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” (Lk 6:22).
Feel like this statement is a little counter to our sensibilities? Who of us seeks to be hated? Do we wake up each morning and say to ourselves, “Self, I hope I receive a good deal of hate from those closest to me today.” No. We want to be affirmed and loved and that is a good. The important point is that we are to have our desire to be loved properly ordered by first allowing God to love us before anyone else. Knowing the love of God helps us to then not be left unbalanced like someone just pulled the rug out from under us when they are a bit short or snarky with us.
If we read the statement a bit closer, we see Jesus is going deeper than just the normal everyday conflicts that we experience. He is not asking us to seek to be hated. He is saying that we will be blessed when we are authentically living our faith and then we receive disdain or hatred. Jesus received it from those of his own hometown when he began his public ministry. We don’t live our faith with the goal of being liked or loved by the world, we live our faith as we have been loved by God, and then share what he gives us to share. In the words of St. Bernadette of Soubirous, our “job is to inform not to convince.”
The Beatitudes are contrary to much of what too many of us are tempted by when seek our satisfaction, security, and fulfillment. Much of us are lured in some form or fashion, by power, fame, wealth, pleasure, and celebrity. What is more, how many of us who proclaim to be people of faith resist Jesus’ teachings because of self-centered reasons? We hold on to things that keep us from God, that really do not make us happy. We do so because we do want to be loved and belong. The challenge is we are “looking for love in all the wrong places” as sung by Johnny Lee.
In today’s Gospel account from Luke, Jesus began to teach his disciples on this deeper level. He had just chosen the twelve by name and that number would not have slipped by them. Their thoughts were more than likely moving closer to the realization that Jesus was the Messiah, the promised heir of David. Would he be gathering them together to restore the twelve tribes of Israel and overthrow the occupying power of Rome? Yes, but not in the way they were thinking.
Jesus’ presentation was not about taking up military or physical armaments, but spiritual ones of attaining the kingdom through four blessings and dashing the common hope with four woes. Jesus’ message is a universal message, an invitation to and for all who have ears to hear as well as hearts and minds open to receive. Jesus spoke not only to his twelve newly hand picked followers as wells as those from “Judea and Jerusalem” but also those from the “coastal region of Tyre and Sidon” (Luke 6:17). That Jesus did not dismiss but was teaching those from Tyre and Sidon would not have been missed either. They were from Gentile territory.
Jesus’ teachings challenged all present and they challenge us today to evaluate where we are placing our trust and security. If we are placing our trust in the things of this world, the four woes section is for us, for that which is finite and material are fleeting and passing. By placing our trust in Jesus, his Father and the love shared between them, the Holy Spirit, the beatitudes will lead us to experience joy, peace, and love.
Being poor, hungry, in mourning, hated, excluded, insulted and denounced as evil will bring us happiness? Yes. When we are faithful to God, each of them counter the typical substitutes that we can put in place before our relationship with God. Each of the beatitudes that Jesus offers are invitations to experience true, deep and abiding joy. We just need to be willing to relinquish putting self first and seeking pursuits counter to God and his will.
When we rely more on God and less on material things, even relationships; when we depend more on God alone, our relationships and our pursuits will be more properly ordered. With God first, we will experience order and peace and… that all elusive rest of the soul! That rest is so fleeting to so many of us because we are looking to so many other things but God to find rest and love. To be serious about being Jesus’ disciple, we are to look to the things of heaven and not of this world. Learning and living the beatitudes is just such a move. No easy task but when we look at each one and begin to detach from the attachments they allude to, “we will rejoice and leap for joy” (Lk 6:23)!
Joy because we will no longer be ensured by the things of this world and instead experience the inner freedom to enjoy the good things that God gives. We will be fueled not by the advancement or aggrandizement of self, but by the emptying of our ego. We will have room in our hearts to receive the love of Jesus, the source of our joy, which wells up from within and never runs dry! Jesus is the kingdom of Heaven that is at hand and he will lead us, if we are willing to follow, to the ultimate desire and deepest craving and hunger of our being, to be in communion with God and one another.
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Photo: EnJOYed another beautiful sunset painted on God’s canvas of creation last evening. Lightning strikes in the central smaller cloud, not visible. May you experience a taste of the joy God is seeking to bring you today!
Spiritual Stepping Stones 