Word to the Wise
Wednesday, September 13, 2006 - ST. JOHN CHRYSOSTOM
[1 Corinthians 7:25-31 and Luke 6:20-26]Blessed are you who are poor, for the Kingdom of God is yours......
After announcing his "mission statement" in the synagogue in his hometown, Jesus chooses his "team" and begins his ministry! His themes will become familiar to all who read the Gospel of Luke. One of the major ones is the danger of material wealth and prosperity. Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew begins his ministry in a similar fashion with the Sermon on the Mount. Luke has him begin with a "sermon on the plain." The words are familiar but they are not the same. Luke balances each encouragement to the poor with a word of warning to the well-off! Bearing in mind that the message of the gospel when written goes beyond the particular audience that Jesus spoke to, we can readily see that some of the members of the community expected that the "kingdom" might bring them an improvement in material lifestyle! Jesus does not promise that. On the contrary, he promises trouble to those who have done well materially. It is important that we understand that Jesus does not glorify poverty! He certainly does not glorify material wealth! What he does do is call attention to the priority of values. The kingdom is a matter of the mercy of God and dependence on God. Those with material prosperity are more likely to think they are not in need or else that they are "chosen" and the others are out of luck! Neither of those attitudes is compatible with what Jesus is trying to accomplish. In more modern times, when the desperate economic situation of a people leads to armed rebellion against those with power and wealth, we often see the "victorious" poor become the complacent wealthy and the cycle begins all over again. This is the very thing that Jesus is pointing out - material wealth does not guarantee anything when it comes to the kingdom of God. Since most of the early Christian community did not come from the wealthier levels of society, encouragement to persevere was important and unrealistic expectations on the part of either poor or rich had to be discouraged. These same expectations are not lacking in our own time. The kingdom of God means that those who are better off should take seriously the "preferential option for the poor" that the Sermon on the Mount and the Sermon on the Plain indicate. The quest for material and psychological security can seal us off from one another and from God. Listening carefully to those two sermons and asking ourselves some pointed questions and acting on the results is a sign that we take discipleship seriously. AMEN
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