Gospel Reflection on Lk 6:17, 20-26

February 16, 2025

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.”

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The problem with the Pharisees was their outstanding righteousness. It could be measured enough so they could point and say, 'look what I have achieved.' They were able to look at themselves in their state of goodness as something that they possessed even if they did not achieve it. They were able to be so smug. We enter into heaven like little children only insofar as we have no past.

Children, in many ways, are not innocent. They're incompetent. They can't do anything to merit heaven. If they receive anything, it has to come to them as a gift. That's what we need to realize.

Whatever we've done in the past, good or bad, is irrelevant. Now is what counts. And now is a desert in which we have no idea where we stand. Most of us spend a lot of time editing our biography, almost as if we're preparing an official version for judgment day. We don't necessarily feel new.

We try to describe ourselves in new ways. One of the consequences of growing older is we learn how one thing leads to another, and we can be tempted to see ourselves as doing 'A' or 'B' to put ourselves in a good position. And we do that in our careers and our relationships. But there's no such thing with God. We don't have to find a way to get into a good position.

We don't have to explain ourselves to God. Newness comes from God. The beatitudes, they make useless all these familiar distinctions of success and failure. For instance, take the first one, blessed are the poor. We tend to say I'm poor and something should be done about that. At least applaud or allow me to find ways to exploit my poverty. You know, the eyes that looked at us on the first day of creation and said 'they are good' are also the same eyes that look out from the cross and say 'they are good'. We look everywhere for God and don't find him because we fail to look where we are. That is where God sees. We must see we have no source of good or of accomplishment or in ourselves.

To know ourselves is not acceptable. To be complacent is to think we are acceptable. We need to see ourselves as poor and desperate without adding: 'and what are you going to do about it?'

Or blessed are the hungry. We're like God by virtue of God's gift, not by anything we've done. So taking the fruit, eating it is a symbol of taking something into our own hands and storing it away safely inside ourselves, a symbol of security. We need always be ready to relinquish whatever we have so it can be given back to us. God doesn't give us little bits. He only gives us everything at once or nothing at all. God is truly God only in the complete self giving that goes on between the Father and the Son.

The Father gives everything to the Son. The Son gives everything to the Father. We renew God's image by giving ourselves completely and receiving ourselves back as a pure gift.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7BkJeNTq0fM