6th Sunday in Ordinary Time
12-13 February 2022 – St. Lambert
Jer
17:5-8
1
Cor 15:12, 16-20
Lk
6:17, 20-26
“Cursed
is the one who trusts in human beings… Blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord,
whose hope is the Lord.” That’s from the
Old Testament Prophet Jeremiah!
Our Gospel today presents the Beatitudes as they appear in
St. Luke. They are about the same, but the wording is not as familiar obviously
as that of those we know from St. Matthew’s Gospel. “Blessed are you who are
poor… But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation.”
Blessed are you, cursed are you, woe to you! Both these accounts,
that of the Prophet Jeremiah and that of the words of Jesus in the Gospel, are
so constructed to balance out or contrast the blessings with the curses and the
woes. The back and forth does just what it is intended to do; it brings
clarity. With both the blessing and the curse on each topic you know just where
you stand. You are blessed for being poor, for being
hungry, for weeping, for being hated by people on account of the Son of Man. You are cursed, if you are rich, your
stomach is full, if you are without cares, if people speak well of you.
Both
with Jeremiah the Prophet speaking in God’s name and with the Lord Jesus
speaking in His own name, if you listen attentively, you will know where you
stand before God. There can be no mistaking about whether you are saved or you
are at risk of being damned. Judgment is unavoidable; all of us will be judged
by God. Divine judgment and retribution (reward or punishment) must come sooner
or later, and it won’t come from the tribunal of popular opinion. “Woe to
you when all speak well of you, for their ancestors treated the false prophets
in this way.” Judgment always comes from God and from Him alone. Sadly, for
the way our world today works, most people do not want to hear that message, and
most people fear the judgment of men. Their heads are easily turned by words of
praise from fellow human beings, and they tremble at the possibility of being
criticized or, to use a popular word of our time, they are in utter dread of
being cancelled by the media, by the powers that be in our world. They’ll
gladly take the “blessed-are-you” part of the Beatitudes, but they tend to take
it rather badly when they are condemned, even when the condemnation is not
coming from man but from God the Judge of all. What can I say? That seems to be
a common experience.
Given this back and forth and the mentality of not few people
today, I ask myself whether it is appropriate to spend a Sunday homily
examining the question of where we stand before God. Do people really care
about God’s judgment? Do they hope for His love and approval? Well done, good
and faithful servant, come and share your master’s joy! No matter what anyone
may tell you to the contrary, this world and the approval of men in society is not
what counts. It is ultimately a question of whether we are blessed or cursed by
God and not just for a day or a lifetime, but for all eternity.
Obviously,
final judgment is the end of the process. We live in the hope of time and
opportunity to grow beyond our mistakes, our sins, and shortcomings. We believe
that correction is a good thing, especially when admonition brings us to our
senses and puts us on the right path. Nobody likes being corrected or
challenged, but in point of fact it is salutary. Thanks to making amends, to
changing our ways, we can live in hope. As believing people we hope to be able
to live forever with God in the joy of His Kingdom.
Perhaps
the question is why does Luke concentrate on these four blessings? Since
Matthew lists eight Beatitudes, we can conclude that Luke’s list of just four
from the teaching of Christ is not exhaustive. It is not that the other four in
Matthew are not equally important or that Luke had not heard about them, but
rather that the Evangelist had a specific lesson in mind in choosing these
four. You are blessed for being poor, for being hungry, you are blessed for weeping,
for being hated by people on account of the Son of Man.
But these
four things which ultimately mean suffering or misery for people, how can they
be blessings? And how can their opposites, material wealth, enough to eat,
freedom from sorrows, and the esteem of our colleagues and friends, how can
these humanly good things be curses before God?
The
Church in its liturgy also had something in mind when it tied this Gospel
passage to the blessings and curses uttered by the Prophet Jeremiah. “Cursed
is the one who trusts in human beings, who seeks his strength in flesh, whose
heart turns away from the Lord.” Even in the Old Testament wisdom and prophecy
teach that having things too good cannot help but put us at odds with God. That
is the gist really of the Exodus experience, of Israel’s 40 years of wandering
in the desert and bemoaning the loss of the so-called fleshpots of Egypt and
all the leeks and melons they could eat. Poverty, hunger, sorrow, and
unpopularity are the yield in this life that comes from relying solely on the
Lord. As we know from elsewhere in the Gospel, we know that it must be so, that
you cannot serve both God and mammon.
The
Letter to the Hebrews, Chapter 11, explains the Exodus experience and much more.
“All
of these died in faith without having received the promises, but from a
distance they saw and greeted them. They confessed that they were strangers and
foreigners on the earth, for people who speak in this way make it clear that
they are seeking a homeland. If they had been thinking of the land that they
had left behind, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they
desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore, God is not ashamed
to be called their God; indeed, he has prepared a city for them.” [Hebrews 11:13-16]
Time
and again in the life of the Church, there have been crises followed by periods
of renewal and genuine flourishing. Without exception the renewal has been
marked by some kind of austerity or simply by the embrace of a life of poverty.
The first great success of the Church was forged in the terrible furnace of
persecution. As it is said, the blood of martyrs is the seed of Christians. No
sooner had the Church replaced paganism as the established religion of the
Roman Empire than heresy began to tear her apart. Thanks to all the desert
fathers and monks, who renounced wealth and privilege to follow Christ in
poverty, chastity, and obedience, the Church was able to recover her orthodoxy.
Her next fall from grace in the Middle Ages was counterbalanced by the extreme
poverty of the mendicant orders, like the Franciscans and the Dominicans.
My question
to you and to myself would be, whence will come deliverance and renewal in our
day in time, where once again the Church seems to be faltering? We need to turn
toward Christ Who calls us blessed for being poor, for being hungry, for
weeping, for being hated by people on account of His Name. Enough of being
cursed for being rich, for having a full stomach, for having been spared the
cares and sorrows of this life, for having enjoyed human respect and popularity!
As
clear as the blessings and curses may be, the Church has always had to struggle
to find the path forward. Besides clarity of thought, we need courage and
confidence in God to follow Him into the desert. It is that time of year again
in the Church. In the old Church calendar this Sunday marked the beginning of what
was referred to as pre-Lent, which was supposed to ease us into the greater
penance of the 40 days of preparation for Easter to start on Ash Wednesday. I
would suggest that you start praying already now that the Lord may grant you
the true blessings. May the Lord help us set our hearts on the life of the
world to come! May we be spared the curses of those who choose the easy life
and have nothing to hope for in Christ’s Kingdom!
Praised
be Jesus Christ!
PROPERANTES ADVENTUM DIEI DEI
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