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Deacon Bob (4
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Sunday of Ordinary Time)
The major teaching event in the ministry of Jesus was the Sermon on
the Mount. According to the scriptures, this was the largest gathering
that Jesus addressed during His ministry. However, despite the
crowd, the sermon was directed at his disciples. They were being
harassed and persecuted for following him. In these blessings, he
gives them hope to endure what he knows is coming.
He begins: “Blessed are the poor in Sprirt.” Every single apostle was
dejected, probably feeling a bit lost and far away from God. I think
we all can relate to a time when the spiritual rung was pulled out from
under us, a time when that the clear connection to God was
shattered. Maybe it was shattered with the delivery of bad news, a job
loss, an illness, a marriage break up, trouble with a child, or a life that
turned out differently than you imagined.
Whatever it was or is, it distorts our image of God - how can it not?
Most of us, I would suggest, know what it is like to be disappointed by
God. Most of us have a way of completing this sentence. “If God is
God then……”. Call it a divine agenda, each of us, whether we admit
it or not, have a definitive expectation of what God should or shouldn’t
do for us. If God is God, then… I will never experience financial
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Deacon Bob (4
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Sunday of Ordinary Time)
collapse in my family, my children will never die before me, people
will always treat me fairly, the innocent will always be left alone, and
my prayers will be answered. These are not written down anywhere,
but they are real. They define our personal expectations of God.
And, sometimes, when pain, or the unimaginable happens we look for
God, but we can’t find him.
The Beatitudes were proclaimed in this uncertain atmosphere; the
disciples were seeking a God that they could not feel, sometimes;
their world was on fire. Although this was then – it could easily be
now. Our world too – seems to be on fire everywhere whether it is in
our immediate family our connection with the broader world issues
brought into our lives by the availability of instant news.
Jesus said to them and he says to us - Blessed are they who come to
me in their darkest hour, I will give them my light to find their way
back even though they think they cannot see me. "Blessed are they
who mourn, for they will be comforted." In this context, mourn implies
more than a death, it means that which was taken away from us and
has created a deep crevasse in how we move forward. That stability
we once had is gone. It is from these losses that we somehow find a
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Deacon Bob (4
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Sunday of Ordinary Time)
blessing – one, I suspect that is hard to see at first. A young man
asked his father for a horse. All of his friends had horses. He wanted
one, too. But his father said no. Feeling dejected, he went for a walk
out in the woods. Lo and behold, a beautiful mare appeared out of
nowhere. It was strong and gentle and easy to ride. He rode it back
to the village and told his father, “Look father! This horse came to
me. What a blessing!” The father replied, “You never know; it could
be a curse.” Sure enough, the boy was riding his new horse with his
friends when the horse shied and threw him to the ground, breaking
his leg. The friends carried him back to the village, and he told his
father, “You were right; it was a curse, after all.” The father replied,
“You never know; it could be a blessing.” Sure enough, a
neighboring tribe declared war on his village. Every able-bodied man
was expected to fight. But because he had a broken leg, the boy was
exempt. He told his father, “You were right; it was a blessing.” The
father said, “You never know; it could be a curse.”
What is a blessing? It all depends on whether you to look to God or
to the circumstances of the moment. Apart from God, what appears
to be a blessing can be our undoing, and what appears to be
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Deacon Bob (4
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Sunday of Ordinary Time)
misfortunate can be a blessing in disguise. How many us have said –
“if that had not happened, I would not be where I am today.”
We have such limited vison – only God knows the whole story – the
beginning and the end.
He knew the ending story of each apostle, as he preached – what
scholars consider was his greatest sermon. "Blessed are you when
they insult you and persecute you and utter every kind of evil against
you falsely because of me.” We know that when we really stick up for
what we believe and what we value, the power brokers of this world
will laugh at us and pass us by. But in that snub – we find the
blessing and our re- connection to a God we thought was silent. So I
think this might be the final message from the Sermon on the Mount:
When you can’t see Him, trust Him. He is closer to us than we have
ever imagined… In fact, he is just beyond the broken windows of life.
So blessed are you who seek him there… for you may just find His
peace… after all.