YEAR A Homily for 4^th Sunday in Ordinary Time

The Beatitudes.  We hear them each year, we sing them in many hymns, we know that they are an important part of Jesus’ message. But do we really meditate on them and look for what they really mean both in Jesus’ time and for us today? The problem with famous aphorisms like the Beatitudes is that they become so commonplace that we don’t think about their meaning. “An apple a day keeps the doctor away.” Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, happy and wise.” We have heard them so often that we tend to ignore them even though they might contain some excellent folk wisdom. Either that or they have actually become a way of living for us.

The Beatitudes are really not just Jesus’ thoughts.  Most of them can be found in the Old Testament in some form or other.  They are presented not as laws that we have to follow, but are more like wise teachings that lead to a good life, such as can be found in the Book of Wisdom. They were all certainly used by Jesus, but probably not all in a grouping like Matthew has them presented. But, certainly taken together they are a precise summary of many of the teachings of Jesus.

So, in an attempt to get you to think about them, I would like to present a slightly different way of looking at them.  First of all, the translation. Our translation uses the word “Blessed”. “Blessed are they….” Other translations use the word “Happy.”  “Happy are they…. However, neither of these two translations is exactly adequate to explain the meaning in Jewish Mediterranean terms. As we have discussed a few times last year, the most important thing for Jews in the time of Jesus was honor.

To be seen as an honorable person was a motive of most Jews of that period. Honor came before all other things. For that reason and in that context then, the Beatitudes might better be translated “Honorable are you…” which can change how we look at the last part of the Beatitude.  For example, let us look at the first Beatitude.

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” If we say that “Honorable are the poor in spirit” we might see that it has to do with the status of a person.  A person without much honor is poor.  It doesn’t really have anything here to do with money.  It is status in the eyes of others. 

Jesus turns around the expectation that someone with low status should be held in low esteem, and says, no, people with low status, like widows, like orphans, like children, the downtrodden are the ones who are most honorable. And who is going to give them this honor? Certainly not society! Why God of course. God is the one who can give lasting honor to a person, and thus in the kingdom of God, they will be the most honorable.

Jesus is always turning around the expected way of thinking. The endings of each of the Beatitudes shows what God thinks of those conditions or how God will reward those conditions described – they will be comforted by God, they will receive mercy, they will see God, they will be called children of God and heirs of the kingdom. And in each case it is not the expected person who will receive that honor, but the dishonored, the mourners, the meek, the agents of righteousness, the merciful, the pure and the peace makers. In our earthly society the rewards go, not to these people, but to the honored, the rich, the lucky, the strong, the forceful, the law makers and enforcers, the fighters.

St. Paul recognized this counter cultural message in Jesus’ teaching as well.  In today’s reading from 1st Corinthians he says: “God chose what is foolish in this world to shame the wise. God chose what is weak in this world to shame the strong.” God’s ways and the ways of the kingdom of heaven are not our ways. We need a double vision to see what is the alternate way. We need a teacher like Jesus to show us the way, the wisdom of God.

Jesus used these aphorisms because they are easy to remember and make an impression on first hearing. They are memorable.  And hopefully, they will make an impact for these very reasons.

Matthew uses these Beatitudes as the opening of his great Sermon on the Mount. The Sermon on the Mount was not spoken as written here, but Matthew collected many of the different sayings of Jesus over many such sermons and tried to create one large sermon that expressed succinctly the teachings of Jesus. We will be hearing this Sermon on the Mount in its entirety over the next six weeks.

We have seen now what the Beatitudes meant to the people of Jesus’ time in terms of honor and how Jesus was again being counter cultural. What can it mean to us today? How can we learn the lessons of Jesus, the lessons of being poor in spirit, being meek, being pure in heart? How do we deal with other people?  Most of the Beatitudes deal with our treatment of other people. Do we use other people, do we consider their feelings and thoughts, do we feel sorry for ourselves, do we use the material things we have in a good way, do we forgive people who have done wrong to us, do we show honesty in our dealings with other people, do we try to get revenge on people, do we work for justice and peace? Doing, or not doing, all of these things are what will make us honorable, or in the other translations, make us blessed or happy.

“Happiness is that which all [men] seek.” So says the great philosopher Aristotle. Aristotle also observes that everything people do twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, is what they believe will bring them happiness in one form or another. But the problem is that what people think will bring them happiness does not in fact always bring them true and lasting happiness.

Think of the drunkard who believes that happiness is found in the beer bottle. One bottle too much and he is driving home, runs a red light, hits a car and wakes up the following morning in a hospital with plaster and stiches all over his body. Then it begins to dawn on him that the happiness promised by alcohol may be too short-lived. Or take the man who frequents the casino to deal excitement. By the end of the month he finds that his account is in the red and that he can no longer pay his house rent. Creditors go after him until he loses his house and his car. Then it dawns on him that the happiness promised by the casino is fake. So Aristotle says that the ethical person is the person who knows and does what can truly bring them not just excitement or pleasure but true and lasting happiness.

Another word for true and lasting happiness is “blessedness” or “beatitude.” In today’s gospel, Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount shows that he really wants his followers to have true and lasting happiness, the happiness that the world and everything in it cannot give. This state of blessedness is what Jesus calls being in the “kingdom of God/heaven”. The eight beatitudes we have in today’s gospel constitute a road map for anyone who seeks to attain this happiness of the kingdom.

Why does Jesus deem it necessary to establish these guideposts to the kingdom right from the very first teaching that he gives to the disciples? It is because of the importance of this teaching. Everybody seeks happiness. But often we look for it in the wrong places. Ask people around you what makes people happy and compare the answers you get with the answers Jesus gives. The world has its own idea of happiness. If a committee were set up to draw up the beatitudes, we would most probably end up with a list very different from that which Jesus gives us today.

Where Jesus says “Blessed are the poor in spirit” they would say “Blessed are the rich.” Where Jesus says “Blessed are those who mourn” they would say “Blessed are those having fun.” Where Jesus says “Blessed are the meek” they would say “Blessed are the smart.” Where Jesus says, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness” they would say “Blessed are those who wine and dine.” Where Jesus says, “Blessed are the merciful” they would say “Blessed are the powerful.” Where Jesus says, “Blessed are the pure in heart” they would say “Blessed are the slim in body.” Where Jesus says, “Blessed are the peacemakers” they would say “Blessed are the news makers.” And where Jesus says, “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake” they would say “Blessed are those who can afford the best lawyers.”

We see that the values prescribed by Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount are in fact counter-cultural. We cannot accept these teachings of Jesus and at the same time accept all the values of the society in which we live. Of course, Jesus does not demand that we abandon the word. But he does demand that we put God first in our lives because only God can guarantee the true happiness and peace that our hearts long for. Nothing in the world can give this peace, and nothing in the world can take it away.

The Eight Beatitudes do not describe eight different people such that we need to ask which of the eight suits us personally. No, they are eight different snapshots taken from different angles of the same godly person. The question for us today, therefore, is this: “Do we live our lives following the values of the world as a way of attaining happiness or do we live by the teachings of Jesus. If you live by the teachings of Jesus, then rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven.

The sex scandals in the church in America and elsewhere is an evil that no one should try to understate or explain away. The people of God in churches where they took pace reacted in various ways. Some reacted with anger, others with sadness, and everyone felt betrayed. Many people threatened to leave the church, saying that the church is nothing but a bunch of hypocrites. Some actually left. That may not be the best way to react to the crisis. In today’s second reading from the First Letter to the Corinthians, Paul offers us another way of reacting to these atrocities without losing our faith; a way that enables us to denounce sex abuse in the church without throwing away the baby with the bath water. The reading tells us that God knows how to write straight with crooked pens; that God, in fact, prefers to write with crooked pens.

Consider your own call, brothers and sisters: not many of you were wise by human standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. 27 But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; 28 God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are, 29 so that no one might boast in the presence of God (1 Corinthians 1:26-29).

Paul begins this section by inviting the Christians of Corinth to consider their call. To be a Christian or a minister of the people of God in any capacity is a call. It is God who takes the initiative and calls us to His service. We sometimes find ourselves considering whether we should remain in the church or not. We feel that it is up to us to decide to follow Jesus or not. But Jesus tells us that the initiative to follow him comes not from us but from God himself. “You did not choose me but I chose you” (John 15:16), he says. And “No one can come to me unless drawn by the Father who sent me” (John 6:44). It is a calling given by God. The most sinful and most unworthy Christian you have ever known is nevertheless handpicked and called by God to follow Christ.

What standards does God use to choose men and women to belong to Him and do His work? Now, this is exactly where God’s ways part from our ways. Normally we would expect God to pick people who are wise, powerful, and of a good reputation. But Paul tells us that God actually chooses people who are the exact opposite, people who are foolish, weak in character, and of a low reputation. Why does God prefer to work with the nobodies of this world? There are two reason for this: one is in the interest of the individuals concerned, the other is in the interest of those among whom they work.

We can live the life of God or do the work of God only with the strength that comes from God. Therefore, the first requirement of a servant of God is that he or she learn how to depend on God. For this reason God sometimes allows His servants to carry the burden of their human weakness, so that they will learn that unless they stand in God, they cannot stand at all. Paul had a “thorn in the flesh”which he prayed God to remove from him. God did not remove it. God simply said to Paul, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.” And Paul concluded, “Therefore, I am content with weaknesses, … for whenever I am weak, then I am strong (2 Corinthians 12:9-10).

The second reason why God allows human weakness in His servants is so that the people among whom they work will realise that the good that God’s ministers have been able to accomplish come not from their personal ingenuity but from the grace of God working in and through them. This will weaken for the people the temptation to idolize their ministers. The Christians of Corinth had already fallen into this temptation when they began labelling themselves according to their favourite missionaries: “I belong to Paul,” or “I belong to Apollos,” or “I belong to Cephas.” God wants us to see through and beyond the ministers who bring us the word of God and to keep our eyes on Jesus, who is Lord and saviour of us all.

The Lord calls us all Christians, and especially those men and women who minister God’s word to us in any capacity, to a life of holiness. While we pray for holiness in our members, and especially in our ministers, let us also ask God to give us the faith not to be scandalized when we or our ministers fall short of the life of holiness expected of all of God’s children.

Can we use the Beatitudes to examine how we are doing, concentrate on them one by one and try to apply them to one or two things we do ourselves? In this way we can begin to transform ourselves and then the world to create the kingdom of God here on earth. Like the prophet Zephaniah that we heard in our first reading today we can find ways to “seek righteousness, seek humility” and be a “people humble and lowly”. St.Paul tells us that Christ Jesus “became for us wisdom from God.”  Let us take this wisdom as seen in the Beatitudes and apply it to our daily living so that we can transform the world beginning with ourselves.

By Rt.Rev.Prof. Kasomo Daniel

Bishop Kasomo is the Bishop of The Society of St. Peter and Paul (SSPP)