17 Feb 2019
6th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C
History is full of revolutionaries. Those people help move human society forward:
from darkness to light, from oppression to freedom, from ignorance to awareness. And they do that by challenging the status
quo—particularly when the status quo is negative and destructive. History of full of revolutionaries, both good
and bad. But the good ones help move
human society away from what’s harmful, and toward whatever is good.
So, then, we have to consider Jesus as a revolutionary,
too. He was always going against the
grain: healing people on the sabbath, not having his disciples do the ritual
cleansing, forgiving people of their sins, touching lepers, hanging around with
the “lower end” of human society—just generally giving his disciples a bad
example to follow. And if Jesus has a declaration
of his revolutionary attitude it’s perhaps here in the Beatitudes.
Now, the Jews had always been told that their own
righteousness before God would bring them worldly benefits, things like: the
Promised Land, prosperity, an abundance of crops, good health, children, happiness,
and so on. And anybody who wasn’t so
blessed with these things was seen as somehow cursed in the eyes of God (kind
of like Job).
But then Jesus says, “No, you’ve got it all backwards! Blessed are the poor, blessed are the lowly,
blessed are those who suffer on account of my name. Your reward will be great...not here, but in
heaven.” The Beatitudes cut right across
everything that was sacred and right in the Jewish understanding of the
world. Jesus was a revolutionary then,
and he still is today.
Human society still adheres to the ancient mentality: prosperity
is a sign of being blessed; health and abundance, lots of children, youth,
vibrancy, good times and happiness right here and now are what make for “the
good life.” And so, the Beatitudes are
just as unpopular today as they were when Jesus first proclaimed them. I mean, who wants to be poor and hungry; who
wants their life to be characterized by weeping and mourning; who wants to
spend their life being hated, excluded, and denounced? I imagine very few of us.
Jesus was a revolutionary in biblical times, and he still is
today. But is he a good one or a bad
one? Where do the Beatitudes lead
us? Do they lead us to a better human
society, or to a more unjust and harmful place?
Of course, as Catholics, we already know the answer: Jesus is
a “good” revolutionary, and the Beatitudes are “good” for human society,
they’re good for us. You know, just
like: being sure to eat all your vegetables, or rolling up your sleeve to get a
flu shot, or going to the dentist and sitting back for a root canal—they’re all
“good for you.” So Jesus says the
Beatitudes are “good for us.” And, I say
that kind of tongue-in-cheek, but of course, Jesus is right: they are good for
us. But it does take a little convincing,
for sure.
But being convinced of it really depends on how much we live
the Beatitudes. There’s no way to “think
through” them—you just have to believe and go with it.
If we were to sum up the Beatitudes, and then try to apply
them to our lives, we might think of three words: poverty, chastity, and
obedience. Poverty, chastity, and
obedience. And these are the three vows
that men and women make when they enter a religious community. And they’re just as counter-cultural and revolutionary
as the Beatitudes.
Now, none of us here has taken any vows of poverty, chastity,
and obedience—officially, anyway. And,
yet, they’re common to any baptized person who attempts to live out the
Beatitudes. For example:
Blessed are the poor and the hungry. They live a life of poverty. They don’t fill themselves up with worldly
goods, but they leave lots of room for what heaven has to offer as well. They enjoy the gifts and fruits of this life,
but they wonder and dream about what more God has in store today, tomorrow, and
forever.
Blessed are those who weep and mourn. They live a life of poverty, too. They aren’t ashamed to express themselves, to
let down their guard in order to let God in when pain comes. In their vulnerability, they’re blessed. As are those who are hated, excluded, and
insulted on account of their faith in Jesus.
They’re blessed because God’s approval is more important to them than
others’. They want to get an “attagirl”
or an “attaboy” from God, and God is ever-willing to encourage his
children. In their poverty of spirit,
they’re blessed and happy.
Blessed are the pure of heart (says Jesus in Matthew’s gospel). They live a life of chastity; not a life of
repression and guilt, but a life of focus and enjoyment. They don’t go
endlessly chasing after this want and that desire. They don’t let their dreams and their
relationships get all muddled up and confused.
They stay focused and grateful toward whatever it is that God has given
them. Maybe our chastity is even toward
ourselves—not wishing we were somebody else (cheating on ourselves), but simply
accepting the blessing of being purely “me”.
Blessed are the pure of heart.
They live a life of chastity, a life of self-control and utter devotion
to what’s good, true, and beautiful.
And, again, blessed are the poor and the hungry, those who
are hated on account of Jesus. Those people
live a life of obedience. And, you know, it’s a life so often equated with
oppression and lack of freedom. But,
really, obedience is about all freedom.
For instance, we can either be a slave to worry and anxiety, or we can
let God lead the way, leaving us free to just live life. Or we can try to go it alone in life, or we
can listen to God and let him be our most trusted companion, our source of
wisdom.
Blessed are the obedient, happy are they: hungering for the
companionship of God, thirsting for God’s word and direction, finding peace of
heart in the care of the Good Shepherd.
In their obedience, they are blessed with peace and certainty, and with
freedom of heart knowing that God is God, and he’s already won the war.
And these little reflections of poverty, chastity, and
obedience are all nice and everything.
But they’re still revolutionary—even today. They still rub us the wrong way. But to find out if poverty, chastity, and
obedience are really a “good” way to go, we pretty much have to put them to the
test—we have to apply them to our lives and see what happens.
When we’re at home, feeling restless, what do we do? What do we fill the emptiness up with? Things? Activities? Food? Internet? What would happen if we took the route of poverty,
and just sat there, being restless, asking God to be our peace...
When we’re tempted to “lust” after what others have, and to
be envious and covetous of someone else, what do we do? How do we satisfy that longing? What would happen if we took the route of
chastity, and asked God to be thankful for what we have, and who we already
are...
When we’re tempted to be bullheaded, when we’re losing sleep
because of worry, when we’re tempted to think we have all the answers (or that
we have to have all the answers), what do we do? What would happen if we took the route of
obedience, the route of freedom, and just said, “God, I don’t know...you take
it. You’re God, not me...”
Jesus puts some revolutionary ideas before us today: the
Beatitudes and these ideas of poverty, chastity, and obedience. They’re radical ideas. But are they for the good? Well, we say they are, and we believe they
are. But there’s only one way to know
for sure. And that’s to put them into
practice.
It’s a scary proposition: poverty, chastity, obedience, the
Beatitudes. Who knows...maybe it’s just
the revolution we each need in our lives.
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