Well, obviously, the professor did not consider these answers worthy of a grade. He wrote on the margin of the answer sheet: “Let me speak with you after class.”

That was the beginning of my great enlightening. Happiness, I learned, had little to do with money in the pocket or a car to drive wherever you wished. This was a philosophy class, after all. This was a class where one asked philosophical questions, deep, reflective questions about life itself and its meaning.

Later, in a conversation with the professor I discovered that happiness was indeed one of the most important questions people from ancient times had asked. The answer to that question would guide a person in all his activities throughout his/her lifetime. Philosophers such as Aristotle, Plato, Socrates had plumbed that word to its roots with their young adult students and written treatises upon it.

It is not unlikely, therefore, that Jesus of Nazareth himself should have commented upon the question. He may not have considered himself a philosopher as such in the tradition of the Greeks, but as we know from our reading of the gospels he was indeed a wise person and often debated with the scribes over many of life’s issues.

It is with the issue of happiness before us in today’s gospel that we discover Jesus’ deep and surprising insight into some of life’s problems and their solutions.

In this selection of the gospel he is speaking to a large crowd of folks along with some of his own loyal supporters. They are all of peasant stock, local folks who might be considered among the poor of the land, tenant farmers, local artisans and others. In all matters of daily life their Roman occupiers dominated them. Given this social background, therefore, one would hardly consider them satisfied with life. They were not universally a “happy people” in our sense of that word today.

And yet, in this discourse before us we hear Jesus calling them happy despite that fact that they were poor, hated, insulted, denounced, unnoticed indeed, the bottom rung of humanity in the minds of many. Surely this must have left many of his listeners stunned to the core…that is, until he follows this surprise with another: The rich of the world may think that they are the happiest people in the world: no worry about money, food, security and all the rest. Indeed, they should feel aggrieved because all these “riches” will not last forever; in the world to come they shall truly be on the “bottom rung of human society.

Jesus is simply making a searing critique on the divisions in human society. He is saying that human advantages do not make for happiness; indeed, they distract us from those matters in life that bring peace of mind and soul, wholeness, contentment, satisfaction simply being alive and the recipient of God’s goodness.

At the same time, the discourse on happiness is a scathing condemnation of the lifestyle of the rich and self-contented. Their happiness, based on wealth, will not last. A day will come when all these short-lived treasures will be taken from them in death.

Ultimately, the discourse of Jesus on the state of riches and poverty is a critique upon the satisfied of the world, on those who wrongfully imagine that this is all there is to life…nothing more. In simpler terms Jesus is insisting that the poor already know what true happiness consists of, that is, knowing one’s place in God’s good universe and “jumping for joy” over it. (Jesus own words).

Have circumstances regarding poverty and riches changed in our age. Sadly, I think not. Many still feel deprived unless they have the best the secular world has to offer. Unfortunately they have not yet, with all their wealth, found true happiness, but they do not yet know that to be true.

What then can make us and keep us happy in the true philosophical sense? I can only describe it in a list of words. If you are thankful for what you have, contented in simply being a human person, free and carefree, untied to an agenda, open to the world around you, forgiving of your neighbor, in peace with whatever happens, consider yourself a happy person. “Jump for joy” because you have already inherited God’s kingdom.

At my age, I probably won’t do much “jumping” but I can imagine what it must feel like.

The scriptures: Jeremiah 17: 5-8; 1 Corinthians 15: 12, 16-20; Luke 6: 17, 20-26