The Question of Happiness

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Well, unless I'm wrong — and I don't think I am — the one question we would all love the answer to is, how can I experience true, lasting happiness? We just want to figure out how to be happy, and yet the answer is elusive. One of the most popular TED talks of all time was offered by a man named Dan Gilbert, who is a Harvard psychologist. The TED talk was entitled, “The Surprising Science of Happiness,” and in it he offers this pop quiz. Imagine two different scenarios in the future, and which one do you think would make you more happy? So here's the pop quiz: Would you rather win the lottery or become a paraplegic? So let me give you a moment to consider those two scenarios. Do you need more time? I think not. I think we would all say, if we wanted to be happy, we would rather win millions of dollars than lose the use of our legs.

But Dan Gilbert would say we would have failed the pop quiz, because, as it turns out, studies have shown that three months after either winning the lottery or becoming a paraplegic, people report being equally happy. Three months is all it takes for us to return to whatever our norm might have been. Now, Gilbert's point is that we human beings are terrible at predicting what will make us happy. He argues that there's a synthetic quality to happiness. We manufacture our own happiness, and therefore you can be as happy as you want to be. It's just a matter of mindset. Which to me sounds a little easier said than done. Gilbert can be a little blasé about all this. Gilbert says you're terrible at predicting what will make you happy; therefore, don't worry about it. You'll stumble into happiness one way or another. But the book of Ecclesiastes says you are terrible at predicting what will make you happy; therefore, you better listen up.

We've begun a series on the book of Ecclesiastes, which may cause you to wonder whether or not I might have lost my marbles. You might say, “Really? You're going to do a series on Ecclesiastes in the middle of January when everybody's already feeling lonely and depressed?” And the answer is, yes. Now I acknowledge that the author of Ecclesiastes seems excessively bleak in his outlook on human existence, and yet I would also suggest that his goal is not to drive you to despair but rather to lead you to the only source of hope.

Last week I suggested that you could think of the author of Ecclesiastes as a professor. In fact, you could imagine him as the chair of the philosophy department at NYU, wearing a black turtleneck and dark, thick-rimmed glasses. This guy could easily have been a New Yorker because he tells it like it is. He doesn't mince his words. He's not afraid of offending you. And that is what, in part, makes Ecclesiastes an incredibly contemporary book. The contemporary relevance of Ecclesiastes is unmatched. It literally could have been written yesterday.

So we should think of the author as a professor, but he's not a lecturer; he's more like a seminar leader. He's not a lecturer because he's not standing up there offering advice about how to live your life or how to become a better you. In fact (and it's especially true with the passage that we're going to look at today), if you were to go out there and just do what the professor did, you would probably make a wreck of your life. Just because he says it doesn't mean you should do it. So he's a professor, but he's not a lecturer. He's a seminar leader because he's not offering advice. He's not telling you to live your life a certain way. He's instead asking you questions. He's not offering answers; he's asking questions. He's not telling you what to think; he's teaching you how to think. And the way in which he does that in the section of the book that is before us today is by sharing with us his failed experiment in the pursuit of happiness, and the surprising results. So let's focus on both of those things and see what we can learn. Let's look at: 1) the failed experiment and 2) the surprising results.

¹I said in my heart, “Come now, I will test you with pleasure; enjoy yourself.” But behold, this also was vanity. ²I said of laughter, “It is mad,” and of pleasure, “What use is it?” ³I searched with my heart how to cheer my body with wine—my heart still guiding me with wisdom—and how to lay hold on folly, till I might see what was good for the children of man to do under heaven during the few days of their life. ⁴I made great works. I built houses and planted vineyards for myself. ⁵I made myself gardens and parks, and planted in them all kinds of fruit trees. ⁶I made myself pools from which to water the forest of growing trees. ⁷I bought male and female slaves, and had slaves who were born in my house. I had also great possessions of herds and flocks, more than any who had been before me in Jerusalem. ⁸I also gathered for myself silver and gold and the treasure of kings and provinces. I got singers, both men and women, and many concubines, the delight of the sons of man.

⁹So I became great and surpassed all who were before me in Jerusalem. Also my wisdom remained with me. ¹⁰And whatever my eyes desired I did not keep from them. I kept my heart from no pleasure, for my heart found pleasure in all my toil, and this was my reward for all my toil. ¹¹Then I considered all that my hands had done and the toil I had expended in doing it, and behold, all was vanity and a striving after wind, and there was nothing to be gained under the sun.

Ecclesiastes 2:1-11

The Failed Experiment

If we were to paint with a very, very broad brush, you could look back over the course of Western civilization and you could sum up the history of the Western world in terms of three different epochs marked by one overarching concern. So in the classical world, the ancient Greeks and Romans were primarily focused on the fear of death. That was the primary problem. How do we resolve the fear of death in order to live life well? That's what motivated and inspired so many different great philosophical traditions. But in the medieval period, people were concerned with guilt. That was the source of their anxiety. Most people believed one way or another in God, but they were anxious about their standing before God because they knew they were guilty. So what do we do with our guilt? And in the modern world, we're primarily focused on meaning. And you see, we've come full circle. If we know that we're going to die — if we're going to lose everyone and everything that we've ever loved — then what's the point? What is the meaning behind it all?

And that, of course, is how the professor famously introduces the book of Ecclesiastes, as we saw last week. In Ecclesiastes 1:2 he says, “vanity of vanities! All is vanity.” And then in verse 14 he says, “I have seen everything that is done under the sun, and behold, all is vanity and a striving after wind.” These words are elsewhere translated as “meaningless, meaningless, utterly meaningless. Everything is meaningless.”

But this word in Hebrew — “vanity,” “meaningless” — is slippery. It's as slippery as the concept itself. It's hard to pin down. The word literally means vapor or mist, a puff of breath or a whiff of smoke. And so the professor suggests that life is ephemeral and fleeting. It's strange and mysterious. We can't quite get a handle on it. It is a baffling enigma. And perhaps that is the best translation of that Hebrew word. So wherever you see the word “vanity” or “meaningless,” you could swap it out for “baffling enigma.” Life is a baffling enigma.

Subsequently, the professor engages in what proves to be a failed experiment in the pursuit of happiness. He says in 2:1, “I said in my heart, ‘Come now, I will test you with pleasure; enjoy yourself.’” So he sets out to find true joy and happiness through the experience of pleasure. And he basically tries three tests.

Laughter

The first test is laughter. In verse 2 he says, I speak of laughter. So he decides to laugh at life. And this is a very modern approach to the problem. We could think of dark humor popularized by people like Woody Allen. Woody Allen once said, well, if life is an illusion, and if nothing exists, well then I definitely overpaid for my carpet. And there's a good and right place for that kind of humor. Life often seems so confusing, so tragic, so strange that it's enough to make you want to either laugh or cry. And many would prefer to laugh, because it's a way to cope with the distress and discomfort of life. And on the one hand, that's not a bad way to go, because between laughing and crying, laughing is a lot more fun, and crying tends to give us a little bit of a headache. A little humor goes a long way to alleviate stress or to diffuse a tense situation.

And if you can laugh at something terrible that happened to you in the past, that's a good thing. It shows that you survived the ordeal and that you're going to be able to get through it. You can laugh at it now, but on the other hand, laughter can also be turned into a rather unhelpful kind of defense mechanism. If your solution to everything is to crack jokes, well then it shows that you are probably unable to deal with conflict or to engage reality. It may suggest that you don't have the resources to handle the uncomfortable feelings and emotions that might be swirling within you. And let's face it, some things in life are just not that funny. There's nothing funny about death, there's nothing funny about cancer, there's nothing funny about addiction. So laughter only gets you so far.

Living It Up

So the first test is laughter. The second test that the professor engages in is living it up. Let the good times roll! He says in verse 3, “I searched with my heart how to cheer my body with wine.” So he turns to drinking and to parties. He's going to let the good times roll. Now there's a certain kind of hedonism that is unthinking. There's nothing philosophical about it. You just turn your brain off and check out and try to forget the world for a while. But there's another kind of hedonism that is purposefully experimental, perhaps even transgressive.

You might think of the parties that Andy Warhol threw in his loft, what he called the factory here in New York in the 1960s. It was purposely experimental, and it was somewhat philosophical. And the professor says, in effect, that that's what he tried to do as well. He says in verse 3 that he deliberately embraced folly, “my heart still guiding me with wisdom.” He's thinking about what he's doing. He deliberately embraces folly. So he pushes the limits. He tries to figure out, what should we do with the time that we have on this planet? So according to verse 8, he threw himself into wine, women, and song. It was all just one house party after another, and he was the life of the party.

Now, as a pastor in New York, I can say that many of you have come to me at different points in time and you have told me that you tried that, too. That you got caught up in the whole scene. You dabbled with drugs and sex and parties, hoping that somehow, someway, it might fill you up, but it only left you feeling even more empty inside. You might turn to pleasure to try to self medicate or to find some escape from the pain, at least for a moment. But what do you do when the party's over, when the music stops playing and the wine stops flowing? Sooner or later, you have to deal with reality. That's what happened to the younger brother in the parable of the Prodigal Son. He let the good times roll. He was living the good life,and everything was great, until it wasn't. And then what do you do?

Life of Luxury

So the first test was laughter. The second test was living it up. The third test of the professor was to seek to live a life of luxury. He decides to dedicate himself to the pursuit of happiness in a way that very few of us can. Beginning in verse 4, he tells us, “I made great works. I built houses and planted vineyards for myself. I made myself gardens and parks, and planted in them all kinds of fruit trees. I made myself pools from which to water the forest of growing trees.” In verse 8, “I also gathered for myself silver and gold and the treasure of kings and provinces.” Now, most of us would probably be happy with a house — just a house — let alone a vineyard, a garden, a park, or a pool. But notice the plural! He's got houses, vineyards, gardens, parks, and pools. He's got wealth that few of us could ever dream of. And he uses it all now, not to engage in raucous frivolity like he had done before, but rather to enjoy the finer things in life.

So he sets out to create his own Garden of Eden. He's seeking to create his own slice of paradise. And so he becomes a cultured person. He's got a sophisticated palette. I've got a friend who said that this is the kind of person who would know the difference between Velveeta and gourmet mac and cheese with truffles. He would have preferred Shake Shack over McDonald's. He would have enjoyed a craft IPA from a microbrewery rather than a Pabst Blue Ribbon. And he's the kind of person who could tell the difference just by tasting. He could tell the difference between a Chardonnay from California and a Sauvignon Blanc from New Zealand, right? This is a person who's now cultured and refined — and he would have loved New York. He would have loved our Michelin starred restaurants and our luxury hotels and our wine bars. And you know what? We probably would have seen his face on the cover of Fortune magazine, and we would have seen his apartment featured in Architectural Digest.

But notice why he's doing all this. All the commentators point out how often he speaks in this brief little passage about me, myself, and I. I made great works. I built houses and planted vineyards for myself. I made myself gardens and parks and planted in them all kinds of fruit trees. I made myself pools from which to water the forest of growing trees. Me, myself, and I. He mentions himself at least 40 times in 11 verses. This is a story of self-indulgence. The Westminster Shorter Catechism says that our chief end as human beings is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever, but the professor makes his chief end glorifying himself and enjoying himself seemingly forever.

It was all about him. And how did he pay for it all? By taking advantage of others. Did you notice what he said in verse 7? “I bought male and female slaves and had slaves who were born in my house” — typical for an ancient Near Eastern king. But the point is that he believed that everyone and everything existed for his own pleasure, to the extent that he thought that it was okay to own people. And so especially on this weekend, when we remember the ministry and the legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr, it's good for us to remember that every human being possesses an inherent right to be treated in accordance with their worth, because every human being, without exception, is created in the image of God and therefore imbued with priceless value. Therefore it's never okay to treat another person as less than priceless. It's never okay to treat another person as an instrument or an object or a play thing in order to secure our own pleasure.

Many of us would probably say, well, if I had all the money in the world, if I didn't have to worry about paying the bills, if I didn't have to worry about paying my rent, if I could live like a king then I would be happy. We all think that. But let me also tell you that, as a pastor, I've known more than a few people who are almost as wealthy as kings. And I can assure you that they have their own unique struggles, and that wealth is not all that it's cracked up to be. But when we review this professor's failed experiment in the pursuit of happiness, we very well may wonder, what is this book doing in the Bible? This does not seem like it belongs here. So what is Ecclesiastes doing in the Bible? How is this holy Scripture? Well, let me give you a clue.

The Surprising Results

The professor engages in this experiment to see what kind of meaning and purpose can be found in the pursuit of pleasure. And this book, Ecclesiastes, formed the back story to the 1993 song called “The Wanderer.” This song was written by the Irish rock band U2 in tribute to Johnny Cash. In fact, Johnny Cash sang the original song on the album when it was first released. In this song, “The Wanderer,” Johnny Cash assumes the voice of the professor, and he explains his quest with these words:

I went out there in search of experience

To taste and to touch and to feel as much

As a man can before he repents

Now we might ask, what were the results of his search? What did he find out? Well he tells us, beginning in verse 9, “I became great and surpassed all who were before me in Jerusalem. Also my wisdom remained with me.” In verse 10, he says, I didn't keep back anything my eyes desired or withhold any pleasure from my heart. So he denied himself nothing. Whatever he saw that he wanted, he took. And now, at the end of it all, he can stand back and he can survey what he's done, just like God does in Genesis 1 when God stands back and he surveys the world that he's made.

So on the one hand, not unlike God, the professor says in verse 10 that he did find some pleasure in his work. He affirms the intrinsic value in a job well done. We all know what that's like. When we apply ourselves to a job that we enjoy and we put our whole self into it, we find some satisfaction in it; the work is its own reward. So he says that he took delight in building these various projects while he was doing them.

But that's where the comparison to God in Genesis 1 ends. Because God not only enjoyed the work of creation itself; when he stood back and surveyed what he had made, he declared it good. On each of the six days of creation, he declares it good. And in fact, on the sixth day at the pinnacle of creation, when he creates human beings, he declares it very good. So when he stands back and surveys what he's made, he not only tells us that he found joy in the making of it, but he can also rest from his work and enjoy the fruit of his labor. And that's why he marks off the seventh day as being holy — a Sabbath to the Lord.

But not the professor. See, rather than delighting in what he made, he looks back and he is disillusioned by what he has done. In verse 11 he says he couldn't find any lasting value or any ultimate meaning in it at all. It was all vapor. It represented nothing more than a chasing after the wind. And he concludes, therefore, that there's nothing to be gained. Happiness for him was just as much of an enigma at the end of his search as it was at the beginning. So what are we supposed to make of the professor's surprising results? Well, I would suggest that it calls us to live in this tension.

Pleasure Is Good

For starters, he says that that pleasure is actually a good thing, and there is some measure of satisfaction to be found in this life. You might expect at the end of this process that the professor would become a strict ascetic. That he would say, no, after all that I've been through, I've concluded that the only way to really be happy is through detachment. You have to detach yourself from this world and from anything that you might have loved. Avoid anything and everything that could cause either pain or pleasure. Because if your highs aren't too high and if your lows aren't too low, well then you can never be too unhappy. But no, pleasure is not bad, and he doesn't tell us that God is some cosmic killjoy or buzzkill. God wants us to experience joy, laughter, wine, food, music, sex; these are all good things. In fact, these are all good gifts of God's creation given to us to enjoy, so long as we enjoy them in their proper place. Of course, all these things can be abused, but that doesn't deny their fundamental goodness. So we're called to enjoy them in their proper place and to receive them as they are intended — as good gifts from God himself, the ultimate giver.

Pleasure Is Elusive

So on the one hand, pleasure is good. But on the other hand, it's also elusive. As a general rule, it seems to be true that the more we pursue pleasure directly as an end in itself, the more quickly it seems to slip through our fingers. We can never really, truly grasp it. The pleasure we pursue never quite seems to satisfy. In fact, it seems to always leave us longing for something more. And this reality became an object of curiosity to C.S. Lewis from a very early age. There were a number of childhood experiences, some of them so simple — it could just be the familiar scent of a currant bush that reminds him of a prior home — and they filled him with longing or nostalgia. So he had a number of these childhood experiences that filled him with a sudden sense of desire, and it was overwhelming to him, and he just wanted the moment to last. But as soon as he became aware of it, the moment was gone. The feeling passed. And so it left him with this longing for the feeling of longing that now is gone. But looking back, he saw that all these experiences were just different manifestations of the same thing: an unsatisfied desire for what he could only call beauty or joy.

So in his famous book “Mere Christianity,” Lewis suggested that the longings that we experience in this life are meant to point us beyond themselves to their true source, which is God, the giver of all good gifts. For example, he says:

The longings which arise in us when we first fall in love, or first think of some foreign country, or first take up some subject that excites us, are longings which no marriage, no travel, no learning, can really satisfy.

And so why is that? Why do we have these longings for things that could never really satisfy? He says, “I am not now speaking of what would be ordinarily called unsuccessful marriages, or holidays, or learned careers.” So he's not talking about the worst examples, but the very best. He suggests that something, even in these best experiences, has evaded us. So how do we think about that? He says there are two wrong ways of dealing with this fact, and one right way.

Wrong way number one he calls “The Fool's Way,” where if that pleasure seems to have evaded us, we conclude that it must be the wrong thing. We were pursuing the wrong thing. And if we pursued a different woman or a different country or we had a different vacation or a different career, then we'd be happy. But that's a false path.

Wrong way number two he calls “The Way of the Disillusioned Sensible Person” who says, you know, all of that was mere moonshine. We might have longed for true satisfaction when we were young, but when we grow up, we realize it's impossible. And so we've given up trying to chase the rainbow's end. But that's not the right answer either.

He says the only right way to respond to this longing for more is what he calls “The Christian Way.”

The Christian says, “Creatures are not born with desires unless satisfaction for those desires exists. A baby feels hunger: well, there is such a thing as food. A duckling wants to swim: well, there is such a thing as water. Men feel sexual desire: well, there is such a thing as sex…”

So in conclusion, Lewis says,

If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.

These desires must be pointing beyond themselves to something greater. They're pointing beyond themselves to their true source.

If none of my earthly pleasures satisfy it, that does not prove that the universe is a fraud. Probably earthly pleasures were never meant to satisfy it, but only to arouse it, to suggest the real thing.

So do you see what he's saying? Our experiences of longing, pleasure, joy, beauty, they're never fully satisfying because they're not supposed to be. They're only supposed to arouse a longing for something greater. So very briefly, let me just spell out two important implications for this.

First, if that's true, if these longings, if these desires are pointing beyond themselves to something greater, then on the one hand, that means that we shouldn't despise or be unthankful for those earthly pleasures that we do enjoy. We shouldn't become the ascetic. There are a lot of Christians who act as if we're not supposed to enjoy the good gifts of God's creation, but that's wrong. That would make God look stingy and dour when God is, in fact, generous and joyful. He's a God of great joy. He wants us to experience those flashes of joy in this life, too. And therefore, when they come to us, we should make a note of them, make a list, literally count your blessings. Cherish those moments, because they are good gifts of God that should be appreciated.

But secondly, we shouldn't make the mistake of thinking that those earthly pleasures are the real thing, because they're not. God made us for himself. He is the fuel that our spirits are meant to burn. We're not going to find any true, lasting meaning, happiness, satisfaction, purpose apart from him, because it doesn't exist. Augustine was right when he said that God made us for himself, and therefore our hearts are restless until they find their rest in him.

So let me just ask you this morning, is your heart restless? Are you unsatisfied? Do you feel like no matter how much you experience, no matter how much you enjoy, no matter how much you accomplish, it's never quite enough? Do you feel restless inside? If so, good, because that means God has you right where he wants you.

In John 10, Jesus likened himself to a good shepherd. And he says that as a good shepherd, he knows that the thief comes only to steal, to kill, and to destroy — but not him. No, as the Good Shepherd, he has come to give us life — to give us life to the fullest, to give us the abundant life, so much so that he says he's willing to lay down his life for the sheep. So you see, that's what we celebrate at this table. Jesus dies so that we might experience life — the abundant life. So if you want real life, true life, the kind of life that we dream of, the kind of life that we long for, then we have to look to the one to whom all of our other longings point. We're not going to find it apart from Jesus. If you want to experience true, lasting happiness, don't look any farther away than Jesus, because He is the one — the only one — who can provide rest for our souls and provide us with the satisfaction that we're truly looking for.

Let me pray for us.

Father, we thank you for the professor of Ecclesiastes and for his willingness to share with us his failed experiment in the pursuit of happiness. Laughter, living it up, a life of luxury are only going to get us so far. Help us to see past these things to the real thing, which is you. We thank you that you have made us for yourself, and we pray that each of us, in some richer, deeper, fuller way this morning, would truly find our rest in you. We ask in Jesus' name, amen.

Sermons

Ecclesiastes: The Enigma of Life Under the Sun: The Question of Happiness

The Failed Experiment

The Surprising Results