The teaching of Jesus in this week's Gospel passage has historically been known as the Beatitudes, from the Latin word for blessed. The Beatitudes appear twice in the New Testament, once in the Gospel of Matthew, where they are spoken in the context of the Sermon on the Mount and the other time here, in the Gospel of Luke, where they are a part of the Sermon on the Plain.
In both Gospels, Jesus presents the Beatitudes at the beginning of his ministry. In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus focuses only on the blessings of certain conditions of life and does so more extensively than in Luke. In the speech recounted in the Gospel of Luke, Jesus also reflects on the woes that come with the opposite of those conditions. The Beatitudes can be seen as the opening statement of the public preaching of Jesus, encapsulating a number of the core values he would teach about in his ministry. But, we might ask, why would Jesus consider poverty, hunger, sorrow, and exclusion blessed states?
The key lies in the way we fundamentally orient our lives. We are created with an existential longing for God. Nothing in the created world can fully fulfill us. We can reach true fulfillment only when we accept God's infinite love for us and reciprocate his love by giving ourselves to him completely.
The problem is not with wealth, with having material means and resources. The problem is when we put material security in the place of God. The problem is not with being fed, having food security. The problem is when we seek nothing more than to be fulfilled on an earthly level. When we do so, we make an idol out of the things of this world, which can give us only partial, fleeting satisfaction. If we think that we can be fully satisfied by the created world, we make a false god out of the gifts God has given us.
But what about weeping and being rejected, excluded, and insulted? The words of Jesus in this regard have several layers. To begin, the world we live in is fallen, fundamentally disordered. If we truly follow God, we will always experience a great deal of dissonance with the world. We will feel out of place and the world will cause us sorrow. In the end, God will give us true, eternal joy, but first we must experience the hardship of living in this dysfunctional world.
We must also remember that the values of this world are fundamentally at odds with the values of God. If the world praises and exalts us, we are doing something wrong. If the secular media speaks highly of us, we are almost certainly on the wrong path. Christ is the light of the world. But the powers of the world have rejected the light, preferring to stay in the darkness instead. If we are not rejected by the world, we are not walking in the light of Christ. Therefore, as Christians, we must suffer for Christ throughout our lives.
We are also called to suffer for one another. We should not just seek to lead a life of contentment. We need to make sacrifices to help each other in life. We need to embrace the Cross and be willing to be crucified for one another, just as Christ laid his life down for all of us.
In the Second Reading, St. Paul assures us that our suffering is not in vain. Just as Christ rose from the dead, we too will be raised. After death, our soul lives on, even as our body disappears into the earth. When Christ returns at the end of time, at the Second Coming, all the dead will be raised. Those who accepted his love in this life will live with him eternally, imbued with infinite, endless joy.
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The readings for Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle C, are:
Jeremiah 17:5-8
Psalm 1:1-2, 3, 4 and 6
1 Corinthians 15:12, 16-20
Luke 6:17, 20-26
The full text can be found at the USCCB website.
Photo Credit: Site of the Sermon on the Mount in Galilee (c) 2016 by Zoltan Abraham.