From Where Comes Our Hope?

Those of you who know me know that I love to fly! I love that feeling in the pit of my stomach when the wheels leave the pavement and you know you’re off the ground. One of these days, I tell myself, I’m going to get my pilot’s license.

I’ve dreamed of flying since I was a kid. When I was 4 and a half, we lived in an apartment that had a huge hill behind it. My three year old brother and I thought we were adventurers because we could make it all the way to the top of the hill. I was a big fan of super heroes, and I wanted to be able to fly. I was convinced it was the cape that made them fly.

After weeks of begging, my grandmother made me and my brother capes. They were black satin with red strings. The big Saturday came, and grandma brought us our capes. I told my mom how I was going to fly, and she warned me that the cape might not work that way. My brother and I hiked up the hill, then we took our two steps the launch into the air. Nothing happened. Nothing.

We were devastated. The cape was supposed to make me fly. We shed tears when we learned the capes couldn’t make us fly. But mom and grandma calmed us down and helped us understand that we couldn’t fly. It wasn’t the cape’s fault. We could count on the cape all we wanted, but the cape couldn’t deliver.

Jesus shares something similar with us in today’s Gospel. In the sermon on the plain, Jesus says, “Blessed are you who are poor, hungry, weeping. Blessed are you when people hate you.” Why are they blessed? Unlike Matthew’s version, which calls out the “poor in spirit,” Luke’s version speaks directly to the poor in the audience. Luke’s version speaks to those who are doing without; without food, without resources, without joy, and without peace. In the depths of their poverty, in their moment of greatest need, they were blessed. In fact, Jesus says, “Rejoice and leap for joy… Your reward will be great in heaven.”

Why does Jesus point to the poor, and the hungry? What is the lesson they can teach us? In their lacking the poor are closer to God because they can see their dependence. Not just their dependence on God, but their dependence on others. Likewise with the hungry. In doing without, the hungry can more readily see their reliance on the works of others. And so it is with those who weep and those who long to belong. Each, in their own way, comes to know how little of their lives is in their own control.

Our goal, then, is to put our hope in the right provider. That cape couldn’t make me fly. It didn’t matter if I thought it could. It didn’t matter if I wanted it to. There was just no way that cape could make me fly. The airplane, on the other hand, works every time.

And that’s how it is with the world, too. No job, no person, no thing can give me the peace and joy in my heart that my God can. And yet we continue to seek our happiness out there somewhere. In today’s Super Bowl we’ll see lots of messages to that effect. Sponsors from Coca Cola to crypto currencies will spend $7 million for 30 seconds to tell you how their product will fill the void in your life. Don Draper famously said, “Advertising is about one thing: happiness.” That’s what their selling.

And that’s what we’re craving. The world wants us to spend our time and our energy “leveling-up.” But Jesus calls out the poor because, in their lacking they can see what really matters. As with St. Paul, the scales have fallen from their eyes. Free of material distractions, the poor know that it’s not about them; it’s not about their power. They need someone else. Their survival depends upon others. So does ours, by the way, we’re just blinded to it most of the time.

The hungry, in the emptiness they feel, have the very real sense that someone else must provide. Someone else provides for us, too, we just think we’re supporting ourselves when we buy food.

Those who weep? In their sorrow they feel the burning desire to be comforted. A comfort they know can’t come from themselves, but demand the touch of another.

So, if our hope is not in ourselves but in others, to whom should we turn? Our hope is in the name of the Lord, who made Heaven and Earth. Indeed, it is the Lord to whom we should turn, for it is from the Lord that all blessings come. Jeremiah reminds us that the Lord must be the center of our life. “Blessed is he who trusts in the Lord.”

The Lord provides to those who are poor and those who are not. In His abundance, God blesses the bounty of the farmer and his crops yield food. God blesses the safety of truckers and that food is delivered safety to us. Whether we buy it ourselves at the store or receive it through the generosity of our neighbors at the pantry, it is God who provides it for us. God gives one a job, and motivates others to provide for those who have not.

Indeed, it is not until, filled with the spirit, we reach out to those around us, that we really are in touch with God. We reach out to receive help, and we reach out to give help. We take up the great commandment to love our neighbor in giving and in receiving. And this, brothers and sister, is where we see our joy. This is where we find our peace. In this bond between us, strengthened by the gift of the Eucharist, we share God’s love for us with each other.