Blessed Are You...

Homily for the Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time

In common, everyday conversations, we often hear a person say things like, “My family is a blessing,” or “I am blessed.” When we hear such statements, we sometimes realize that the person who is speaking believes that they have been blessed or have received the blessing because of something they have done or which they deserve because of their relationship with God.

When we listen to the Beatitudes that are enunciated in today’s reading from the Gospel of Saint Luke, it seems that Jesus is recommending a life of poverty, misery, hunger, and insults. At the very least, he is turning the notion of a blessing upside down. After doing a little reading about this particular episode from St. Luke’s Gospel, I was somewhat surprised to find that certain commentators were trying to play down or deny that Saint Luke was sincere in writing such strong language. Yet I don’t think we can just brush these words aside as if “he didn’t really mean that.” Indeed, the beatitudes Jesus proclaims seem for all the world to be “empty or broken”! Clearly some consideration of these Beatitudes is in order.

The Scriptures are full of statements or Beatitudes such as the ones we hear today. Literally, there are hundreds of them in the pages of the Hebrew Scriptures. For the most part, beatitudes were an ancient formula that encouraged people to do good. They are called “macarisms” because the Greek word for blessing or happy is makarios. For instance, in our Responsorial Psalm we read, “Blessed is the one who does not take the wicked for his guide, nor walks the road that sinners tread.” Psalm 41 says, “Blessed are those who consider the poor. The Lord will deliver them in time of trouble.” In our first reading from the Prophet Jeremiah, we hear “Blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord, ... he is like a tree planted [next to] water that sends out its roots by the stream, and does not fear when heat comes, for its leaves remain green.” These are all beatitudes. Beautiful and numerous are the beatitudes in the Hebrew scriptures. They say that if you do this or that good thing, you will receive blessings. Thus, people were not surprised that Jesus used them in his teaching. The trouble is, he seems to have reversed them!

Blessed are you if you are suffering poverty or grief or hunger or insults. What do you mean? Am I supposed to seek to be penniless and sorrowful and in pain? Why would he encourage us to be in such terrible states? Through history there have been many opinions on this reversal, but I have come to believe that these statements really tell us that a person has to be open and empty in order to let God and others come in. In order to love and be loved we need to have space at the center of who we are.

When we look at the disparity of wealth in our world, we have to wonder if we have so much that we know longer know if we need God. A rich person who “has everything” is tempted to let possessions define who he or she is. Possessions become an “instead of.” Instead of love I choose something more stable: better cars, nicer homes, or bigger bank accounts to replace the lack of love in our lives. The cashier at MacDonald’s asks, “Would you like me to super-size that?” as if the regular portion is not enough already.

Be sure that the principle running through all the beatitudes is this: you are blessed if you don’t cram yourself full. Full of food, drink, pride, drugs, fame, sex, visits to the beach, stunning hair-do’s, flattest abs, shiny teeth, fast cars, every kind of wealth, and of course reputation, reputation, reputation. Jesus seems to be saying instead, blessed are you if you try to stay empty, if you become a spacious home for God, for other human beings, for the long-suffering earth. There is only one reality, only one Being who can give us the bread of life, who can satisfy our deep capacity for love. Don’t you want to welcome that being into your soul instead of flying around at the fastest pace getting richer, fatter, happier, or having more fun? Jesus is asking us to be quiet receivers, people who know they feel empty and yet are patient.

Blessed are you if you let go and run into the arms of God.