Dear Preachers:

Sr. Brenda Walsh, OP has a new essay on our "Justice Preaching" page entitled:

CORRECTION: The new email recipients of "First Impressions" are the women of St. Gregory’s parish (not St. Gabriel’s) in San Mateo, California. Sorry!

I have a friend undergoing chemo right now. When asked how she’s doing she says she’s doing okay. That’s not how she used to respond to that question before her diagnosis and subsequent treatment. Then, she was energy-personified. She has three teenagers and, with her husband, was involved in their school and after-class activities. She was a jogger and once a week joined 20 other runners for a 5 mile run. She was a catechist at church and took communion to the elderly. She works from her home designing webpages for nonprofits. That was then–this is now. All she can say these days, when you ask her about how she’s doing is, "I’m okay."

I’m thinking about her as I hear today’s Scriptures. She’ll be there to hear them in her usual pew with her husband and kids. What will she hear when the Scriptures are proclaimed? I don’t know exactly, but as a preacher I’d like to think the Word of God has something to say to her today. It’s as if she were one of those, along with us, on that "stretch of level ground" listening with hope to Jesus.

There is a thread running through today’s readings that both my friend and we will hear. It reminds us that what people value most and put their confidence in may not have anything to do with God and God’s ways. Jeremiah states it quite clearly, when the Lord says, "Cursed is the one who trusts in human beings who seeks strength in flesh, whose heart turns away from the Lord." My ailing friend will not hear that the physician, technicians and dedicated scientists working for cure are not to be trusted. I hope she hears that at the root or foundation of her life God is trustworthy, even as she goes through this bleak period.

The Jeremiah passage belongs to a section of wisdom sayings which emphasizes the importance of putting faith in God – that is where true wisdom lies. While the one who is alienated from God and who looks elsewhere for security is like a bush planted far from water in the desert – that person will wither. I hope my friend (and what I wish for her, I hope for us as well!) stays well-rooted in God these days, even as her daily life tests her. This would be no time for self-reliance, or the American virtue of "rugged individualism." In this time of struggle may she be surrounded and supported by caring people especially those in her worshiping community.

Perhaps my friend will find comfort in a seeming incidental detail in today’s gospel. The passage begins what we commonly call "the Sermon on the Mount." But that’s not what it’s called in Luke. In this gospel Jesus has previously gone to the mountain to pray. Prayer is a repeated theme throughout Luke. Jesus prays before important teachings and decisions. Luke tells us that after his time on the mountain Jesus came down and "stood on a stretch of level ground." Hence people, commonly call the teaching he is beginning, "the Sermon on the Plain."

Wouldn’t a person in dire straits find comfort in a Jesus who is not "on high," but down on our level? Luke is suggesting that Jesus and the Reign of God he has come to inaugurate are right here among us. Jesus is not distant from those who need him. You sense throughout Luke’s gospel that anyone could easily reach out and touch him. For those in need that is comforting. Luke doesn’t depict Jesus in monumental images; he is not lofty and above it all. Rather, he is in the midst of the people who need him; who look to him for guidance in their dark and weighty world. He is, in other words, on level ground.

That is how he is with us today in our gathering. He is in the breaking of the bread and the pouring of the wine; in the baptismal waters and the anointing of the sick; in the forgiveness of our sins and the proclamation of the Word; in the gathering of the faithful and in the prayers we pray together. He is also present in the everyday ministries we do in his name beyond this church’s four walls. The one who heals and teaches is with us, his disciples, on each "level ground" our faith takes us.

We are familiar with Matthew’s Beatitudes, there are eight (some say, nine) of them. However, Luke has four Beatitudes and four woes and their tone is stark and almost confrontational. Jesus states quite clearly what it is that yields happiness and true life–and what does not. Indeed, what the world treasures–riches, having a lot, merriment and prominence–are worthless in light of God’s approaching Reign. They are not lasting, nor are they the measures of a "blessed life."

When misfortune, spiritual, or physical, befalls a person the challenge arises: will where we have invested our time and energy sustain us and survive the testing? When we are in need on what or whom can we rely? Indeed, Jesus says, when we are in what seems like misfortune we will know God’s "blessings." Not that God has put the misfortunes on us, but that in them we will know God’s abiding presence and strength. We will, in Jesus’ description, be blessed. That blessing will come in various forms, most of them will be discovered in everyday life.

I hope my friend finds blessings in her parish; that the people there support her and continue to make her feel part of the community. Sometimes the very sick can be forgotten since they are not as visible or present at parish liturgies and events. But not only her, may all the poor and needy, the hungry and weeping, the rejected and scorned be treated as they are – blessed. I have met very hard working people in parishes who respond generously to the needs of others and it seems these most generous spirits come to share in the "blessed" state of those they serve.

All of us at worship today are part of the "great crowd" that surrounded Jesus at the foot of the mountain. He is here with us in this "level place." Here we bring our needs, hungers, sadness, confusion and longings to him. One of our hungers is to have his vision of life. We want his alternate ways of seeing and acting. We ask at this liturgy that he clarify our vision; help us see where we have misplaced our values and misdirected our energies. In other words, we need his help to be free of the "woes"–the world’s superficial ways of seeing and judging. We want to accept him and his reign more fully into our lives. We long for him to name us "Blessed"; to have that state of happiness that only he can provide. (Another translation of "blessed" in these beatitudes would be "happy.")

We don’t make ourselves worthy of the blessings or happiness Christ promised us. Luke tells us that Jesus was speaking to his disciples ("And raising his eyes towards his disciples he said...."). While the present is arduous, Jesus reveals our future to us, his disciples. What makes us poor, suffering, sad, etc. also disposes us to what God offers us. When we cannot provide for ourselves we can learn to rely more on God and the coming kingdom. Coming to know and trust God, when all else fails, can give us a deep and lasting inner happiness. It’s hard to explain how that can happen. The proof is in the pudding. Don’t we know someone who has gone through a very hard time who, nevertheless, exhibits a deep calm and joy? How do they do that? They don’t. God does it within them, because they trusted God at the lowest points of their lives, they are "Blessed." They can see God in their present and God in their future. They trust Jesus’ promise to them, "... for the kingdom of God is yours" and "... you will be satisfied... you will laugh... and your reward will be great."

Luke is beginning to spell out the concrete manifestations of the Jubilee Jesus announced earlier in the synagogue (4:14-21, 3^rd Sunday, January 24^th). In Jesus, God is setting things right, for as it is now, the world is upside-down. Those at the bottom have been ignored by those at the top. Jesus announced that a Jubilee, a reversal, was beginning. Things are beginning to change and we will see that more and more in his ministry as the gospel progresses. Today he proclaims blessed those in need and promises woes to those that have more than enough.

As Jesus announced, the blessings of the kingdom are already experienced by his disciples – but not fully. Thus, his Beatitudes stir up hope in us as we wait for the fullness of God’s reign. Because we have this hope our lives are formed by it. We persevere in our struggles to live as members of God’s community and we pay special attention to those in need, those Jesus has called "blessed."

Mini-reflections on the Sunday scripture readings designed for persons on the run. "Faith Book" is also brief enough to be posted in the Sunday parish bulletins people take home.

Jesus said, "Blessed are you who are poor,

for the kingdom of God is yours."

As Jesus announced, the blessings of the kingdom are already present to his disciples – but not fully. Thus, his Beatitudes stir up hope and form our way of thinking and acting as we wait for the fullness of God’s Reign. We persevere in our struggles to live as members of God’s community and we pay special attention to those in need, those Jesus has called " blessed."

• What norms do I use to measure "success" in life?
• How would those norms measure up to the Beatitudes? Or, are they among the "woes" Jesus rejects?

The reign of God belongs to the poor and to those ‘persecuted for the sake of justice.’ In a world of war and nuclear weapons, peacemakers get little thanks and few honors. But Jesus says, this is your opportunity to meet hatred with love -- just like the prophets and saints. The poor have much to teach us. They know that the systems which treat most of us well, have failed them and therefore they do not put their faith in these cultural "idols", but in God.

(Submitted by Anne and Bill Werdel, from the parish bulletin of Sacred Heart Cathedral, Raleigh, N. C.)

Please write to:

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• Jeremy D. Murrell #0940436 (2/17/2006)
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---Central Prison 1300 Western Blvd. Raleigh, N.C. 27606

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