Transcription
So, I don't know if you've ever seen the movie, uh, *Catch Me If You Can*. Uh, it's with Leonardo DiCaprio. He's in it, but, uh, it's a story. It's a true story, uh, of a young man named Frank Frank Abnail. And Frank Abagnail actually, he ran away from home when he was 16. You kind of see this in the movie. Uh, but to survive, he had no plan. He had no money. He had no resources to survive. He just conned people. He just pretended to be someone he wasn't.
And so, in the movie, they say this, but if you've ever seen interviews with Frank Abagnell, he talks about this: how he had, um, gotten a Panama pilot's uniform and that he just posed as a Panam pilot, flew literally around the world multiple times as a pretending to be a pilot. He also pretended to be a doctor, uh, where he was supervising interns. And whenever there was a problem, you can see this in the movie as well. Whenever there was a problem, he would just defer to these medical students or these interns, and they would take care of it. He was a lawyer. Now, he's pretty smart guy. He actually passed the Louisiana bar. But along this way was he's posing as as a pilot, as a doctor, as a lawyer. He also cashed millions of dollars in counterfeit checks. And that that was one of the things he just just did. He, uh, he didn't break into banks. He didn't break into homes. He didn't break into stores. He didn't force his way in. He just looked the part. That he was living the life of a counterfeit.
And he was using counterfeit checks, which reminds me of the California Gold Rush. I'm sure we all, we've all heard of this, right? The 49ers, uh, that there were stories during the Cal California Gold Rush or pro prospectors who would go out there, and they would, they would think that they struck it rich. They found these, you know, yellow little flakes, and they would do everything. What they would do: they would sell everything they had. They would, uh, quit their jobs. They would, again, had probably already moved out to California. They'd reorganized their entire lives to buy this land, only to find out that those flakes were a thing called pyite. Uh, we call it fool's gold. In fact, there were some scammers who, in the 1800s, what they would do is they would get a bunch of this pyite and they would kind of spread it on these along the land, and they would con people into buying the land. These people, again, they would, they would sell all they had to buy this land, not knowing that it wasn't actually gold. It's called fool's gold because you're a fool if you would do that. Like, they called it a fool's gold because you're a fool if you would exchange real money, like real currency, for counterfeit, for not real gold.
And you wonder, who would do that? Like, if you knew, I even not not if you just like didn't know, but who would do that if you knew? Who would spend something that has real value on something that is counterfeit? And I think the answer is every one of us, because that's what we do with our lives. It doesn't have to be a counterfeit check from Frank Abagnail. Doesn't have to be fool's gold in the the the Gold Rush, but many of us will spend what has real value chasing after counterfeit happiness.
Today, the gospel is ser the sermon on the mountain. In fact, for the next six Sundays of Ordinary Time, we only have a couple more before Lent, but the next six Sundays, we, we just dive deeply into the Sermon on the Mount. And here we heard in the Beatitudes is this first part of the sermon. People have said this. They said, "The Sermon on the Mount, if if the Sermon on the Mount is the heart of Jesus's teaching, the Beatitudes are the heart of the Sermon on the Mount." And so, what is this? Well, Jesus says, "Blessed are they, blessed are they." I've heard this described: when he Jesus is blessed, he doesn't just mean like holy or set apart. Like, we know that word to be blessed is to be set apart or consecrated. He actually uses the word Greek word macarios, which is happy. But Jesus is saying, "No, you're happy when you're meek." "You're happy when you mourn." "You're happy when you have pure purity of heart." And this is really important for us because we probably have all bought into this notion of counterfeit happiness. And Jesus says, "Okay, this is what real happiness looks like."
So, the four, uh, four counterfeits—this goes way back to like ancient thought. The four main counterfeits of happiness, uh, things that we believe will bring us happiness, are this: wealth, power, pleasure, and fame. These, these are the four things that these are the four counterfeit happinesses that we think that if we have wealth, power, pleasure, or fame, that those things will make me hap I was happy. So, we think, "Okay, wealth: if I have enough, I'll be happy." Or, "We have power: if I'm in control, I'll be happy." Or, "Pleasure: if I minimize pain and maximize feeling good, I'll be happy." Or, "Fame: if enough people know my name, then I'll be happy." And here the problem with it: the problem with counterfeit happiness is those four things actually all do make us happy. Like, they all actually work. Got money? I mean, got that that makes you. You have power, control. You get to make difference. You have influence that can make us happy. To have pleasure, of course, it makes us happy. And to have fame, of course, those things make us happy. And they make us happy. This, they make us happy long enough for us to spend everything on them. And then, when they've cost us all we have, we realize, "I was happy, but all I actually had was counterfeit happiness."
This is the reason. And this is the reason why Jesus, so, okay, at the heart of his great teaching, is the Beatitudes. This is the heart of it. Why? Because our hearts—your hearts and mine—were made for more. Our hearts actually long for happiness. So, here's what Jesus is doing in the gospel today. He's saying this to a people who want happiness but are really, really bad at spotting counterfeit happiness. Jesus says, "Okay, happy, happy are the poor in spirit. Happy are those who mourn." What Jesus is doing is he is tearing down idols. What he's doing is he's uncovering the lies. Ultimately, Jesus is doing is he's exposing the counterfeits.
And so, let's go through them quick. So, wealth: what is the counterfeit lie? Counterfeit happiness of of wealth? It's, "I'll be happy when I have enough." "I'll be happy if I have enough." And why? Because if I have enough, then I'll be taken care of. If I have enough, then I won't need anymore. If I have enough, then I can stop worrying. How many of—how many times is that us? If I have enough, I can stop worrying, which is obvious. Finances are real. I mean, the kids got to eat, you know. So, so we know that money actually makes a difference.
But the counterfeit, the lie, is this: that self-sufficiency equals safety. If I have enough, I'll be self-sufficient. And self-sufficiency equals security. That's a lie. It's a counterfeit. Why?
Because, so, in the course of my life, uh, working in parishes and working, uh, on a campus and just all over the place, I've had the opportunity to meet people from all walks of life. Like, people who literally have nothing and have no prospect of ever getting anything to people who have more wealth than any human being could reasonably be expected to spend in their entire life. But I've discovered this in in meeting all these people from all these different walks of life: we recognize that, um, no matter how much you have, tragedy doesn't care. That Hamilton death doesn't discriminate. This idea that that that wealth can insulate a person from the pains of life, it does not.
So, I think, "I've protected myself." "If I have enough, I'll be happy." To that person, Jesus says, "Actually, happy are the poor in spirit." To them, Jesus says to you, "Happy are you who hunger and thirst for righteousness." To be poor in spirit, in, actually, the original language, that means to be humble. It means this: it means to be desperate. "Happy are you who are desperate." "Happy are you who are needy." That's what it is to be poor in spirit.
To to hunger and thirst is like, "No." "Happy are you who are starving for more." "Who are starving actually for holiness." Jesus says, "You're happy." Why? Because you are awake. You're happy because you're aware of your need.
One of the things that wealth can do to a person: it can put them to sleep. They actually wealthy people when I have enough. I don't need anything. When I no longer experience I wake up in the morning and think, "Oh my goodness, I need something or someone more than me. I am not alive. I am asleep." And Jesus says, "Happy are you." "I don't want a need." It's like, "No, happy are you when you know the truth." "You need God." "Even happier are you when you know the truth." "Not only do you need God, you have God." So, put away that counterfeit happiness of wealth and also put away the counterfeit happiness of power.
Power says this: "I'll be happy if I'm in control." Like, "I'll be happy if I'm strong enough that nothing can hurt me." "I'll be, I'll be happy if I have the power that I can do whatever I want." The counterfeit happiness of power is this declaration: "I have to win." "When I win, I'll be happy."
I have a friend who works out in in New York. She's a executive assistant for at an investment firm. And her boss—her boss recently, she did her boss this—at the end of the last year, he got a bonus, and his bonus was literally in the hundreds of millions of dollars. Like, that was his bonus for the year. And she's like, "I saw it! I was like crazy hundreds millions of dollars!" And I was, I, I think, "Wait, you, if you're living is you invest people's money, if you got a couple hundred million dollars, like, quit your job!" Because he describes how, like, he never goes home; he's always working; he's always on the go; he always has to move; he always—he's like a slave to the office. And I remember thinking, "Man, you have all the wealth you possibly need." And I, I didn't realize for him, my guess is this: happiness is not about wealth. He's got wealth. For him, happiness is about power. It's about importance. It's about status. It's about influence. I don't just have wealth. I have this power. I'm needed. I'm great. I'm the best at this thing.
How many of us think, "If I was just the best at that thing, I'd be happy"? "I was the best in the world that I'd be happy." Ask the question, "Would you?" Actually, think of someone who was the best in the world at something. Michael Jordan, arguably the greatest of all time. Now, people debate about this. I have no, nothing about basketball, but I do know social media, and I've watched a lot of Tik Toks on this or reals on this, and people would argue Michael Jordan is the best basketball player of all time. His stats are massive. He had this incredible drive, his his amazing work ethic. There are stories about how badly he had to be the best. When he retired from the Bulls, they they retired his jersey, number 23, right? But then, when he started playing again, he got a new number, number 45. And there was, at one point, they were playing this game. I remember hearing this story playing this game, and one of the players was kind of, kind of looked like he was, he thought he was shutting down Michael Jordan. And one of the things he said, kind of under his breath, said after the game, he says, "Hey, it looks like 45 is no 23."
Michael Jordan hears about this the next day, comes up, gets a, you know, double head or what do we call it? What do you play the same team again? Series. Series. And, uh, he doesn't—he, during the warm-ups, he has his warm-ups on, like, he doesn't take off his warm-ups until the start of the game, till tip off. He takes it off, and he's wearing number 23. And he just demolished the other team. But at the very end of the game, he had two free throws, sunk one, and then missed the other. He missed the other on purpose. At the end of the game, his total points were 45.
Like, this kind of—that kind of drive, that kind of like need to have revenge, that kind of need to be the best, that kind of—that need to be the most important, most powerful, most influential, most significant. That served him really, really well for basketball. But so many reports are that right now in his life that same drive, that same mentality, that same thing that made him happy was a counterfeit happiness; that same thing apparently for him makes living joy incredibly, incredibly difficult.
So, Jesus says to him and to us, "Happy are you who are meek. Happy are you who are merciful." So, what's meekness? weakness is strength, but strength under God's power, under God's control. Strength placed at God's service. That's what it is to be meek: is to say that I'm not using this power. I'm not using this strength for myself. I'm using this strength in the Lord's service. And and merciful is what is: "I don't have to crush my enemies." "I actually can extend them grace." And if we do that, if we put our strength at God's service and put vengeance or wrath or revenge aside, Jesus says, "Then you're really happy."
So, if wealth and power, pleasure, right? "I'll be happy." The lie says this: "I'll be happy if I minimize pain and maximize pleasure." "I'll, I'll be happy if I feel good." So, how do we do that? We just, we numb ourselves. We distract ourselves. We say, "I'm just not going to think about that."
Um, there's a song by CIA. You guys know the song, uh, "Chandelier"? So, it's this song, uh, I at one point it's a kind of a party anthem. Has this like massive—CIA wrote this song, um, as, as she wrote it for Rihanna actually originally, but she, as she was writing it more and more, she's like, "No, no, I have to be the one to sing this song." And I remember thinking about like this song chandelier and "I'm going to swing from the chandelier 1 2 3 1 2 3 drink" is one of the the refrains in this whole thing. It seems like it's all about maximizing pleasure and see actually wrote it like that on purpose because if you pay attention to the lyrics, she's hiding the pain of life behind this soaring ballad.
So, I never realized this until Sarah Burelli. Sarah Burell is also a singer, right? She did this cover like was stripped down just her voice and a little guitar. And just to hear Sarah Burelli's version of this was just like so low and so haunting where all you hear now is the pain. All you hear now is: here is someone who is living this life of what looks like complete pleasure but feels like desperation.
Wake up the next morning, and I've got to numb the pain. I got to minimize the pain. Here's one of the things we realize. If my goal is to minimize pain and maximize pleasure, we realize this: emotions cannot be selectively numbed. Like, our heart cannot be selectively numbed. If we suppress pain and and grief and fear, we're also simultaneously going to suppress joy and gratitude and happiness. [clears throat] The same nervous system that feels grief is the one that feels joy.
So, we put on armor. That armor is substances or it's distractions or just emotional withdrawal. We fill our lives with all these things and that armor then becomes a shield against love and against relationships, against connection, against happiness.
So, to those of us who have embraced counterfeit happiness in pleasure, Jesus says, "Actually, happy are you who mourn it." Jesus is saying avoiding pain doesn't heal it. He's saying that pain and grief and loss—those are a part of life, and if I avoid them, I'm actually avoiding living. "Happy are you who more."
He also says, "Happy are the pure of heart." Another way to say it is, "Don't use people." That that someone has pure of heart, uh, can see clearly. They can see the value, the dignity of a real another person. That they're not meant—that no one in the world is meant to be used for my pleasure or my own means.
And this is one of the things that we realize: the truth is, we're made to worship God, to love people and use things. But what do many of us do? Many of us, we love things, we use people, and we ignore God. And yet Jesus will say this, "You're happy if you let God meet you in your sorrow. You're happy when you see the image of God in each person."
The last counterfeit happiness is is fame. And that—that lie says this: "I'll be happy if I'm seen." Um, I, I know this is a risk right now.
There was a big song in 1993. I know, throwback massive, uh, by the Counting Crows. It was called "Mr. Jones." And at one point in the song "Mr. Jones"—which I just love because my older brother and I, we actually would it was big long story, anyways, road trip, it's amazing—at one point, Adam Duritz, [snorts] the lead singer for Conning Crows, he says this line. He says, "When everyone loves you, you can never be lonely." The last time he sings it, he says, "But when everyone loves me, that's about as happy as I can be." That's the count—that's counterfeit happiness when it comes to fame. "When everyone loves me, that's about as happy as I can be."
Being known and admired. That and I'll [laughter] say this in my defense, like, when that gets in my head. I grew up with movies and songs that are all about like "I'm gonna be somebody someday." Like, "I want to see my name up in lights" or "this going to I can't wait till everyone knows my name."
Yet there was, there was this Harris poll back in the day. They, they pulled 3,000 kids in the US, UK, and China. I think they were ages something like 8 to 12 years old. And they asked them what they wanted to be when they grew up. The number one answer was a YouTube star or like a vlogger. It was the number one answer; it was basically, "I want to have like internet fame." "I want to have visibility." What I found is interesting is later on the Pew Research group they did the same asked the same question but of teenagers and only six% of teenagers said they wanted to be famous. In fact, 80% of teenagers in the US said that fame wasn't important to them, which I think is a good sign that the sense of like they realize fame is hollow.
And yet every one of us, we still want to be well thought of. Like, we still, every one of us, we still care what other people think. So, so this thing called vanity, right? This vice of vanity, what is that? Vanity is the inordinate preoccupation with what other people think of me.
So, it's—keep in mind, it's good to care what other people think of you. If you don't care what other people think of you, you're probably a jerk. [laughter] But vanity is the inordinate preoccupation with what other people think of me. Another way to ask the question is, "Have you ever—you know you have that—if you've ever found yourself not saying what you knew was true because of what someone might think or you found yourself not doing what you knew was right because of what someone else might think or vice versa?"
You find yourself doing what you knew wasn't right because of what someone else or you found yourself saying what you knew wasn't true because of what someone else would think. For the sake of what? For the sake of counterfeit happiness in fame.
But Jesus says what he says: "Blessed are the peacemakers." "Blessed are those who don't seek applause but seek reconciliation." Says, "Blessed are those persecuted for the sake of righteousness." "For people persecuted for the sake of my name. those who choose faithfulness over approval." And so, here, here we have this; we have these four counterfeits. [snorts] Wealth, power, pleasure, and fame: counterfeit happiness.
You know, um, second last thing, uh, the US Secret Service—I don't know if you know this, but the US Secret Service. Right now, they protect the president, right? They were actually formed right after the Civil War, not to protect the president. The US Secret Service was originally formed because after the Civil War, they say that almost onethird of all currency in the United States was counterfeit. And so, they had to train a group of people to be able to spot counterfeits.
So, here's what in what they did. At first, what they would do is they would bring all these different kind of counterfeit bills, all these counterfeit coins in and have them see the counterfeits and see what all the different ways someone could counterfeit a bill or a coin. But there's many, many ways person counterfeit bills or coins.
So, what they did instead was they had them study not the counterfeit; they had them study the real thing. They actually had them study the real bills. Like, what does that paper look like, feel like? What's that ink look like? What's, what's that ink do? And when they studied the real bill, when they studied the genuine article, it was then that they could actually accurately spot the counterfeit.
And this is the last thing. The biatitudes here today is like a book. How to be happy by Jesus. Subtitle, eight steps to living the life you've always wanted. But that's actually not what he's doing in giving to beatitudes. Jesus isn't giving a plan. He's painting a portrait that when he says, "Happy are the are the meek," he's describing himself. When he says, "Happy are the pure of heart," he's describing himself. When he says, "Happy are those who mourn," he's describing his own heart, his own face.
And so, again, he's not providing a plan. He's painting a portrait. And so, like the Secret Service, we can spot fool's gold. We can spot fakes. We can spot the counterfeits by studying the real thing.
So, here's the invitation this week: to just open your heart, open your mind, open the Gospels and just study the portrait of Jesus. And you can see painting the portrait of a heart that knows it needs God. See the painting, the portrait of someone who's has eyes that can weep without despair. Someone who has hands that that don't clutch at control. See a portrait of a soul that longs for holiness and a posture has a posture of mercy. Has a that has a single clear gaze that sees things rightly. See a portrait of someone who has feet that walk toward reconciliation and a back strong enough to bear misunderstanding.
The invitation this week: watch Jesus in the Gospels. Examine the portrait of Jesus in the Gospels to see the real thing and know what he looks like and not give everything away for counterfeit happiness.
>> [music] [music]