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Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time
February 16, 2025
Thus says the LORD:
Cursed is the one who trusts in human beings,
who seeks his strength in flesh,
whose heart turns away from the LORD.
He is like a barren bush in the desert
that enjoys no change of season,
but stands in a lava waste,
a salt and empty earth.
Blessed is the one who trusts in the LORD,
whose hope is the LORD.
He is like a tree planted beside the waters
that stretches out its roots to the stream:
it fears not the heat when it comes;
its leaves stay green;
in the year of drought it shows no distress,
but still bears fruit.
From Psalm 1
R. Blessed are they who hope in the Lord.
Blessed the man who follows not
the counsel of the wicked,
nor walks in the way of sinners,
nor sits in the company of the insolent,
but delights in the law of the LORD
and meditates on his law day and night.
He is like a tree
planted near running water,
that yields its fruit in due season,
and whose leaves never fade.
Whatever he does, prospers.
Not so the wicked, not so;
they are like chaff which the wind drives away.
For the LORD watches over the way of the just,
but the way of the wicked vanishes.
Brothers and sisters:
If Christ is preached as raised from the dead,
how can some among you say there is no resurrection of the dead?
If the dead are not raised, neither has Christ been raised,
and if Christ has not been raised, your faith is vain;
you are still in your sins.
Then those who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished.
If for this life only we have hoped in Christ,
we are the most pitiable people of all.
But now Christ has been raised from the dead,
the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.
Jesus came down with the Twelve
and stood on a stretch of level ground
with a great crowd of his disciples
and a large number of the people
from all Judea and Jerusalem
and the coastal region of Tyre and Sidon.
And raising his eyes toward his disciples he said:
“Blessed are you who are poor,
for the kingdom of God is yours.
Blessed are you who are now hungry,
for you will be satisfied.
Blessed are you who are now weeping,
for you will laugh.
Blessed are you when people hate you,
and when they exclude and insult you,
and denounce your name as evil
on account of the Son of Man.
Rejoice and leap for joy on that day!
Behold, your reward will be great in heaven.
For their ancestors treated the prophets in the same way.
But woe to you who are rich,
for you have received your consolation.
Woe to you who are filled now,
for you will be hungry.
Woe to you who laugh now,
for you will grieve and weep.
Woe to you when all speak well of you,
for their ancestors treated the false prophets in this way."
Essentially "Blessed" (makarios in Greek) is an exclamation. Using the familiar Jewish formula of blessing that has been adopted into the liturgy of the Eucharist, we could re-write it this way: "Blessed are you, Lord God of all creation, for in your kingdom you are favouring the unfortunate ones: the poor who realise how much we depend on you; the hungry who know what it is to be grateful; those who with compassion feel for blind, lame, stricken humanity, struggling under disadvantage or oppression."
These days we call it a preferential option for the poor but it covers all those who belong in God's kingdom, and our world is inundated with floods of unfortunate women and children along with their menfolk, refugees by the millions, cities under seige and bombardment, (a practice we thought we had long since declared unacceptable), and ordinary folk who can't make ends meet in a world of plenty.
Luke has taken Matthew's eight "beatitudes" and appplied the essential idea to the social situation of his time. "...you who are poor, who are now hungry, weeping now..." He brings our thoughts right down to street level, right into the home where children are hungry or dying of neglect, the parents, powerless, can only weep for them. The psalms have already focused the spirituality of the kingdom on the plight of the poor, as does Mary's "Magnificat":
He has put down the mighty from their thrones and raised up the lowly;
He has filled the hungry with good things and the rich sent away empty.
We should note that he "wicked" in the last line of the psalm as quoted above refers to the unjust, those who steal from the poor working class, grow rich off the labour of orphans, and consume the heritage of widows.
And that brings the next question into focus: Who among us will qualify and who will be sent away empty-handed? Will I?
I think it is undeniable that the gospel message is first and foremost a spiritual one. Jeshua did not set out to establish social welfare programs, found trade unions or lend his backing to violent revolution. First and last, it is the development of the human person that is the goal, "that they might have life to the full". The tragedy envisioned in the latter four verses with the heart-rending exclamation of Woe! is that at the end of their lives these 'fortunate ones' remain empty. Mere shells of humanity. All the power, wealth and influence they gloried in swept away like dry grass. turned to powder by the scorching wind of justice, and gone.
In Matthew's version the point is made explicitly: "poor in spirit". Neither wealth nor poverty are the problem, except that if you're significantly wealthy you will likely get puffed up with pride, which is a bigger danger to human development than even crushing poverty. On the other hand a wealthy person can be poor in spirit, recognising that all they have comes from God, while a poor person may be bitter, resentful, angry and even vengeful.
Luke sees the kingdom as a community where people work for truth and justice, reaching out to the less fortunate ones, whoever they are, with material assistance, respect and compassion. Ideally, in God's Kingdom, we would all be so attuned, so sensitive to the unfortunate ones in our world that we would give them what they need, sharing everything in common until balance - "justice" - was firmly established. That point, of course, will never be reached, but in our endeavour we develop into the kind of people we were destined to be.
Then we will together whisper, softly out of deep respect: "Blessed are you, Lord God, Creator and Source to whom we long to return in the fullness of life."
In ancient Greek culture, "makarios" was often associated with the gods or the dead, who were considered to be in a state of bliss. However, in the biblical context, it is used to describe the blessedness of those who live in accordance with God's will. The term reflects a counter-cultural understanding of happiness, one that is not dependent on external circumstances but on one's spiritual condition and relationship with God. (Strong's Lexicon. https://biblehub.com/greek/3107.htm )