Jesus came down with the Twelve and stood on a level place, with a great crowd of his disciples and a great multitude of people from all Judea and Jerusalem and the seacoast of Tyre and Sidon, who came to hear him and to be healed of their diseases. And he lifted up his eyes on his disciples, and said: "Blessed are you poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are you that hunger now, for you shall be satisfied. Blessed are you that weep now, for you shall laugh. Blessed are you when men hate you, and when they exclude you and revile you, and cast out your name as evil, on account of the Son of man! Rejoice in that day, and leap for joy, for behold, your reward is great in heaven; for so their fathers did to the prophets. But woe to you that are rich, for you have received your consolation. Woe to you that are full now, for you shall hunger. Woe to you that laugh now, for you shall mourn and weep. Woe to you, when all men speak well of you, for so their fathers did to the false prophets.”
- St. Luke 6:17, 20-26
As the Lord Jesus Christ speaks to us through the Gospel and through the Church there are times when His words give us tremendous comfort, wrapping around us like a blanket and letting us rest in His promises; and yet there are other times when His words seem to cut almost like a knife, laying open our hearts and our lives, making demands and pushing us forward into new challenges.
Consider the scene described by St. Luke. A crowd has gathered around Jesus. His disciples are there. But also there are people from Judea, from Jerusalem, people from the seacoast, all there. Why had they come? Perhaps they had heard that He was a worker of miracles and they wanted a sign. Or maybe they’d heard He was a powerful speaker and they wanted to hear it for themselves. Maybe they were looking for a new leader to follow, or maybe they just wanted an excuse to leave their day-to-day lives for something more exciting. But they had come. And they heard our Lord speak some very stark words. He draws a parallel; He gives two alternatives. “Blessed are you poor, for yours is the kingdom of God…” and then, “Woe to you that are rich, for you have received your consolation…”
At first hearing, that might seem to be too stark. It sounds like either we must embrace absolute poverty for the Kingdom of God to be open to us; or we opt for wealth, which sounds like it closes the door to the Kingdom. But there must be more to it than that, so let’s explore our Lord’s words.
The kind of person our Lord was condemning with His words isn’t someone who is simply “rich” by worldly standing, meaning someone who has money and possessions. That in itself doesn’t keep someone out of the Kingdom of God. If that were the case, then countless faithful Christians throughout the centuries would be automatically excluded. No, our Lord was speaking of the person who uses his wealth as the sign of his success – the one who trusts in himself, the one who looks only to himself and to what he has amassed to find his worth. The prophet Jeremiah puts it this way: “Cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his arm, whose heart turns away from the Lord.” This describes the person who wants to belong to himself alone. He’s the “self-made man” and he’s proud that he needs no one else. And isn’t this the very description of someone who has “made it” in the world’s eyes? This is an age when men trust in themselves, in their own knowledge, in their own cunning, in their own resources. Man trusting in man – twisting his own priorities, stunting his vision, maiming the spiritual aspect of his existence, until the result is the very death of the soul.
But Jesus goes on to speak of the one who is blessed – that is, the one who is poor. But we shouldn’t think that the mere absence of money or possessions is a sure ticket into the Kingdom. In another place our Lord speaks of those who are “poor in spirit” – the one who doesn’t trust in himself or in his possessions. Jeremiah describes this person as the one “who trusts in the Lord.” And he goes on to say that this one “shall be as a tree planted by water, that sends out its roots by the stream…it does not cease to bear fruit.”
When we look at the great saints throughout history, or at the countless faithful Christians around us today, we see how true those words are. When a person is rooted in God, when one’s faith is established in the Lord Jesus Christ, he really is like a tree planted by water.
So we get a clear picture in the words of Jeremiah and in the words of our Lord. The man who trusts in man, whose heart is far from the Lord, who lives by his own means, is cursed. The man who trusts in the Lord, whose hope is in God, is blessed.
In the Church, God gives us the very soil we need to grow. In baptism we were planted, a young and tender shoot. In confirmation we were strengthened, just as a young tree is given fertilizer. In confession we are pruned, just as a gardener would do to make a plant more sturdy. In the Mass we’re given the never-ending source of food and drink, strength adding to strength, making us grow toward God, sending our roots deeper into Christian truth.
So the choice is clear. Trust in man – trust in yourself – and be stunted, shallow and twisted, bearing little fruit, caught up in self-destruction and doubt and self-centeredness and subjectivism. Or trust in the Lord God and be a light to the world, a witness to abundant life in Christ, with a stability which meets adversity head-on, with a willingness to give freely to others, being a channel for God’s goodness to others.
And what is the proof of all this? St. Paul tells us that it’s in the resurrection of Jesus Christ. He writes, “If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins.” We cannot live as though this world is all there is. We have a higher destiny, a greater goal, a deeper and richer life to come. This is why our Lord says, “Woe to those who are rich” – woe to those who live as though the “here and now” is all there is. And that’s why He pronounces a blessing upon the poor – those who live in this world, not as an end in itself, but treating this life as a preparation for eternal life.
Christ is raised from the dead. We are bound for something more glorious than ever we can imagine, if we’ve chosen not to trust in ourselves, but in the God who loves us.
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Painting: "Jesus Teaching the People"
by James Tissot (1836-1902)