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Fourth Sunday of Ordinary Time

Ghandi’s favourite text in the Bible was the Beatitudes. He was deeply impressed by Jesus and what he said but not the way that Christians lived them out. They are a perfect expression of the reign of the Kingdom that was expressed in last week’s Gospel.

But what relevance do they have in today’s society. It seems that modern society has changed these lovely phrases around. So what we have are blessed are the Rich the reign of the world is theirs. Blessed are those who are violent and get their own way they shall trample on others.  And there seems in some parts of society that people celebrate the fact that they persecute, people who have different beliefs and ideas than them.  In the last few years with the rise of the reality show there has been a desire for a lot of people to be rich and famous thinking that it will make them happy.

And yet in the Gospel today we have a different kind of Group that Jesus says are blessed. This group are those who the world rejects and often classed as the nobodies of the world. They are the people that the world walks past on the other side of the road. But what Matthew is presenting is not an unusual programme to happiness; rather he is describing what happens to Christian discipleship when the Kingdom breaks through. They speak of a variety of experiences that the disciples undergo as a result of living out the Gospel. It may appear as wrong to the world and almost strange but Jesus puts blessings on those who struggle to love the truth of the Gospel. 
At the beginning I spoke of the fact Gandhi was impressed with the fact that for him Jesus was the true expression of the beatitudes and by looking at his life we can see a perfect example of how to live. Here was a man who lived the life of the poor and helped those who were in need. He was gentle and kind to people who were on the fridges of society. He was in the habit of scandalizing the religious authorities with his readiness to forgive. In the end he is abused and persecuted in the cause of right and ultimately given over to death But in all this Jesus is blessed: God raises him on the third day.  Jesus lives a life lived in the love and the reality of the kingdom. As Christians we must strive to live out the Beatitudes in our daily lives to stand up for the faith but also to build the kingdom.  As the preface of Christ the King describes is “ A Kingdom of truth and life, a kingdom of holiness and grace, a kingdom of Justice, love and peace.  

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