Wednesday, September 11, 2024
(click here to listen to or read today’s scriptures)
Blessed are the poor
Blessed are you who are poor, for the Kingdom of God is yours.
Jesus speaks to all of us, because all of us are poor. Planes, trains and automobiles move us around and we find our own levels of comfort, ambition and possessions. But none of that lasts.
Poverty is the quality of the heart that makes us relate to life, not as a property to be defended but as a gift to be shared.
Henri Nouwen knows all of us face a funeral, and all of us find our way to the side of Jesus.
Poverty is the quality of the heart that makes us relate to life not as a property to be defended but as a gift to be shared.
We remember the past, we look forward into the future, but always we live in the here and now, facing each other day by day.
Poverty is the constant willingness to say good-bye to yesterday and move forward to new, unknown experiences.
When I open our front door, our neighbors are all around us. On the highway cars follow or speed by, heading everyplace under the sun. The world is rich and various, and we are all in this together.
Poverty is the inner understanding that the hours, days, weeks, and years do not belong to us but are the gentle reminders of our call to give, not only love and work, but life itself, to those who follow us and will take our place.
Jesus’ words, in Luke and in Matthew, carve out places for the weak, the poor, and the lonely, offering them a promise.
Blessed are you who are now hungry, for you will be satisfied. Blessed are you who are now weeping, for you will laugh.
We care mostly for ourselves and those around us. Understanding our place in God’s family in the Kingdom of God takes practice.
He or she who cares is invited to be poor, to strip himself or herself from the illusions of ownership, and to create some room for the person looking for a place to rest.
But the practice is worth it. The practice opens me to others, and teaches me to invite others into my life, allows me to accept invitations into the lives of others.
When our hands, heads, and hearts are filled with worries, concerns, and preoccupations, there can hardly be a place left for the stranger to feel at home. The paradox of care is that poverty makes a good host.
Jesus doesn’t promise any of us a rose garden. We are not called to be successful but instead from birth to be children of our Heavenly Father. We reach heavenly heights unknown to swollen egos when we choose to be last, not first. And when others don’t understand, when they don’t follow, when they try to take us down with sticks and stones, there is a blessing at the end of the road.
Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude and insult you, even denounce your name as evil on account of the Son of Man.
Jesus’ eyes twinkle. His smile broadens.
Rejoice and leap for joy on that day! For behold, your reward will be great in heaven.
(1 Corinthians 7, Psalm 45, Luke 6)
(posted at www.davesandel.net)
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