6th Sunday in Ordinary Time

In 2004 Victor Yushchenko stood for the presidency of the Ukraine. Vehemently opposed by the ruling party Yushchenko’s face was disfigured and he almost lost his life when he was mysteriously poisoned. This was not enough to deter him from standing for the presidency. On the day of the election Yushchenko was comfortably in the lead. The ruling party, not to be denied, tampered with the results. The state-run television station reported “ladies and gentlemen, we announce that the challenger Victor Yushchenko has been decisively defeated.” In the lower right-hand corner of the screen a woman by the name of Natalia Dmitruk was providing a translation service for the deaf community. As the news presenter regurgitated the lies of the regime, Natalia Dmitruk refused to translate them. “I’m addressing all the deaf citizens of Ukraine” she signed. “They are lying and I’m ashamed to translate those lies. Yushchenko is our president.” The deaf community sprang into gear. They text messaged their friends about the fraudulent result and as news spread of Dmitruk’s act of defiance increasing numbers of journalists were inspired to likewise tell the truth. Over the coming weeks the “Orange Revolution” occurred as a million people wearing orange made their way to the capital city of Kiev demanding a new election. The government was forced to meet their demands, a new election was held and Victor Yushchenko became president.

This story gives us a remarkable image for understanding what is going on in our gospel today. On the main tv screen, you have the dominant world view of 1st century Judaism which proclaimed that the rich, healthy and beautiful people were those who were blessed by God. Conversely, according to Jewish belief, the sick, the poor and the persecuted were considered cursed by God on account of their sin. But in a small corner of the main tv screen, there is a little small inset screen, where a peculiar Jewish prophet, by the name of Jesus, starts telling people that what they are seeing on the main tv screen is all a lie, that is it not the wealthy, healthy and popular people who are blessed by God. It is instead the poor, the downtrodden and those persecuted for the sake of justice that are blessed by God.

For the first three centuries of its existence, Christianity remained a counter-cultural movement. It continued to preach this deeply subversive message of Jesus that attacked the status quo and sought to radically reorient the dominant social order. For this reason, Christianity became a movement for the down-trodden, the outcasts, the poor and the lowly. Now this certainly was not the case everywhere, and Paul’s letter to the Corinthians illustrates how there were rich people and even important people who decided to become Christian. But despite attracting some important and wealthy converts, Christianity remained a marginal movement, regarded with suspicion by the Roman authorities and often persecuted by them. Even when Christians were not being thrown to lions and other such beasts for the entertainment of the masses, they were never fully accepted or integrated into society. It is easy to see why such a movement that sought to eradicate all distinction of social class, race and sex amongst people (cf. Gal. 3:28 – “there can neither be Jew nor Greek, slave nor freeman, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus”) would have been so deeply subversive and would have attracted so much persecution. there is no Jew, or Gentile, no woman or man, no freedman or slave in Christ Jesus.

This all began to change in the year 313 when the Emperor Constantine proclaimed the Edict of Milan, which lifted the persecution of the Church and granted religious freedom to Christians, paving the way for Christianity to become the official religion of the Empire. The great Franciscan spiritual writer, Richard Rohr considers the edict of Milan as perhaps the worst thing that could have happened to the Church. From having been a religion of the outsiders, of the forgotten ones and the marginalized, subversively and prophetically denouncing the injustices of the established order, the Church became the Establishment. Over the centuries, the Church gradually became the most powerful and wealthy institution in medieval Europe. It used this wealth and power ostensibly to spread the gospel, but in doing so, trampled on many downtrodden and became itself a source of oppression and injustice. It now took security in its new-found power and in its institutions. From this position of power committed many egregious acts of oppression, some for which it has had to since apologize, the silencing of Galileo for example. It is important to realize what a travesty of Jesus’ message the Church became. It went from being the small inset screen to becoming the main screen, selectively quoting Scripture to prop up its own power and wealth, and casting aside anyone who stood in its way. It is only from such an analysis that we can come to understand how a phenomenon such as the prosperity gospel could have developed. It also by paying attention to how far the Church departed from Jesus’ original intention that we can come to understand how the sex abuse scandal could have happened, where the most vulnerable in our society were systematically ignored and silenced and allowed to continue to suffer in order to protect the power and the status of the institution.

Where does this all leave us today? Thankfully, the Church’s power and prestige have waned considerably in the last 500 years and in many countries, the Church is now a minority institution that is well-positioned once again to take up the prophetic role of the small inset screen that Jesus intended it to. We see this prophetic role being fulfilled by people such as Bishop Marianne Budde, the first woman prelate of Washington diocese in the Episcopal Church. She took the bold step of urging President Trump to be merciful and compassionate to the vulnerable, especially migrants and refugees. For this bold step she received a lot of hate mail and online abuse. The American Catholic bishops have also come under attack from Vice President J.D. Vance for their welcoming and compassionate attitude towards migrants. There are signs of hope to show that once again, our Church is learning how to stand with the poor and the marginalized. If we find ourselves persecuted for this stance, we are to rejoice and leap for joy, for our reward will be great in heaven.

Lest we misunderstand Jesus, his purpose was not to create a movement that promoted a cult of suffering. After all, he did say that he had come that we may have life and have it to the full. To understand Jesus’ message, we need to understand it in the context in which it was preached. Jesus was preaching to poor peasants in the hinterland of Galilee. Owing to the draconian taxes exerted by the Roman system – most people in ancient Palestine lived on the edge of poverty and often knew hunger and had many a reason for tears. Jesus is not glorifying their penury and suffering, but rather saying to them that they are in exactly the right place to hear the news he has come to offer: contrary to the message on the big screen, what will really bring you happiness and the joy that you so crave is not riches, is not material creature comforts, but rather this elusive treasure that he calls the Reign of God and being prepared to give up everything for it. Unlike Matthew, Luke does not spiritualize the first beatitude. Matthew’s Jesus softens the first beatitude by adding “blessed are the poor in spirit.” Luke’s Jesus on the other hand refers to the really material poor. Nevertheless, Jesus’ message ultimately comes back to a spiritual attitude: one of being like a little child, dependent on its parents. The poor know how to live in hope. This is not to romaniticize poverty, for there are just as few poor people who are not set on getting richer and acquiring more wealth as there are rich people who are prepared to give theirs away. It is a universal human problem, whether we have it or we don’t. What Luke’s point is, which perhaps Matthew glosses over when he too quickly spiritualizes the first beatitude, is that the poor are in the right place to receive the subversive message of the Kingdom of God: that the pursuit of wealth, power and prestige will not bring you the happiness and joy that you are searching for. Furthermore, if your wealth is acquired at the expense of the suffering of the poor, if your prestige is acquired at the expense of others being unjustly vilified, then not only will your wealth and prestige not bring you happiness, it will do just the reverse. It will bring you sadness and stress as you try to protect it, and may well be a barrier to fuller communion with God and others.

Many preachers, just like Matthew, try to soften Jesus’ message! As we have seen from our Church’s own history, it is so very easy to be seduced by the allure of riches and social status. The big screen of our world, the glossy magazine covers, the billboards, the digitally enhanced selfies softly whisper to us that it is the wealthy, the beautiful, the famous and the powerful people of our world who really matter. If we are not sufficiently detached from these idols ourselves, we will not be able to follow Jesus’ example and tell the world that this is all a lie. It is very hard for us to be this prophetic without coming across as hypocritical if we have surrounded ourselves with the trappings of status and wealth or are seen to aspire to them. At the very least, if we are not ourselves poor we need to be friends with the poor, so that we can at least hope to lean from their perspective on life, and like Bishop Budde work for a world that welcomes and cherishes them.

Questions for reflection

1. How glued am I to the big screen? Do I ever take time to listen to the small screen?
2. How attached am I to my own social status? Am I prepared to see it dented by speaking out against the dominant culture of wealth and power?