Bazaar United Methodist Church

Bazaar, Kansas

Deuteronomy 6:4-5
Mark 12:30-31
John 15:14-16

Happiness and Relationships

Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. Deuteronomy 6:4-5

'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.' The second is this: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no commandment greater than these." Mark 12:30-31
You are my friends if you do what I command. I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master's business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit-fruit that will last. Then the Father will give you whatever you ask in my name. John 15:14-16 NIV
Let's face it, we are around people a lot. Relationships with those people can either be a source of strength and joy or they can serve to hand us a miserable time. A few are simply neutral but most have some kind of positive or negative influence. Even the bank teller, a waitress, and someone you meet on the street can have an influence on you and you have an influence on them. Have you ever met someone on the street radiating happiness and joy, saying hello to everyone, and they have not brightened your day just a bit? By the same token saying "Have a nice day" to someone who growls back "Yeah, right" leaves a very different sentiment. Now, I'm not saying that our attitude should change because of what others do, but rather that we need to pay attention to how we engage other people all the time.

Our scripture lessons today tell us that God has given us an outline for how to relate to one another. We are to relate to God, loving God with heart and mind and soul and strength, in other words we are to love God as God loves us; with a total commitment. We are also to love others as we love ourselves. That means we are to have a healthy self-respect and a good self image self esteem and then we are to love others with the same total commitment that we have for God. Our minimal commitment for anyone is to wish for them their own highest and best-to have good will for all, including our enemies.

Human beings need each other. It's a fact. We can't be left on our own as infants or children. And we crave human contact, even the most introverted of us. The close relationships that make us most happy are those that are "characterized by mutual understanding, caring, and validation of the other person as worthwhile." We all want to feel loved and cared for. We need to know somebody sees us as having worth.

Relationships are important. First of all they allow us to love and be loved. They help us feel secure. Loving others gives us opportunities to grow. And when we take pride in the accomplishments of others and they take pride in ours, we share a deep bond that unites us.

Relationships matter to our emotional well-being. We blossom and flourish from childhood to adulthood because of the encouragement, support, and mentorship of parents, teachers, coaches, and other influential people. We are able to face tough times largely through the emotional support and compassion of our loved ones.

We need each other. Some relationships are the best. These are the people you can always count on, those who know you best, those you can trust with your darkest secrets and they will still love you. What's more they will not tell anyone else. If you need them at 2 AM you can call and wake them-or roll over and wake them. These are the relationships where Agape love is most practiced. Forgiveness is readily granted and memories erased.

These relationships are the ones where our character, our core self, can be most fully expressed because of the unconditional love we receive. Here we are encouraged to pursue those things that are meaningful and pleasurable for us. In the context of these relationships we work on cultivating intimacy, by knowing and being known by one another.

Other relationships are still quite good and allow us to grow because they too challenge us to be who we are. These are good friends and family that we really like to spend time around. Then we have those people we meet periodically. We have some feelings about them and whether those feelings are good or bad will determine how much time we usually choose to spend with them.

But sometimes there are those relationships that are absolutely toxic to us. They drag us down, make us feel bad about ourselves, and every time we have to be around this particular person we are filled with anxiety and foreboding going in, our stomach is in knots while we are in contact, and when we leave it takes hours for us to feel better. For some people the person in such a relationship may be a spouse or a close relative. (I'm sorry but teenagers don't count.) I can only tell you that toxic relationships steal your joy and your health and well-being. It is appropriate to sever relationships that are poisonous. We forgive. We don't harbor ill will. But it is absolutely appropriate to sever such relationships. If you choose not to sever such a relationship then limit your time with that person to no more than 1 hour per week. Because relational poison will eventually kill you.

I have a friend whose Mother is for her toxic. Nothing my friend has ever done has been good enough for her mom. She was a 4.0 student in High School but her brother played football and he was the beloved child. She had almost a full-ride scholarship to go to college but her parents would not put up the extra $2,000. she needed so she went to work instead. When she went back to school and graduated Summa Cum Laude, that was nice, but Mom couldn't be bothered to go to graduation. When she worked her way up and headed a multimillion dollar company, that was nice but her brother was working for Boeing and wasn't that great. Now in her late forties, my friend has finally come to understand that her mom is never going to accept or validate her accomplishments. She has to get that from other people. And she limits her contact with her mother as she needs to.

On the other side of the coin, people are, or can be, just plain fun. They help us see and become something larger than ourselves as we see the diversity of others. Other people's ideas challenge us-Larry is always challenging me. So are my children. No, mine didn't stop that when they got out of high school. Novel thought and ideas, different expertise and unusual skills, when you start looking at all of the different things that people do, it's amazing. We grow when we get to know each other and share that information.

A few years ago when I flew up to Wisconsin I sat beside a young man who worked for the Kholer company. We visited for the entire flight. We talked about him and his job and family, but then he began asking questions about why I was coming to Wisconsin and what I did and my background. I've never had anybody ask me so much about myself. As we were getting ready to deplane, he turned to me and said, "Thank you for sharing with me. You are a fascinating person." Now, I've been called a lot of things in my life but until then "fascinating" was never one of them. I guess if you work with faucets and toilets all the time it doesn't take much to fascinate you! But really everyone has a fascinating story if we listen to them rather than ignore them. And that's how we build really good relationships-we listen, truly listen to each other.

Because it's those really good relationships that bring about our greatest joy and happiness. That is not to say that all relationships do not go through some rough patches, they do. Those tough times take a lot of agreeing to work through them together, forgiveness, a refusal to keep a list of wrongs, and a choice to move on from a position of greater strength. Whether such relationships are marital or close friendships, it is possible to have such situations and have to work through them.

The question is: On a daily basis, how can we best approach life, facing other people in differing circumstances and expect good outcomes? That is how can our relationships with others be most positive; whether with a stranger met on the street, with service personnel, with business acquaintances, with people we know, with friends and family? What will work in every instance? Is there one sure fire way that works for everyone?

I expect that most of you are going; "No, not a chance." But I would beg to differ. And because the word "Love" is so overused in our language, used in so many ways that it has almost lost its meaning, I won't use it. Let's try this instead. Approach everyone you meet with compassion. Compassion is not some kind of washed out, meek and mild love. Compassion is love on fire; love reaching out, filling up, excited, and joyful. Compassion allows you to be open and creates a positive, friendly atmosphere. Since you create an openness; a positive atmosphere and the possibility of receiving affection you have the possibility of having a meaningful conversation with anyone. And you have the flexibility to change your approach as needed.

Social relationships and happiness go together. They are a two-way street. Good relationships make us happier and happy people have better relationships. Like food and air we seem to need social relationships to thrive. I receive a daily weather cartoon. The other day the cartoon had a bird in a tree talking to a man. The bird said "I don't sing because I'm happy. I'm happy because I sing." Some of us are happy because we sing. But the fact is, we are happy because we are in relation to others. Sure, sometimes those relationships are difficult. But none of us would choose to live isolated from others. If you remember the movie "Castaway," Tom Hanks finally painted a face on a ball so he had someone to talk to.

We are relational beings; made by our Creator to be in relationship with God and others. Jesus said, "I no longer call you servants, but friends." If we practice compassion with everyone we meet; being open and positive, we pave the way for positive relationships with every person with whom we are in contact. And good relationships help us to be happy people as we serve the Lord our God. Amen.