If for This Life Only

A Homily for the 6th Sunday of Ordinary Time

What is at the heart of the 4 blessings and 4 curses Jesus offers us in our gospel passage from Luke today? I think St. Paul can enlighten us on this question. Actually, I think St. Paul hits the answer right on the nose when he writes: “If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are the most pitiable people of all.”

The prophet Jeremiah reminds us today: “Cursed is the one who trusts in human beings.” And “Blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord, whose hope is the Lord.” And the Psalmist tells us: “Blessed are they who hope in the Lord.”

A long time ago, Moses once stood before the whole Israelite community and said to them: “I set before you today the blessing and the curse; life and death. Choose life!” I believe Jesus is doing the same thing in our gospel passage today. Setting before us once again this Sunday morning the same choice: “Blessed are you who are poor/Woe to you who are rich. Blessed are you who are hungry now/Woe to you who are full. Blessed are you who weep now/Woe to you who laugh. Blessed are you when people hate you/Woe to you who are well-esteemed.” And Jesus too says to us: Choose life!

But, first, let me be clear here. Jesus is not saying: If you want to be a good Christian then choose poverty over riches, choose hunger of satiety, choose weeping over laughter, choose being hated over being loved. I would hope we have all had enough of the kind of self-serious, self-righteous, self-destructive, “either/or” religion which flows from such an understanding of the Christian life. Here’s what I believe Jesus is saying. We all know poverty and we all know riches. We all know hunger and we all know satiety. We all know weeping and we all know laughter. We all know what it is to be well-liked and we all know what it is to be disliked. What Jesus is saying is DO NOT LEAN INTO EITHER ONE! Rather: LEAN FULLY ON ME! That is what it means to hope in the Lord beyond “This Life Only.” That is what it means to Choose Life!

Let’s go back now to St. Paul: “If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are the most pitiable people of all.” Let’s reflect a bit together on that simple phase: If for this life only. That really is the nub of it! That is the heart of the choice we face each day. If I live for this life only; if I hope in Christ for this life only then this life only, with all its wild rollercoaster of ups and downs; of blessings and curses; of poverty and riches; of hunger and starvation; of weeping and laughing; of love and hate, this life only is going to shape my behavior in a particular way.

It is likely I will live a life of compulsion, a life compelled to grab at riches and spurn poverty; compelled to be always full and never empty; compelled to laugh always and disdain weeping; compelled to always be well-esteemed (whatever the cost) and despise those who don’t measure up in this world! I will live compelled. And because I live compelled, meaning I abdicate all my freedom and responsibility to choose, I surrender my humanity as well. I become less human myself and, in turn, I dehumanize others. I bless those who think like me, look like me, act like me, see the world as I see the world. And I curse everyone else. I become a curse to everyone else!

Jesus reminds us today that we will all know poverty & riches, fullness & emptiness, weeping & laughter, the desire to be loved and the reality of perhaps being despised. The choice Christ offers us once again today is simply what Moses offered the Israelites long ago: Blessing or Curse, Life or Death. And he encourages us to Choose life! Choose the blessing! And perhaps more importantly: Choose to be a blessing in this world! Know poverty and let it enlighten your richness as riches inform your poverty. Know hunger and let it enlighten your satiety as satiety informs your hunger. Know weeping and let it enlighten your laughter as laughter informs your tears. Know what it is to be disdained and let it enrich how you love as love heals the pain of being unknown.

If we live for this life only; if we hope in Christ for this life only, we will live compelled; compelled by our cravings and therefore compelled to cling and clutch at whatever we feel is good and seek to own it for ourselves while letting others go without. But if we live in this life fully, embracing poverty and riches, fullness and emptiness, weeping and laughter, being well-thought of and being disliked, then we live a life bigger than this life only, bigger than this one life we have which does not end in death.

Jesus, once again today, as he does every day, lays before us not just a choice, but the fully-human freedom to choose, and to choose the fullness of life over this life only and thereby give our lives so others might know that fullness as well.