Hope for the Future: Reflections on the Readings for the Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle C

Jeremiah 17:5-8
Psalm 1
1 Corinthians 15:12, 16-20
Luke 6:17, 20-26

“Pilgrims of Hope” is the theme for this Jubilee year. And today’s readings help us understand more about hope. “Blessed are they who hope in the Lord.” Hope and trust go hand in hand. Hope is also a major factor in faith. “Faith is the realization of what is hoped for and evidence of things not seen.” (Hebrews 11:1) Today’s readings tell us who is blessed and why.

Jeremiah tells us that those who rely on human beings and humanity in general (strength in the flesh) are turning away from the Lord and lack joy. They trust in something that cannot deliver. Without hope there is despair, like a barren lava waste.

But God delivers, therefore the one who trusts and hopes in God will bear fruit, like a tree planted beside a stream whose roots are nourished. Hope leads to growth, spiritually as well as mentally and physically. Even in times of stress it flourishes. Hope in the Lord brings joy.

The theme of hope in the Lord continues in the responsorial psalm, even to the point of being blessed. “Blessed are they who hope in the Lord.” The one who hopes in the Lord relies on Him and His precepts, avoiding sin and the counsel of the wicked. Again the Lord brings prosperity and bears fruit. At the same time, the way of the wicked vanishes, like chaff in the wind. The harvest is ready, are you the wheat or the chaff?

The reading from the First Letter to the Corinthians picks up from where we left off last week. In that segment Paul related Jesus’s death, burial, and resurrection including His appearance to the apostles and hundreds of the brethren, thus laying the grounds for today’s segment.

St. Paul relates hope in the Lord to hope in Christ. The proof of that hope is the resurrection of Jesus. His rising from the dead brings hope to all for our own resurrection. He is the first but His followers, those who believed in Him and followed His commandments, will also rise at the end of time. One thing to note is that Paul was a Pharisee who, even before the coming of Christ believed in resurrection, unlike the Sadducees who did not.

By extension, this hope also relates to Jesus’s second coming. Consider the words the priest says after the Our Father: “as we await the blessed hope and the coming of our Savior, Jesus Christ.” Similarly, in Eucharistic prayer One the priest says about us, “who, though sinners, hope in your abundant mercies.” Thus expressing our hope in the Lord.

The gospel reading is Luke’s version of the Beatitudes also bringing in the hope theme. The people who are blessed have the hope that they will see the rewards mentioned “in heaven.” Father Sebastian Walshe in his book, Heart of the Gospel: How the Beatitudes Show Us God’s Plan for Happiness, explains what a beatitude is: “A Beatitude is a brief instruction from our Lord in Scripture, given in poetic form, that teaches us how to find lasting and divine happiness.”

The beatitudes in Luke differ from those in Matthew (Matthew 5:3-12) in two distinct ways. Matthew lists more than Luke, and both cite the reward in heaven for those who live according to them. “Rejoice and leap for joy on that day! Behold, your reward will be great in heaven.” But Luke includes an admonishment for those who fail in this effort. As Father Walshe puts it, “Jesus teaches them that they cannot sit upon the fence: either they practice the Beatitudes and find eternal joy, or they don’t and find eternal misery. Following Jesus is an all-or-nothing proposition.”

The woe waiting for those who don’t follow the beatitudes hearkens back to the first reading and the psalm. Those who don’t trust in the Lord will find themselves like the barren bush when the Lord comes, for they will have already received their consolation in this world. It’s a case of worldliness versus Godliness. “Unfaithful creatures! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.” (James 4:4)

In both instances Jesus is preaching to a crowd. According to Fr. Walshe, St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Augustine both speculate that the reason for the differences between Luke and Matthew is that there might have been two different sermons. If so, the timing is curious as both gospels indicate that the Sermon on the Mount came shortly after Jesus called the apostles but long enough to have collected a crowd of disciples. I am not a biblical scholar but, unless Augustine and Thomas had sources not reflected in the current translations (nor is there an indication in the Ignatius Study Bible to that effect) my take is the differences are because Matthew and Luke were addressing different audiences and therefore emphasized different things. Most scholars indicate that Matthew was written by a Jewish Christian addressing an audience of Jewish background while Luke’s targeted audience were more likely Gentile converts.

Additionally, Matthew’s approach seems more inclined for a more spiritually mature audience than the beatitudes listed by Luke. In either case both sets of beatitudes address the hope of the future, our heavenly lives, and therefore the spiritual rewards of living according to the covenant between God and man.

“Hope brings the joy of the future into the present.” (Fr. Walshe), Heart of the Gospel