Additional Homily for the Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time

This homily was preached by Fr Nicholas King SJ

Scripture Readings: Jeremiah 17:5-8; I Corinthians 15:12-20; Luke 6:17-26

What are the things that really matter to you? Today’s readings suggest that they should be those which lead to life; and life, of course, is the direction in which our God always points us. In the first reading, Jeremiah shows us the way to life, which comes by trusting God, by hoping in the Lord. The prophet offers the telling image of “a tree planted by the waters, stretching out its roots to the stream: it does not fear the heat when it comes; its leaves stay green”. In a dry country, that picture speaks volumes.

The same image of God’s word leading to life is there also in today's psalm. Those who study God’s law are “like a tree planted near streams of water”, and, in a wonderful picture of life, “its leaves never wither; whatever they do prospers”. We might pray this week to find the way to life.

In the second reading, Paul is trying to get those Corinthians back on track; some of them have decided that there is no such thing as Resurrection, in other words that life is not, after all, victorious. For Paul, and indeed for us there is no such thing as Christianity unless there is Resurrection from the dead; then he constructs a neat logical argument: “If the dead are not raised, then Christ is not raised; but if Christ is not raised, two consequences follow: First, “the faith is empty”, and, second, “you are still in your sins”. That is not the gospel preached by Paul; his gospel was the gospel of life. Therefore, thirdly, “those who have fallen asleep in Christ are destroyed”. The consequence of this is that having believed in Christ or hoped only in the life of Christ, our lives are now built on nothing at all, and are an empty charade, so we are “more wretched than anybody”. Then he concludes, triumphantly: “as it is, Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep”. We may need here to reflect carefully on Paul’s argument, and decide where it is that we stand: the gospel of death or the gospel of life?

The gospel for this week is the beginning of Luke's “Sermon on the Plain”, a deliberate contrast with Matthew’s “Sermon on the Mount”. We notice that Jesus’ audience has, like our church today, a pleasingly multiracial appearance: there are hearers from all of Judaea and Jerusalem, (so In the Holy Land) but also, good Gentile territory: the “shoreline of Tyre and Sidon”. So there is wide-ranging Catholic (=from everywhere) life in this gospel.

Then we are privileged to hear the life-giving message: with four groups to be congratulated and four groups to be “warned off”. The groups who get a negative verdict are a bit of a surprise: the wealthy (“because you already have your comfort”), those who are filled up, those who are laughing (“because you are going to weep and mourn”), and “those of whom people speak well”.

And who are the ones whom Jesus applauds? They are equally surprising: the “destitute”, “because yours is the Kingdom of God”, the “hungry”, “those who are weeping just at present”, and, oddest of all “you people when people hate you and exclude you and revile you and throw out your name as evil because of the Son of Man”.

Does this make sense? Is there life here, in being unpopular and mocked and hungry and destitute? Or is it “real life” when we have lots of money in the bank, and are overfed, and laughing all the time and being popular with everybody? That is something we might reflect on during this week.