Journey's Weekly Homilies

Cycle C:  Sixth Sunday, Ordinary Time
February 15th, 2004
Homily by: Robin

Jeremiah 17:5-8
1 Corinthians 15:12, 16-20
Luke 6:17-26 

Mae West observed: "I've been poor, and I've been rich. Believe me, rich is better."  

What is "blessed" about being poor? As a child my family was very poor.  Sometimes we only had bread from the day-old Holsum Bakery store for dinner.  The first time I heard this Scripture as a child I was angry.  Believe me, there was nothing blessed about being “poor” and hungry.  Why would Jesus say this?  More importantly, what poor person in the ancient world--or today--would believe it?  

In Luke’s Gospel reading, Jesus is speaking, not from an elevated mountaintop where a prophet might go to receive the Word of God, but from “a level place” where he is within reach.  He is speaking not only to his disciples but also to “a great multitude.”  Rich and poor had gathered to hear Jesus preach and “to be healed of their diseases.”  Those who were troubled by unclean spirits came to touch Jesus and be cured.  Today’s Gospel tells us that Jesus clearly was concerned with the physical world where real people were suffering.  By his behavior, Jesus was saying:  I am here with you and I am doing what I can to make your lives a little better.  Jesus was acting and sharing his gifts as he was able—teaching, healing and casting out unclean spirits.   

One of the things that I just love about Jesus is his Attitude—and I do mean that with a capital A.  Jesus was not afraid to turn the world in which he lived upside down—he was not a man to accept the status quo without comment.  He changed what he could by teaching and healing.  Today’s Gospel is just one more rich example of this.   

Jesus lived in a culture that was permeated with the concept of established relationships—the importance of an individual being embedded in family—a culture that was dominated with concepts of honor and shame.  Being “poor” meant that you had no family, particularly no male family member such as a father or husband, to defend your social position or your wealth, if you had any.  Regardless of social position, widows and orphans were most often grouped with “the poor.”  To be poor was to be powerless, shamed and defenseless.  The “poor” had no recourse or ability to access resources even if they had wealth.   

In an agrarian barter economy no one can get rich except by unfair trading or by stealing land from peasants.  So wealth was a sign that you had cheated and anyone who was wealthy would take great pains to either hide it or distribute it so they would be seen as generous.   

By the time Jesus was preaching, taxation by the religious leaders as well as the Romans consumed a very large share of a peasant’s family crop.  In a bad harvest year, all the peasants had harvested might be taken to pay taxes.  Peasant families were either driven off their land or put to work their own land as tenant farmers employed by the new owners.  Also a new social class was created where people actually flaunted their wealth instead of being ashamed of their duplicity.   

When Jesus blesses the “poor,” he is really saying something like this:   

How honorable are you who are powerless to defend yourselves against those who are more powerful.  Your life will be included within the reign of God.  

Jesus promises a reward from God for those who suffer from the shameful experience of being cheated by those more powerful or perhaps the shame of simply having no family.  God is the ultimate arbiter of true honor, and the honor God bestows is unsurpassable. When God honors the socially unfortunate, everyone will know his or her true status.  So Jesus is not spiritualizing poverty.  Instead, he is including those who were social outcasts in the kingdom of God.  In today’s world that means the community that congregates on Burnside at the bridge, prison inmates, people whom live with AIDS and people who are different by reason of skin color, religion or culture.    

But I want to move back to talk more about Jesus’ behavior and actions.  Yes, he blesses the social outcast—the poor, the hungry and those who weep—and promises them entry into God’s kingdom.  But he also speaks very forcefully and directly to those who contribute to the suffering of the outcasts. 

In Jesus’ world, the rich are rich not because they have worked hard and earned their wealth, but because they have cheated, bribed and stolen from those who cannot defend themselves.  These are the powerful few and Jesus is not pleased.  I’d like to believe that Jesus was angry.  In the context of his culture, his words might be understood as:           

How shameful that you are rich, because we know that to be wealthy in this culture you have robbed the poor and bribed the officials.   

How shameful that you are full of food that rightfully belongs to others. 

How shameful that people speak well of you and thereby express approval of your disgraceful behavior.   

Remember in our first reading that Jeremiah reminds us that we need to trust God first rather than people, but Jeremiah does not speak to making change happen.  Yes, trust and faith are cornerstones to my belief system but personally I prefer the Jesus-approach:  Jesus was a person of action—he taught, he healed and cast out unclean spirits and he preached continually to issues of justice and inclusion.   

Now let’s fast-forward 2,000 years and reflect on what this Gospel lesson means to us, today.  Jesus has left us a roadmap—a blueprint for our lives as people of faith.  As we are able, we are called to share our gifts—whether that be teaching, healing and casting out demons, or something less dramatic.   

We are called each day to bring the kingdom of God into living reality and I feel this so powerfully.  For myself, each day I might work with a homeless person, a destitute disabled person or a senior who is alone, hungry and lonely.  We are challenged to turn away from the allure of power we see each day on TV and instead embrace the powerless.  One extra effort each day to acknowledge the disenfranchised among us—just imagine if we all brought one can of food each week to place on the alter.  Thirty cans a week—1,500 cans a year.  Just imagine the impact that Journey would have.  Let each of us reflect on how we each embody today’s lesson of honoring the outcast and “walking the talk” that Jesus spoke in today’s Gospel.