4th Sunday Year A

See Commentary on Matthew 5:1-12


Homily 1 - 2005

Over the past couple of Sundays we have seen Jesus proclaiming the Kingdom of God, calling for a social order where people would be treated by others, and themselves would act, in line with their human dignity as persons loved passionately by God.  For that vision to become reality, Jesus had called his listeners to repent.  More explicitly, he had called them to follow me.

The Kingdom of God can’t happen for us unless we change radically.  Even if everyone else were to respond to Jesus’ call, with the resultant change in our whole world order: people deeply respecting each other, living together in justice, love and peace, unless we have ourselves changed radically we won’t enjoy it.  The experience of the Kingdom essentially involves being part of it, actively shaping it.  There are no passengers, no passive spectators, in the Kingdom.  [Like in any friendship – no matter how much another loves me, unless I love them, my experience, whatever else it might be, is not the experience of friendship.]

The disciples, who initially followed Jesus so wholeheartedly, who were captivated by his person and carried along with his vision, struggled with the personal change called for, the on-going need for conversion.  They were ambitious, competitive, possessive, touchy about their own honour, with all sorts of hidden agendas, reluctant to face the prospect of opposition and failure, etc.  In other words, they were like us.

I believe that, to enjoy the Kingdom, we need to enter into our depths, and to discover, and to prize experientially, the truth  that we are unconditionally loved, accepted and forgiven by God.

As that happens, gradually, two steps forward, one step back, we notice ourselves becoming at peace simply with who we are, not unsettled by difference, sensitive to others’ experience, especially their suffering, focussed on the wisdom that only God can give us, able to accept others, even in their sin, and to be merciful and forgiving, alert to and freed from our hidden agendas, our addictions and compulsions, and wanting actively to draw people into dialogue  and to build community.

As Jesus put it: poor in spirit, gentle, able to mourn, hungering and thirsting for God’s justice, merciful, pure of heart, peacemakers

I remember from my earlier days as a priest occasionally going to visit an older priest who had been quite a forward-thinker in his day, with no end of initiative and zeal.  And yet, when I knew him, in his disappointment at the way the Church was changing he had grown bitter.  His bitterness always struck me as sad...  Somehow I don’t think   that that would have been the reaction of Jesus.  Perhaps his problem was not so much in the area of spirituality.  It may have been more a case of clinical depression.

Indeed, Jesus seems to be saying (what I think is wonderful), that, as we grow into it, we find that the experience of the Kingdom, the experience of happiness, of peace, of blessedness, is irrepressible, and is not essentially affected by the response of others.  As Jesus said, and verified from his own life: Blessed are you when people abuse you and persecute you, and so on... Our joy might be greater when others share our vision, and struggle with us along the road.  But even when we meet reluctance, inertia, resistance, even persecution, our inner peace need not be shaken.

In some ways, it is only then that we are safe to be let loose on our world! that we really do build God’s Kingdom (and not our own!).  But then, we can start only from where we are and we learn only through action... And he got his apostles on board long before they were really ready.  So it must be OK!

The “beatitude experience” was, I believe, the experience of Jesus.  Matthew situated them early in his Gospel, but probably they were articulated only gradually as Jesus’ own experience and reflection deepened and came more clearly into focus as his life unfolded.  They were not some wisdom learnt from any catechism or book, but from life and reflection.

The experience of the Kingdom, the experience Jesus articulated so incisively in the Beatitudes, is not a secret.  It is not overcomplicated.  It is just difficult – a life-long task of dying to self – but it is great, even when it is still incomplete.  I hope that all of us are far enough along the track to know this ourselves, in our own bones.  May we all continue to draw encouragement from each other in our pursuit of our hearts’ deepest desires.


Homily 2 – 2008 

Last Sunday’s Gospel passage had started with Jesus’ call: Repent, for the Kingdom of heaven is close at hand.  And it concluded with Matthew’s comment: Jesus went all round Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the Good News of the Kingdom.  Well, most people did not repent, so the Kingdom did not get much closer – so hardly looked like Good News.  And that has been pretty much the story of the past two thousand years.

What did Jesus have in mind when he called people to repent?  In today’s Gospel passage, Matthew gives us his summary introduction to Jesus’ sense of the change of mindset, the change of heart needed for the Kingdom of heaven to be real.

No wonder not much happened.  Jesus’ view ran clean contrary to the prevailing wisdom that prioritised an ever greater level of economic prosperity and expanding power and influence, even if at the unfortunate price of suffering and injustice for others.  He said that blessedness, God’s blessing, favoured the poor in spirit, rather than those who sought ever increasing economic prosperity; it favoured the meek, the powerless, rather than those who prized expanding power and influence; it favoured those who mourn, who suffer, and who yearn for justice rather than those who saw the suffering of others as the unfortunate but inevitable consequence of their obsession with national economic interest and regional influence.

I was interested in some of the comments made during the week on the occasion of the death of the former President Soeharto of Indonesia.  During his presidency, Indonesia prospered economically, and its political influence and military power were consolidated.  During those many years, successive Australian governments judged it to be in Australia’s best economic and political interests to turn a blind eye to his passive violations of human rights and deaths in both Indonesia and East Timor.

Whatever about governments, and particular situations, do most Australians agree that the national interest overrides the human rights of others?  Perhaps, more pertinently, for followers of Jesus, are the Beatitudes relevant to international relationships?  Do “national interest” and the “common good mean” the same thing, after all?

In Jesus’ day, the dominant power players were the chief priests and aristocratic families who judged it expedient, and personally rewarding, to collaborate with their Roman overlords.  They saw Jesus as dangerously subversive.  Indeed, when justifying his decision to silence Jesus forever, the high priest commented: It is better for one man to die for the people than for the whole nation to be destroyed.  National interest overrode all other interests.  That sounds very like: It is better to turn a blind eye to large-scale deaths than for our economic and political interests to suffer.

What can be done when others’ lives, or human rights, are violated?  The next three beatitudes seem to rule out violent intervention, anyhow, as a solution: Other ways must be sought.  Jesus prioritises mercy and peace-making, on the one hand … And the transparency and honesty involved in purity of heart seem to rule out turning a blind eye to injustice and the violation of human rights, on the other: Blessed are the merciful… the pure of heart… and the peace-makers.

I wonder if Jesus thought that  his program for reform – his hope to baptise the world with the Spirit of God – would work?  Certainly, he didn’t seem to expect followers of his way to be really the flavour of the month.  In fact, he sought to encourage them even when, as he said, people revile you and persecute you, and speak all kinds of evil against you on my account.

As we heard in today’s Second Reading, St Paul had few illusions.  He defiantly categorised himself among those who are foolish by human reckoning, and are dismissed as weak by human reckoning.  Yet he was equally insistent that by God’s doing, Christ has become our wisdom, and our virtue, and our holiness, and our freedom.

Where does that leave the follower of Jesus in today’s world?  Does Jesus’ dream of God’s Kingdom – and of the possibilities of justice here on earth – at least inspire us, and fire us … even if it leaves us often confused and uncertain, and sometimes painfully vulnerable?


Homily 3 – 2011 

Here we go again!  The Beatitudes.  We’ve heard them before.  I know – but let’s try a fresh look.  Whom was Jesus talking to?  Matthew mentioned the disciples and the crowds.  Crowds?  Must have been a weekend!  Well, no!  On a Sabbath, no one could walk any distance, much less up a mountain.  So, who made up the crowds?  Jesus was talking to the rural peasantry of Galilee – the tenant farmers, the repossessed, the day-labourers, the unemployed, the mobile sick.  He had told them earlier that change was in the air – change for the better: The Kingdom of heaven was close at hand.  God was about to intervene.

The Galilean peasantry: The poor: so poor, and so used to it, that even their spirits had become poor, crushed and without hope.   Those who mourn: when societies oppress some people pitilessly, those affected feel desperate, sad – they mourn.   The gentle …  [not a good translation in this case].  Usually, the word was applied to those in a situation of inferiority – a situation they unquestioningly accepted as inevitable, without complaining, without rebelling … [not unlike the “untouchables” in certain societies].  Not surprisingly, such crowds hungered and thirsted for justice.  It was to these who had known only exclusion, that Jesus proclaimed that, as far as God was concerned, the Kingdom of heaven was also for them, especially for them.  Theirs is the Kingdom of heaven.  They would be comforted.  They would inherit the land.  They would be satisfied.

Jesus was in the process of kindling their hope, because people without hope lack the energy and the interest to change.  They needed to know that they counted.  They needed to know that they were loved – loved, indeed, by God.  And, even though the coming Kingdom would be very much God’s doing, in order to experience it, they would need to change radically – and so would society.

Does that speak to us?  None of us experiences deprivation – [though there are many people in our world who do].  Perhaps, the deprivation in our culture is a deprivation of meaning, of purpose.  So many people go all out for comfort, for gratification, or for excitement, because they are scared to face the deeper loneliness and emptiness within them.  It needn’t be that way.  Things can be different.  God wants things to be different.  Perhaps, first, our world needs to become aware of its thirst.  And, then, it needs hope.

But it needs more.  It needs our co-operation.  Jesus listed three non-negotiable responses. Those three responses were: mercy, purity of heart and determined commitment to reconciliation and peace.  Mercy and peace-making are clear enough.  The pure of heart are roughly those without other agendas, single-minded and clear about where they come from, where they are going, and how to get there.  So, for the Kingdom to eventuate, three things are necessary: mercy, single-mindedness and commitment to co-operation, community building and reconciliation.

How do we rate as a nation? as a Church? as a local community?  How do we rate ourselves? Are these our priorities? our family’s priorities?  It won’t work, of course, in the short term.  People don’t want to change.  They will object to us if we push consistently for mercy, single-mindedness and reconciliation.  They might even exploit our simplicity.  

The last of the Beatitudes holds out a wonderful possibility – in the face of opposition, misunderstanding, and exploitation, we shall find the God-given freedom to be unflappable – even more, to be glad and rejoice – whatever the outcomes.


Homily 4 - 2017

Let me begin by quoting a recent notification from Francis Sullivan, who has been handling the Church’s response to the Royal Commission on Child Sexual Abuse:

"… the final hearing into the Catholic Church begins in Sydney on February 6th and is expected to run for three weeks. Unlike the case studies this hearing will be less forensic in nature and more of an exploration of the causes and contributing factors for the institutional responses from Church Authorities to child sex abuse cases. …

The history of abuse in the Catholic Church has been confronting and shameful. There is no excuse for it. There may well be reasons why it occurred but the fact that it did cannot be merely contextualised away. In its private sessions and through its data collection the Royal Commission has an estimate of the extent of the sexual abuse of children within the Church. I am sure this will be made public in the hearing and I for one am bracing myself for this revelation. This will be the first time anywhere in the world that the data of the Catholic Church on child sexual abuse has been compiled and analysed for public consideration.

The data and the evidence from expert witnesses will make for an intense examination of the abuse scandal. It will point to cultural and sociological issues in the Catholic Church in Australia – how decision making occurred, who was involved and why. It will look at where responsibility fell and to what degree accountability and compliance processes were effectively deployed. The hearing will seek to provide an understanding of how priests and religious were selected and trained in decades past as well as in current times.

It will be an important exploration of a devastating chapter in the history of the Catholic Church in Australia. And it will be difficult for the Catholic community."

I hope that the Royal Commission will prove to be a highly-valuable grace to the Church. Jesus spoke so often of sin as blindness, and people’s problem as having eyes, but not seeing, ears, but not hearing. Please God, the Commission will help us to see ourselves, perhaps even with a devastating clarity. Healing will not be a case simply of new laws and new procedures, however helpful they may be. We need help to go deeper than that, and see where we have sinned, where our behavior has been destructive and why and how. A whole Church culture, a deeply clerical culture, have to be recognised and changed. And most of the time we just do not see it.

It is against that background that I hear Jesus’ comment today: Happy are you when people abuse you and persecute you and speak all kinds of calumny against you on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward will be great in heaven.

The catch is that our present humiliation as Church is the result, not of calumny, but of the revelation of the truth. We are not being criticized on Jesus’ account, but because of our sin. And I am aware that the ones who perhaps are made to feel the humiliation most strongly, and the confusion and the betrayal, are you, the ordinary parishioners.

Later in the Gospel Jesus told his disciples, Love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you. I think a lot about that. It is hard to be humiliated by others. It will be all the more tragic if we do not learn to, and in fact, become humble through it. Humility is something that is hard for us to see the point of, even to understand. I think that, in this, it is not much different from unconditional love, or unconditional sorrow, or unconditional forgiveness. We can talk about them easily enough; perhaps we even think we practise them. But I am not sure. As part of that package deal, they mark the breakthrough. When we get it, everything changes. We find freedom. We come truly alive.


 

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”.