Sixth Sunday in Ordinary
Time
Valentine’s Day
Interesting isn’t it? You come here on this beautiful Sunday
morning, on Valentine’s Day and all we’re thinking of is who is going to be my
Valentine today? We’re filled with love. And then you hear a gospel that says four
time, “Woe” and you say well, should I go back home and get out of bed and
start all over again?
There is something powerful
though about this gospel reading because Jesus once again is trying to tell us,
and He has this beautiful way of turning things around so that we really do go
down underneath to find the real, true meaning.
A very wonderful person who
had been bedridden for 38 years said it this way; “We all have been duped. We seek happiness and we find sorrow. We offer ourselves for suffering and find
joy.”
Backwards isn’t it? Everything that the world around us is trying
to say. When Jesus said, “Woe to you
rich, to you who are laughing, to you who are filled” those are the things that
make our culture and our society say to us, “If you want to be happy you’ve got
to have wealth, you gotta have power, wear the right clothes, have all the
possessions, do all those things and you will be happy.” And Jesus turns it upside down and says, “No,
if you’ve got all that now you will not have it in everlasting life."”
And He takes three other
people at that time. He says, “Blessed
are you who are poor. Blessed are you
who are hungry. Blessed are you who are
grieving for your reward in heaven will be great.” Now what is so great about being poor, or
grieving, or hungry? In the culture of
Jesus, 2000 years ago and perhaps today in many parts of the world you could
translate that as first phrase of those who are rich, really are the greedy,
the powerful ones. Those who are poor
are the powerless, the socially unfortunate.
Orphans, they have no one to take care of them. Look at the country of Haiti how many
children are orphans. The widows, they
have no standing. Even if they have
money they are still considered poor.
Poor in the time of Jesus didn’t have anything to do with economics, how
much money you had or didn’t have. Did
you have power or were you powerless?
Were you greedy or were you totally dependent upon God and others?
There is a beautiful story
that comes out of South Africa. A
gentleman writes the story in his autobiography how he was there as a student
many, many years ago. He was celebrating
his birthday and he went to a little cafe.
And he sat down there. A waiter
came up and waited on him and of course in those days they still had
apartheid. But he said out of the corner
of his eye he caught this young African boy coming towards him. He could see that others in the restaurant
and the waiters had seen this boy before, that he was a beggar. He began to want to shoo him away, you can’t
come in here. But this gentleman, we’ll
call him Ben, he motioned for the boy to come towards him and to sit at his
table. And he said, “I won’t give you
any money but I’ll buy you a meal.” He
said the young boy ordered a sandwich off the menu. He said they got talking back and forth and
he was telling him it was his birthday today and how happy he was and he was
grateful that this young boy was there sitting with him. And as they talked back and forth he noticed
a little bit later that the boy only ate half the sandwich. He said, “Is there something wrong? Something wrong with the meal, the sandwich?” He said, “No. I’m saving the other half for
my little brother who is hungry as well.”
So the young man, Ben, ordered the waiter over and asked him to box up
the sandwich for the beggar boy. As he
got up to leave he said this young boy turned towards him and said, “As you
have given me a gift, I will give you a gift as well.” And he said,
“At that time he sang ‘Happy Birthday’ to him and the whole restaurant
applauded.”
You say what’s that got to
do with the readings today? I said
earlier there is no blessing of itself in being an orphan or poor, or a widow,
or grieving, or hungry, or any of those kinds of things. They themselves are not the blessings but it
is the reality of the situation that reminds you and me that we are dependent
upon God. All the other readings and the
responsorial psalm had that message behind them, happy are those who trust in
the Lord. Not in other people, other
things, or possessions, or things outside ourselves. That’s why Jesus could turn those things
upside down and say, “Blessed are you.
In the kingdom of heaven you will have honor. You will know that you are significant. You will know that you are worthwhile in
God’s eyes. And when you have that kind
of honor no one can take it away.”
What that story reminds me
of is that when I see somebody perhaps who has less than what I have in
whatever it might be, or somebody who is struggling it reminds me to be
grateful then for the blessings that I have.
What a beautiful reflection.
If everyone of you sitting
here this morning would take out a little time to think about the blessings in
your life, the things you have, the people around you, your health, clothing,
friends, faith, a parish community, clothes to wear, a car to drive, a voice to
sing, feet to walk, hands to hold, people to hug. The list goes on and on, right? So maybe on this day, as well as hopefully
every day we would realize the blessings and the gifts that God gives to us.
In the culture and time of
Jesus those who honor was a great thing.
Were you honored or were you shamed.
The powerless were unable to rise above their situation so they in a
sense were shamed. In that part of the
world today honor and shame still play a great role. We are not shamed because we are sick or
don’t have all the goodies. We are not
shamed because we have more than others.
We are not shamed because of the blessings that we have. We are honored by God being the people that
we are at this moment in time in history at this particular place. You’ve heard me say that a thousand times but
every day I believe it. Even more so
when I hear the scripture readings today.
God honors you and me. Every
person in this church is significant and worthwhile.
I was reading the other day,
a priest who is down in Haiti, and he was saying how he had been there before
and in this particular occasion how with the earthquake. He said he was preaching to a group of people
and he told them, “You are not being punished by God. We don’t believe in that kind of God. We believe in a God of love. So you’re not being punished. You are worthwhile. You are significant. You have value in God’s eyes. You are very good people.” And he said the congregation clapped. And he turned to the person next to him, a deacon
and said, “Did I say something wrong? What’s going on?” No one every tells them that, that they are
worthwhile, that they are loveable, that they are capable, that they are
important, that they have honor.
You hear in our scripture
readings today we celebrate it in this Eucharist. We receive the Lord Jesus, will come to each
and everyone of us and say, “I love you.”
Now go back from this
Eucharist today wherever your journeys may take you. Perhaps not just because it’s Valentine’s
Day, but every person you meet really is your Valentine. Someone to love. Someone to honor as God does you.