Today’s readings: Zephaniah 2,3; 3,12-13; 1 Cor. 1, 26-31; Mat. 5, 1-12.
Jesus’ criteria for true happiness, prosperity and success are very different from those the world, and at times, we embrace. In the first reading the prophet Zephaniah speaks of the remnant of Israel, those who survived the big moment of trial, and he sees a humble and lowly people who, in their weakness, are chosen to be a sign of God’s power in the world around them.
This is the pattern God adopts with his people throughout the entire Old Testament. It is also the pattern prospected for Christianity at its origins when everything started with a small community of disciples who ended up dispersed the moment their mentor was silenced.
Writing to the Corinthians in the second reading, St Paul says: “Remember what you were, my brothers, when God called you. From the human point of view few of you were wise or powerful or of high social standing.”
But after centuries of persecution and dispersion, the so-called Constantinian Church projected itself in society on a totally different standing. Many times, in spite of the constant wake-up calls of the Spirit through prophetic signs, the Church gave in to the temptation of power, of dominance, even of imposition in the name of truth and of God.
This is in stark contrast with the Beatitudes that open for us from this Sunday a long bracket that affirms the novelty of Christianity. The criteria set by Jesus in today’s Gospel show that the world perceived our strength as weakness and our wisdom as nonsense.
To some extent, faith is rational, but remains fundamentally a disarmed faith. The Scriptures demonstrate impeccably that the Church Jesus meant to leave was also a disarmed Church, a humble Church.
In Matthew, the Beatitudes are a condensation of what the primitive communities of Christians had already been experiencing.
It is about the true values of the Kingdom that constitute a blueprint for the building of God’s kingdom here on earth. It is not through violence or imposition that God’s truth prevails in the lives of people.
Paradoxically, Jesus says: “Happy are you when people insult you and persecute you and tell all kinds of evil lies against you because you are my followers.” Of course, using normal criteria this is sheer nonsense.
But it was put down as the written word of God only because it had already been verified as truth in the unwritten word of God as experienced by entire communities of suffering Christians.
We live in challenging times. At least in the West, it seems believers have lost many arguments and battles on social and political platforms.
Faith can make us respond strongly to these challenges. But the issue is how to maintain God’s perspective and remain focussed and rooted in God’s wisdom in the way we respond to society’s upheavals and people’s deep needs.
The prophet Zepahniah was addressing a situation when the Assyrian domination for long years over God’s people had left its mark on their life, legitimising idolatrous cults, injustice and immorality. The prophet implores the people to seek God in truth and humbly.
The same vision is proposed by Paul and Matthew. It is from God’s own standpoint that we can have a real and meaningful vision of life and the strength to respond to our times. Our standpoint can easily be lacking, given that we easily exchange wisdom with foolishness.
The way the Scriptures and the world perceive reality is always in conflict. As Paul writes, God chooses what the world considers nonsense, weak, and despicable in order to demonstrate His true power and wisdom. The Beatitudes are God’s map for those who are lost and want to find their way.
God is often left out of the equation in our social and political struggles to restore dignity to a society in which suffering threatens the peace of heart and peace among people.
As Khalil Gibran writes in The Prophet, “When you love, do not say God is in your heart but that you are in the heart of God.”
From the heart of God, the world may, after all, look different from the way we see it.