Prairie Hills Covenant Church

For the past forty plus years economists and academics have been arguing about an idea called the “Easterlin Paradox.” Developed by economist, Richard Easterlin, the paradox claims that there is not a direct link between a nation’s economic growth and an increase in happiness of its citizens. One of the reasons that there is so much unresolved debate on this issue is that happiness is incredibly hard to objectively measure. Typically, we measure our own happiness by comparing ourselves to others. We are happy if financially, relationally, and medically we are better off than our neighbors. If we aren’t able to keep up with the Jones' we become unhappy. In our scripture this week we have a very odd story in which Jesus calls a non-Jewish woman a dog. Even in Jesus’ culture this was an insult, but the woman was unfazed. She turned this insult into leverage and was able to convince Jesus to heal her daughter. Her happiness wasn’t a matter of comparison with her neighbors. She didn’t even seem discourage