The Earth is the Lord's

Preached on 02-27-00

HAPPINESS & ACTIVITY

A Sermon by the Rev. Patrick A. Rose

"By this My Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit; . . . " (Jn. 15:8)

NEAR THE BEGINNING OF the book, Conjugial Love, there is a well-known Memorable Relation about the joy of heaven. It talks about the origin of heavenly happiness, and also about what does not make people happy.

We are told that learned men who had come from the Christian world were called together in the world of spirits to give their opinions about the joy and happiness of heaven. Their ideas were, in general, based on misinterpretations of Scripture. Each was then allowed to experience heaven as he imagined it. One group thought that heaven would be a continual series of worship services. Within a matter of days they all realized how mistaken they were -- and were begging to be released from what they had thought would bring them eternal happiness.

Later, ten of these learned men were specially prepared and then introduced into heaven for three days, so that they could learn more about heaven and about heavenly happiness. They saw for themselves that the life of heaven is an active and useful life. Each angel has a job, and this job is the key to his happiness. Indeed, when the ten visitors arrived in heaven -- in a real angelic society -- they were told that they would have to wait before they were allowed to visit the prince of the society. He, like everybody else, was busy working. Later, during their visit, they would see that the angels also enjoyed many recreations. The visitors, though, were left in no doubt at all that what mattered to the angels most of all was their work -- their life of active use. Indeed, without the regular activity of useful work, the angels would have been unable to experience eternal happiness.

The Writings repeatedly emphasize this point. They make it clear, beyond any doubt whatsoever, that in heaven the angels are not creatures of leisure. They do not sit around playing harps all day. The angels work, and it is because they work that they are happy.

In one sense it is obvious that this must be so. It is a matter of common experience that people who are lazy are not happy people. If such people are forced to work, they regard it as drudgery. If, on the other hand, they can avoid working, their lack of activity leads to boredom, and, all too often, to disorder and evil. "Idleness is the devil's pillow." It is an ancient proverb, a proverb repeated in the Writings (SD 6072), and confirmed by common experience. This is why it is that any parent -- any good parent -- teaches children the value of hard work. Mothers and fathers know that if children are bored with playing, then giving them a job to do instead can very quickly change their state. We deal with ourselves the same way. If we are feeling bored, sad or depressed, we know very well that making ourselves do something useful is one of the most effective ways we have of changing our own mood. And society at large also recognizes the value of hard work -- respecting those who work hard, and looking down upon those who are lazy.

And yet despite this, despite the fact that all experience testifies to the value of hard work, there is, within each of us, a tendency to overlook this most obvious truth. We can come into states in which we value leisure more than work, and rest more than activity. It may be that this is simply a result of overwork -- and all we really need is a break -- a rest. On the other hand, we do live in, and are affected by, a culture which does not always value work over leisure. There are still strong indications that most people do value hard work . . . they like their jobs and work hard at them. At the same time, though, there is great emphasis placed upon leisure, upon recreation, upon being entertained. It is very easy for people to fall into the trap of treating leisure as an end in itself. They begin to work so that they can rest and play, rather than rest so that they can work. It is an attitude which spills over into the way children are treated. Too many people actually believe that they can make their children happier simply by giving them better toys, or by allowing them to watch more and more TV.

Now there is nothing wrong with rest, with leisure, with play, in themselves. Indeed they are essential. In the heavenly society visited by the ten learned men, the prince would sometimes declare holidays so those angels who were weary from overworking would rest. There must of course be a balance, a balance which can vary from person to person, and is partly a matter of individual judgment. What we must avoid, though, is a frame of mind which begins to focus more and more on rest, and less and less on work, for this is a dangerous attitude -- one which leads to a great deal of personal frustration and misery.

The culture in which we live is still affected, to a large degree, by the false ideas of heaven presented in the Memorable Relation. Many still think that they are to work on earth so that they can rest in heaven. And even if some people no longer believe in heaven, they still work so that at least they can rest when they retire.

And yet the rest of heaven is not rest from work. Quite the opposite: it is rest from those temptations which so often interfere with our work. Indeed, in heaven we have freedom from those evils, and from those external aggravations and frustrations, which all too often hinder our work and our usefulness here on earth. In heaven we are free to work -- to really work!

Work is essential to the happiness of a human being. Whatever our stage or station in life, we need to be active in one way or another. Even a small child needs to have some duties. Indeed, even a baby in a crib has his work -- learning how to move, to use his hands, his eyes, his mouth -- for him this is his work -- challenging work indeed. Children in school need to work, and need to be challenged. They need duties at home as well. And, after an active career, or after the years of raising a family are over, people still need to keep active and find ways to be useful. Older people have, in many ways, the greatest contribution of all to make to society here on earth. Then, when life on earth is over, there follows a life of eternal usefulness in the Lord's kingdom in the heavens.

Useful activity, useful work, is fundamental to the happiness of all human beings for the simple reason that happiness does not originate within ourselves. Happiness comes from the Lord -- we receive it from Him. And useful activity is an integral and fundamental part of the process by which we receive the Lord's happiness.

Happiness, as we all well know, is an elusive, indeed puzzling, thing. We can feel miserable even when everything seems to be going fine on the outside. And, when we search for happiness, we rarely find it. If we focus upon our own happiness, and if we seek to make ourselves happy by focussing on those external things which delight us, we may cheer up for a while, but only for a while. The simple fact is that happiness is not something we can buy or get. It is something we receive. Indeed, it is not a thing at all, but a sensation -- a sensation we receive as a result of the influx of life from the Lord Himself.

It is impossible to be happy, to experience happiness, without delight. And delight is the manifestation of love. We find delight in those things which we happen to love. And love makes one with our life, the life that we receive, constantly, every least second, from the Lord Himself. In other words, happiness goes hand in hand with this life we receive from the Lord. The life that the Lord gives us, the life with which He flows into us, is a life that is full of happiness.

But, we might protest, there are many people who are alive, but who are not happy. The most obvious example is the devils of hell. They are alive, but they are miserable. What is remarkable about the devils, though, is that, however miserable they might be, they still experience some delight. It is a twisted, misguided delight -- delight in evil -- but it is delight nevertheless. And this, we are taught, is of the mercy of the Lord. If they had no delight at all, they would have no life at all. They would be dead. They would cease to exist. And yet the small amount of delight they do experience is shallow indeed, because their very nature resists the reception of life from the Lord.

Life, we are told, is "the inmost activity of the love and wisdom that are in God and are God" (TCR 471). Life is the activity of the Lord Himself. It is not ours. We cannot possess it for ourselves. We can receive it, though, in greater or lesser fullness. We can receive the activity of the Lord's love and wisdom -- and we receive this activity of the Lord fully when we ourselves are active, and when our actions are in harmony with the Lord.

Love and wisdom from the Lord cannot be received apart from activity or usefulness. In other words, life, or the fullness of life, cannot be received apart from a life of use -- for life, and love, are inseparable from use. It is the very nature of love to go forth, to be active. Love simply cannot exist, or continue to exist, without some form of activity (cf. AC 1561).

And so, within the will of every angel, there is, we are told, something "which draws the mind on to do something" (CL 6). And in doing something -- in being useful -- the mind of the angel is satisfied and made tranquil (ibid.). It is in this satisfaction, and in this tranquillity, that the mind can receive the love of use, and with it happiness, from the Lord.

Those learned men who thought that heaven consisted in perpetual worship were, in once sense, quite right. Heaven does consist in perpetual worship, but not in perpetual services of worship. Services of worship are necessary, even for the angels, but not all the time. The worship which makes heaven to be heaven is another kind of worship -- the worship of life. There is an old Latin proverb: "Laborare est orare" -- "To work is to pray." And indeed work is the primary worship of the angels. For them, work is an act of worship, a way of glorifying the Lord.

People sometimes think of worship as something done for the Lord's sake -- as if the Lord somehow needed to be glorified by His creatures. But worship is for the sake of man, and to glorify the Lord is not a way of giving glory to the Lord, but a way of receiving this glory. When the Word speaks of the Lord's glory, it means the Divine truth which proceeds from the Lord. This Divine truth, within which is the Divine good, is the source of all the light and heat of heaven, the source of all life, the source of all happiness. And to glorify the Lord is to receive this glory, this truth, and with it, all the happiness of life (AE 678, 465).

This is why to work is to worship. It is primarily by working that the angels receive the Lord's glory. And this is how they receive happiness. This, above all, is what the Lord desires. His inmost love is that people might be happy -- truly happy -- happy to all eternity. This love is what the Lord, in the New Testament, calls "the Father." He told His disciples: "In this is My Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit." It is through our bearing of fruit, that is, by our performing useful activities, that the Father, the Lord's love of our happiness, is satisfied and glorified, for it is through the performance of useful work that we can receive happiness from Him.

Work cannot replace the process of regeneration; neither can it replace the need to regularly turn to the Lord and His Word in acts of external worship. Work, by itself, neither saves, nor brings happiness. But given that a person earnestly shuns evils as sins against the Lord, and given that he regularly approaches the Lord in His Word, then an active life of use becomes the way by which he then receives happiness, and joy, from the Lord.

Happiness and joy are not the same thing. Different words are used in the Latin. The Memorable Relation at the beginning of Conjugial Love is said to be about Heavenly Joy and Eternal Happiness. Joy is something perceptible to the mind. It is what we experience when we feel happy. And there are many things which make the angels feel happy. They feel happy when they are working, when they go to church to worship, when they go to weddings or parties, when they go to concerts or plays, and so on. These feelings of manifest happiness are what is meant by joy. And they experience many joys, and do so to all eternity. But the reason these joys continue is that within, deep within, almost above their awareness, they receive happiness. Because they are active and useful, the Lord flows into their very souls with His happiness, a deep, almost imperceptible happiness which descends into their conscious minds, and causes their joy to endure. Were it not for the happiness they find in their work, the angels of heaven would soon be bored with all the joys of heaven.

Within themselves, deep within, they receive an almost inexpressible pleasure in their work. The Writings liken it to a fragrance, or sweetness, perceptible only to the person who is experiencing it (C 193). No lazy person, no selfish person, can experience this sweetness, this fragrance, because for him work is a painful necessity. Yet work is to be enjoyed. It is to be an act of worship, indeed a blessing from the Lord Himself.

We can receive something of this blessing even while we still live in this world. Of course, here on earth, nothing is perfect. Along with work there can be many frustrations, many things which are more conducive to misery than to happiness. But the external obstacles to usefulness are not to be confused with usefulness itself. When things are going well, when we forget ourselves in active use, and take pleasure in being of service to others, this is the Lord's blessing. It is sweet. It is satisfying. To be useful, to be fruitful, is an act of worship. It is an act of glorification.

"By this My Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit; so you will be My disciples."

Amen.

Lessons: CL 8; Jn. 15:1-11