiness. When we understand these teachings more fully, we see that this mischaracterization is so wrong. Jesus and his Church are pro-happiness for each of us. Jesus and his church see clearly that if we live most our lives on this first and lowest level of happiness, this pleasure type of happiness, what we become is a pleasure-seeker; a pleasure seeker who sadly is just existing on this first and lowest level of happiness. This is a type of happiness that is extremely short-lived, as we are continually having to chase after our next pleasure fix to stay happy. When pleasure seeking is combined with the vices of lust or gluttony, seeking the happiness of pleasure can become quite compulsive.
Sometimes, I see this with some of my own kids when they are seeking out the pleasure of candy. They eat the candy and they have a sugar high for about 30 minutes, before it leads to an inevitable crash and then they have to seek out another candy fix in order to stay happy. What happens when we get stuck in this pattern of seeking out pleasure, experiencing a short happiness high, followed by the inevitable crash and repeat this over and over again? That’s right, we end up with a stomachache and maybe down the road with a toothache. Having a stomachache is miserable. Having a toothache is miserable. Jesus and his church are trying to keep us from having to experience these miserable aches by encouraging us to practice the virtue of temperance when it comes to pleasure. We also must realize that if we live all our lives entirely in this first and lowest level of happiness, we are missing out on experiencing a higher level of happiness that lasts longer.
In today’s Gospel reading, we see the first man living in part at this first level of happiness as he interacts with Jesus. The interaction goes like this. This first man says to Jesus, “I will follow you wherever you go.” Jesus answered him, “Foxes have dens and birds of the sky have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to rest his head.” This first man starts off eager and willing to pursue what he thinks will be a pleasurable and comfortable existence by following a rabbi. You see, this first man was essentially applying for what he thought would be a cushy job. Many rabbis of the time and their followers lived a pretty comfortable existence, spending much of their time in nice accommodations in and around the synagogue or temple. Jesus wants to make it clear to this first man that being a follower of Jesus is not a path of comfort all the time. If this man follows Jesus, he could expect homelessness to come his way. Following Jesus does not mean choosing comfort all the time. Following Jesus ultimately means choosing the cross.
Now, let’s stay with this first man for a moment, because this first man also lived in part on the second level of happiness. This second level of happiness includes a bump up to a slightly higher level of happiness that lasts slightly longer. This second level is about the happiness of ego and personal achievement. The happiness that comes from being famous, winning, having status, power and popularity. We earned our degree, our social media post went viral, we won the election, we won our game, we got the promotion we were going for. Some amount of self-achievement can be healthy when it’s practiced with the virtue of humility. Self-achievement becomes unhealthy however when it is practiced with the vices of pride, greed and envy. This unhealthy approach to self-achievement results in us getting stuck in the comparison game and our identity, sense of purpose and meaning all revolving around self-achievement. This can leave us feeling like we’re living in our own personal hell of loneliness, shame and despair.
Let’s get back to Jesus’ interaction with this first man. By this point in his life, Jesus was pretty popular and this first man thought that by following Jesus, by attaching himself to Jesus, he would be getting a cultural promotion. With his response to this first man, Jesus makes it clear that following him is not a path paved with self-advancement. Following Jesus is not about living on the second level of happiness by having a higher social status in this world, the path that Jesus walked began with self-denial, which leads to living on a higher level of happiness.
Now, let us turn our attention to the second man and third man Jesus had interactions with about following him. Both of these men were living on the third level of happiness, which is all about making contributions to others and love of neighbor. Both of these men were most concerned with taking care of family responsibilities. This third level of happiness is focused on connecting with others and giving to others. It is about making the world better off because we have lived.
Again, there is nothing inherently bad with this third level of happiness of loving our neighbor, of wanting to make positive difference in the world by making contributions to our family, friends, to our church and to our community. These desires of the second man and third man show a care and concern for their family that is admirable and lasts longer than pleasure or self-achievement. However, even this love of neighbor type of happiness has an expiration date. We see this truth in the man who is concerned first and foremost about burying his father. This man’s temporary happiness in many ways passes away when his father passes away. Jesus is calling this man and each of us to have an epiphany type of moment in our lives. An epiphany moment that moves us from a temporary happiness that in many ways passes away when our loved one passes away or our status in the eyes of the world passes away. This love of neighbor is meant to draw us closer to knowing and loving God, but notice how the love of neighbor of the second man and third man drew them further away from knowing and loving God.
We now focus our attention on the fourth man in the story who is the source of the highest level of happiness. This fourth and highest level of happiness is the most transcendent, pervasive, enduring and deep type of happiness. This is the happiness that comes only from the love of God. When Jesus is calling these men and each of us to follow him, he is calling us to the highest level of happiness. By telling us that our focus should not be first and foremost on pleasure, self-achievement and love of neighbor, Jesus and his Church are not being anti-happiness. Not at all. Quite the opposite actually. Jesus and the Church are just letting us know that if we try satisfying our ultimate desires of truth, goodness, love, beauty and being home with happiness levels 1-3, we are never going to be satisfied.
Again, there is nothing inherently bad with pleasure, self-achievement and love of neighbor. Jesus and his church are just calling us to focus first and foremost on what will make us happiest, on what we were made for; the love of God. This happiness comes from an awareness that we are linked to the happiness of heaven and the more we know and love God on earth, the happier we will be in this life and the next. We believe that only in loving God and letting him love us will we find the happiness that never ends. This is not to say that we have to spend our entire lives on this earth in Church worshipping God. Instead of that approach, we can give thanks to God for the donut we have after Mass that was made, paid for and served by someone other than us. We can give glory to God for giving us gifts and talents we used to get that promotion at work. We can ask for God’s assistance in helping us lead our family and friends closer to Jesus. This is how we have a balanced portfolio of all four levels of happiness in our lives with each of these levels pointing to level 4 and our love of God.
At any given moment in our lives, we have the freedom to decide how happy we want to be in that moment. We also will encounter decision point moments in our lives when we must make a decision about which level of happiness is first and foremost in our lives; about which form of happiness we want to control our soul. We must decide in these decision point moments if we will place Jesus on hold while we focus first and foremost on pleasure, self-achievement and love of neighbor.
This is one of these decision point moments. Each of us may have been tempted to skip church to instead enjoy the pleasure of staying in our comfortable beds or the self-achievement of working so we hear job well done from our boss or loving our neighbor while having brunch with our family. Yet you instead chose to first come to church to have an intimate encounter with Jesus. It is by making choices like this in the moment that we get a taste of this highest level of happiness; a happiness that is enduring. Jesus called each of us to be with him here today at this moment and we came. Not only are we here with him, but Jesus desires to take it a step further, to enter into our lives in a profoundly personal and intimate way, to enter into us. In a few moments, those of us in a state of grace who are called to communion can receive the body, blood, soul and divinity of Jesus and have his presence not only with us, but also in us. Jesus calls us to follow him. This is an invitation to know and love God intimately, which is the greatest happiness of all.
If we put following Jesus on hold until the timing in our lives is perfect, we are going to be putting Jesus on hold forever. The sad reality is that sometimes people wait until it’s too late. Each of us are only given but one life to live here on this earth. Jesus doesn’t want us to waste it by living lives that are a mere shadow of the lives we were meant to live and the great happiness we were made to experience. Each of us deserve better than settling for a second-rate version of the lives we were meant to live and the happiness we were meant to experience here on this earth. St. Irenaeus reminds us that “The glory of God is man fully alive.” We are not doing God, ourselves or those in this world any favors by living a second-rate version of the lives and the happiness Jesus is calling us to experience. When Jesus calls, do not place the call on hold. The perfect time to respond to Jesus’ call to follow him is now.
When Jesus calls each of us, remember that our happiness is determined by how we respond to Jesus’ call. Will we place him on hold or will we hold on … to him?