Homily for Sunday, February 14, 2010

“Cursed is the one who trusts in human beings.”  What kind of wisdom is that?  Isn’t life better when we have trusting relationships, when we have people we can have confidence in?  Aren’t children raised better when they grow up in a home of such trust that they know unconditional love?  So, what is Jeremiah’s wisdom all about?  

    Holding that question there for a moment, let’s look at what Jesus is telling us.  It seems to be even more non-sense: being rich is bad; and being poor is good.  Who of us really thinks that?  Being well-fed is bad and going hungry is good.  What would happen to Whole Foods if we really lived by this beatitude?  Being sad is good; and being happy is bad?  How can this be?  And being hated, excluded, insulted and denounced is good; but praised and well thought of is bad?!  Yikes!  How can all this be?

    These kinds of Scriptures usually get dismissed by most of us as unreachable goals.  And we may even think we don’t want them as goals!  

    Well, there’s a clue on how to understand this in one line in the Gospel: Jesus, the Gospel says, came to a level plain 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 here is the telling line: “And raising his eyes toward his disciples he said. . .”

    Do you remember my telling you last week that most of are really secret heretics, that we deep down think and behave as if we have to earn our being acceptable to ourselves and to God by being better, doing more good, doing less evil, changing this or that about ourselves, conquering flaws, and making fewer mistakes?

    And do you remember my saying that St. Paul teaches us that the love of the Lord makes us acceptable even now, even as we are.  We don’t earn God’s acceptance of us.  Rather, when we know now how loved we are by God is when we are brought to our knees in profound gratitude.  And then, it is God’s grace, and our awareness of what God now means to us, that we wind up desiring from deep within us to conform our lives to Christ’s life and teachings.  In other words, we no longer simply want to make of ourselves a better person by doing more good and avoiding as much evil as we can.  No, it’s no longer about the things we do.  It’s all about the who that we are.  When we become disciples, we become so taken with Jesus that He is the biggest thought in our minds and the one by whom we run all of our decisions.  That’s what it means to be a disciple.  It means to be in love with the Lord!  When Jesus taught these radical teachings in today’s Gospel, “He raised his eyes toward his disciples and said. . .”  Yes, there was a vast crowd, but it was to his disciples that He gave these truths that can only make sense if we are in a profound relationship with the Lord as His disciple.

    Only a true disciple can see the meaning of the blessedness of poverty.  Only a true disciple can know that material things are ultimately unimportant.  Only a true disciple can see that possessions become less and less important as the love of God looms large in one’s life.  In fact, possessions get in the way.  They become false gods; and they distract us from what is really important.

Only one who knows that there is a resurrection from the dead can live with an eye on the eternal prize.  That means that the disciple can see the transitory side of suffering and tears; and only the disciple can move out of self-pity for one’s own suffering into profound pity and compassion for the sufferings of others.

    Only a real disciple can see that flattery and praise and admiration can cloud our identity with the Gospel.  And when we care more about being well thought of, that’s when we become embarrassed about our faith, and the teachings of our faith.  

    So, the question I hear from these Scriptures today is this:  do you really want to be a do-gooder who tries to earn your salvation?  If this is the direction you want to take, you won’t succeed.  Or would rather be a true disciple of Christ and see things the way He does?  If this is your choice, be ready to be denounced.  And be ready to know it as a blessing!