4th Sunday Year A - Homily 5

Homily 5 - 2023

Whenever I have thought, written or preached about the Beatitudes before, I have looked almost exclusively at the groups of people being declared “blessed” or “happy” — the “poor in spirit”, “the gentle”, the “pure in heart”, and so on. I have taken very little notice of what their particular blessings would be — whether they would be “comforted” or “have the earth for their heritage”, or “have mercy shown them” or whatever.

But I was recently reading a commentary that connected both category and blessing very closely, and showed how each particular blessing throws further light on the category of people that would be blessed.

Today, there is not time to examine all eight beatitudes. But I would like to examine one or two more closely, and I shall start with the first one that we heard today] “Happy are the poor in spirit; theirs is the kingdom of heaven”, and see how the blessing clarifies the meaning that Jesus saw in the phrase “the poor in spirit”. The kingdom of heaven is the realm of God — which we also pray for in the Lord’s Prayer: “thy kingdom come”. It is the realm that reflects the way that God thinks, the values and the behaviour that are special to God.

From elsewhere in Jesus’ teaching, we know that God is sheer love, infinite love, ceaseless, unchanging love. Those in the kingdom, the realm, of God then are those who accept that God is such — that God loves them without strings, always, irrespective of what God thinks of their behaviour. God’s love is a forgiving love. It needs to be if it is to reach out to anyone of us. God’s love is sheer gift. God is not like a bank-manager, focussed on the health of everyone’s bank statement.

How might that throw light on the meaning of “poor in spirit”?

I implies that those who are “blessed/happy” are those who accept that such love must be pure gift, who accept that there is no way that anyone can earn or merit such love. They peacefully allow God to be the beautifully gracious God that God obviously is. To try to merit such love is to throw doubt on the wonderfully extravagant quality of God’s love. The “poor in spirit” accept indeed their poverty before God, and trust God accordingly.

Remember Jesus’ story of the Pharisee and the Publican who went to the temple to pray. The Pharisee listed all the things that he considered would earn for him God’s approval — and they were indeed behaviours that were commanded by the Law and obviously to be commended. The Publican on the other hand could hardly come inside the door; he could not dare even to lift his head, but he beat his breast and pleaded with God, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner”. And he was a sinner! He would have unjustly extorted taxes from the powerless poor, even from the prosperous rich. He cooperated with the brutal Roman regime, occupiers of the land of Israel. If he merited anything, it was condemnation and punishment.

Jesus’ comment was simply: “This man [the sinful publican] went home at peace with God; the other [the lawn-abiding pharisee] did not.” The publican recognised his sinfulness, but with wonderful poverty of spirit, owned his utter poverty before God, and yet trusted God and accepted God’s unconditional love. The Pharisee thought he knew everything about God, but did not know the one essential thing: God is sheer love.

Jesus’ hearers struggled to accept Jesus’ teaching. It sounded too good to be believed. It looked dangerous. I believe that we should not judge them, or even the Pharisees. Unless we are ourselves at first bewildered by God’s unconditional love, I wonder if we have really accepted it. It seems safer to be rich in merit. It is hard to be truly “poor in spirit”.