God’s Great Reversal

Reflections on the Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time: Jeremiah 17:5-8, 1 Corinthians 15:12,16-20, Luke 6:17,20-26

Though the Beatitudes in the gospels of Matthew (chapter 5) and Luke (today’s gospel) are similar in their genre and basic elements, certain variations render their message unique in their accents and focus. Matthew’s 8 Beatitudes are part of the Sermon on the Mount given on a mountainside side thus evoking the formal image of Moses receiving the Ten Commandments on Mount Sinai. They insist on the internal dispositions of the ‘blessed’ ones (poor in spirit, meek, merciful, those who hunger and thirst for righteousness) and are therefore more spiritual and broader in focus. Luke’s Beatitudes, however, form part of the Sermon on the Plain. Luke’s focus on existential physical conditions (the hungry and the poor) suggests a more concrete and immediate significance.

Of particular interest to our reflection is the interesting pairing of Luke’s four Beatitudes with four corresponding ‘woes’: the poor and the rich, the hungry and the well-fed, those weeping and those who laugh, those hated and those spoken well of. The first reading adds another pair: those who trust in human beings and those who trust in the Lord. Jeremiah, Matthew and Luke, through their Beatitudes, confront the ‘ways of the world’ with the ‘ways of God’. They demonstrate that “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are God’s ways higher than our ways and His thoughts than our thoughts” (Isaiah 55:9). In Luke’s and Jeremiah’s binaries, this reversal becomes more evident and well-pronounced. From the human perspective, the rich, the well-fed, the famous, and the well-connected are counted among the blessed ones. In God’s scheme of things, however, the poor, the hungry, the crying, and the persecuted become the truly ‘blessed’ ones.

In the reality of God’s Kingdom, the criteria, expectations, and experiences of this ‘world’ are turned upside down. This theme of God’s reversal is a major theme in Luke’s gospel and echoes in various passages and personalities. Mary’s Magnificat is a proclamation of her experience of this reversal. God looks with favour on her lowliness, scatters the proud, brings down the powerful from their thrones, lifts up the lowly, fills the hungry with good things, and sends the rich away empty (Luke 1:46-55). The parable of Lazarus and the rich man (16:19-31) is another instance where this reversal becomes obvious. At the beginning of the parable, Lazarus is found longing for crumbs falling from the rich man’s table. Towards the end, however, the situation is reversed. The rich man begs Abraham to send Lazarus to quench his thirst. The parable of the Good Samaritan (10:25-37) again underlines this reversal wherein the priest and the Levite become strangers to the injured man while a Samaritan becomes the true neighbour.

Luke’s message is clear: God’s intervention reverses the ways of the world. His perspectives and judgements are ‘countercultural’. God’s reversal assures us that the poor, the vulnerable, and the marginalized, who are counted as ‘insignificant’ and even ‘cursed’ in the world’s perspective are indeed ‘blessed’ in the Kingdom of God. This radical reversal of values is the foundation that informs and inspires the Church’s key convictions and positions including the ‘option for the poor’, pro-life stand, social and ethical teachings, its commitment to the service of the marginalised, disabled, sick, displaced, and the suffering, etc., The Church, inspired by the Beatitude’s great reversal, seeks to take the side of the ‘victims’. While this conviction is certainly discernible in the Church’s dogmas and doctrines, it awaits its fuller translation into praxis. The Church continues its search to translate its convictions into its way of being and relating. It continues to try and mirror God’s great reversal in its countercultural mission for the world.

The great reversal is also an invitation extended to each of us. We are called to internalise this reversal in our life realities. Pope Francis, during a general audience on 09th June 2014, called the Beatitudes “the Christian’s identity card”. He insists that rereading the Beatitudes can help us live to the fullest a “plan of holiness” that goes “against the grain” of the world’s mentality. Our lives are marked by contradictions between poverty and riches, hunger and satiety, tears and laughter, hatred and fame, happiness and misfortune, etc., The great reversal invites us to look beyond these contradictions with a fervent hope that God’s intervention can bring to our personal and community lives. The Beatitudes inspire us to become dynamic disciples who can turn our lives into ‘places’ of God’s great reversal today.