Homily for the Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time — Year C

Today we are given Saint Luke’s version of the Beatitudes, different in structure and in focus from Saint Matthew’s more familiar presentation. Both Evangelists present Jesus delivering this Teaching at the very beginning of His public ministry.

 

The titles given, however, are slightly different: St. Matthew calls this passage and what follows, “The Sermon on the Mount”; St. Luke calls it “The Sermon on the Plain.” A quick geographical look suggests that St. Luke’s placement is more accurate, there on the north shore of the Sea of Galilee. St. Matthew is exhibiting the Hebrew penchant for overstatement when he describes the area as a mountain. There is a gentle rise from the lakeshore that does, indeed, level off as a Plain. So, the location would be less like a hike up Okemo, and more like an easy walk from Main Street to our cemetery. Enough with the geography lesson… back to the text.

 

The Sermon on the Plain is placed toward the beginning of the Gospel not so that the reader might see it, or the listener might hear it, as a manifesto that would replace the Ten Commandments in setting a new course for our lives, but, instead, as a means of translating the Commandments into a mode of thinking and acting more easily understood, that will shape our outlook on life, and the actions we must take.

 

The Commandments and Beatitudes are not mutually exclusive, they are complementary. The Commandments are worded in what is called “prohibition-first” language, meaning (with the exception of the Fourth Commandment) they begin stating, “Thou shalt not…” In this, they state, in the greatest simplicity, what we are to avoid if we are to live in holiness. 

 

The Beatitudes (and with St. Luke, the woes) teach us how to recognize blessing in the midst of adversity, trusting not in human intuition, but in the Holy Will and Providence of God, as difficult as that act of trusting may seem. They teach us that true happiness is not found in riches or well-being… in fame or power…or in any human achievement, however beneficial these may be, but in God alone, the source of every good.  

 

We shouldn’t view our life situation, then, from a worldly perspective, but from that of God, which is the impetus for Our Lord’s words here, at the opening of His long Sermon on the Plain. In trying to get us to adjust our perspective, St. Luke aligns four blessings with their antitheses, their “woes,” to keep us from becoming too self- assured. He writes us Jesus coupling these phrases:
 

Blessed are you who are poor…

woe to you who are rich.

 

Blessed are you who are hungry…

woe to you who are full.

 

Blessed are you who are weeping…

woe to you who laugh.

 

Blessed are you when people hate you…

woe to you when all speak well of you.

 

This provides a counter-intuitive way of judging blessing or woe in our lives, unless we listen closely to the promises attached:

 

You who are poor… the Kingdom of God is yours

You who are hungry… will be satisfied

Your who are weeping… will laugh

You who are hated… your reward will be great in heaven

 

The promises, as might be expected, are stated in the future tense, except… did you see it?… the first assurance is stated in the present tense, “the Kingdom of heaven is yours.” This means that the Kingdom of God is not simply a wonderland of hopes and promises in some distant future (though these are guaranteed). The Kingdom of God comes to us through an awareness, an outlook in which we can depend on the presence of God in our present situation, in the midst of what otherwise might seem just one egregious adversity after another. This outlook, this attitude, is developed from the Grace God gives us as we need it.

 

If all this seems too ethereal or unrealistic, the Prophet Jeremiah brings us back to earth in Beatitude of his own, though beginning with the “woe” and finishing with the blessing. Through Jeremiah, we hear God the Father say, “Cursed is the one who trusts in human beings,” followed by, “Blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord.”

 

In summary, we can look to Saint Ignatius of Antioch for a suggestion for including Beatitude into our daily living. He writes, “The only thing you need to ask for is fortitude, interior strength, and outward determination… so that you may be completely convinced of the words you speak, and thereby be a Christian not only in name and words, but in deeds. If I live a Christian life, I am worthy of the name “Christian,” and I will be truly faithful to Christ. When they are hated by the world, what Christians need is not convincing words, but greatness of soul.”