Most Reverend Vincent Long Van Nguyen OFM Conv DD STL, Bishop of Parramatta
Homily for the 6th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C
Readings: Jeremiah 17:5-8; 1 Cor 15:12-20; Luke 6:17-26
Living the Beatitudes and witnessing to the globalisation of hope
Dear sisters and brothers,
This week, Pope Francis made an extraordinary intervention which divided opinions, not only among non-Catholics but also among Catholics, especially in America. He wrote a letter to the US bishops decrying the mass deportation of illegal immigrants. While the letter acknowledges the right of every country to enact necessary policies to defend itself and promote public safety, the Pope said that all laws must be enacted in the light of the dignity of the person and his or her fundamental rights.
Drawing a parallel between Jesus’ own experience as a refugee, he called for respect and solidarity against the sweeping characterisation of migrants as criminals. He wrote that the Holy Family themselves sought refuge in another country because they were not safe in their own. Christians, therefore, must do well to see the face of Christ in those who left their own land for reasons of extreme poverty, insecurity, exploitation, persecution and oppression.
The Holy Father is passionate about the defence of the dignity of the vulnerable.
When African immigrants died in their thousands in the Mediterranean Sea, he went to Lampedusa, where many were shipwrecked and drowned. There, he appealed for the globalisation of hope as opposed to the globalisation of indifference. As always, it is the justice and compassion of God for the poor that is at the heart of the Church’s prophetic witness and action. Commitment to the vulnerable and the marginalised is central to being a Christian. For the core belief of Christianity is God’s self-emptying journey to the cross for the sake of broken humanity.
The Word of God this Sunday challenges us to see our brothers and sisters through the prism of their suffering. It commits us to work for what Pope Francis describes as the globalisation of hope. Jeremiah in the first reading puts a simple but radical choice before his people: either they trust in God’s promises and follow his ways or they act according to their self-interest. It was not an easy choice for them, especially when everyone else was trying to save their own skin. With the imminent threat of invasion by the Assyrians and the ensuing chaos, the Israelites were busy running after the strong, the wealthy and the powerful. Jeremiah speaks the small voice of fidelity, integrity and justice in the midst of fear, self-interest and opportunism. He urges the people to stake everything on God’s covenant, rather than on human security through power and might.
In the Gospel, Jesus also speaks to the crowd who have followed him and witnessed his ministry of healing, mercy and compassion for the social outcasts.
He puts to them an alternative vision of life, which is opposite to what the dominant system has to offer. In God’s eyes, the blessed are not the powerful, the rich and those who have everything at their disposal. Instead, they are the servants of God’s life, love and justice. They are those who suffer for the cause of the Kingdom. They exchange the security of wealth, privilege and status for the insecurity of trust in God; that is, faith without sight, strength without violence and love without counting the cost.
The Beatitudes identify those who God has a special concern for. They are the hungry, the sorrowful and persecuted.
Jesus echoes a world turned upside down that Mary sings in the Magnificat: the lowly raised and the mighty cast down, the hungry filled and the rich empty-handed. These are the people God notices and blesses. Jesus invites us to find this kind of happiness through a life of witness, service and solidarity. Christian happiness belongs to those who dare to give, to serve, to love even to the extent of having to pay the cost of that love in the way that Jesus himself did on the cross. That is fundamentally the meaning of the Beatitudes.
Dear friends,
The value system of Jesus upsets and turns upside down the value system of the world. St Paul understood what it meant to have his life turned upside down by living the Beatitudes. He went from being a leading Jew and a Roman citizen to being hated, persecuted and imprisoned for the sake of the Gospel. He became “weak, foolish and contemptible” by human reckoning because he had embraced the value system of Jesus.
Jesus is also clear that wealth and privilege are real dangers that have the power to separate one from God and from the human community. Jesus spells out the “woes” of which the comfortable and wealthy better beware. The kingdom of God belongs to those who put their trust in God despite their trials and tribulations. In the world where individualism and self-interest prevail, we are called to be witnesses to solidarity, justice and compassion. Impelled by the God who identifies with the oppressed and lifts up the downtrodden, let us walk with the least of our brothers and sisters, and empower them to be the stakeholders of the new heaven and the new earth.
