​Trust in God Permits the Risk of Unselfish Love

​Trust in God Permits the Risk of Unselfish Love

February 16, 2025
Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time
Helen Weber-McReynolds, RWCP
Jeremiah 17: 5-8; Prov 8: 32-36; 1 Peter 4: 12-17; Luke 6: 17-26
 
You may have seen that a recent Harvard Report on human happiness revealed that positive relationships were the biggest key to making us happier, healthier, and making us live longer. Another document, the World Happiness Report, published in 3/24, agreed. It stated that social interactions tend to increase happiness, mostly by increasing social support and decreasing loneliness. It also found that virtuous behavior, altruism, and benevolence tend to increase happiness, both for the giver and receiver. That study surveyed people in many countries, including Ukraine and Russia, and concluded: “As we battle the ills of disease and war, it is essential to remember the universal desire for happiness and the capacity of individuals to rally to each other’s support in times of great need.” In other words, loving one another is what makes us truly happy.
 
This should be no surprise to we who call ourselves Christians, since we say we believe that God has created us from love and asks that we pass that love on to one another. Since God loves us endlessly, we can conclude that what God asks us to do will be what ultimately makes us happiest.
 
This seems like a good moment to consider these fundamental questions. With the defining principals of our government and society being so radically questioned, considering what we ultimately want in life and what God expects of us seems timely.
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All three of our readings today emphasize the word blessed, from the Greek Makarios. It meant more than just happy or fortunate, as we can tell from the way it was first used in Luke’s gospel, when Elizabeth addressed Mary, saying, "Blessed are you who believed that what was spoken to you by the Lord would be fulfilled." Elizabeth understood that Mary was staking her life on her belief in God’s word. Blessed meant having such strong hope in God’s future that you would gladly bet your life on it. These readings are about maintaining hope as we take the risks necessary to love one another as God has asked us to.
 
 In the first reading, Jeremiah said, “Blessed are those who trust God, whose hope is in God.” He compared those who trust God to trees who stretch out their roots toward a stream. He said they are the opposite of “…those who trust immoral inclinations…who rely on power, greed, and envy.” In other words, those who have the confidence in God to risk loving unselfishly, just as God loves us, are truly blessed.
 
 In the second reading, from 1 Peter, we are told that those who are insulted as followers of Christ are blessed. In other words, the more closely we are following Jesus’ teachings and example, the more we are demonstrating our willingness to give everything we have for others, and the more “God’s Spirit will rest on us.”
 
In the Gospel, the passage from Luke describing Jesus’ Sermon on the Plain, we are told the poor are blessed, those who hunger now are blessed, those who weep now are blessed, and those who are hated for following Christ are blessed. This is not a call to expect food and happiness as our reward later in heaven, but a call to the hope that can motivate fighting for equality and justice for everyone now. Remember the prophets and be like them, Jesus encouraged his disciples, and encourages us. Take the risk to go against the grain and demand fairness for everyone, Jesus calls. Complacency can be comfortable, but ultimate happiness comes from doing God’s will, which is fighting for justice for all.
 
So the only question is, how far are we willing to go to try to get those who are suffering in our world what they need? Since God tells us this is the way to happiness for both ourselves and the poor among our human family members, and the rest of Creation as well, how do we develop the courage to forget our own desires and take the risk of helping? I think we remember the courage of the prophets, the disciples of Jesus, and ultimately, Christ himself, in dying in the ultimate act of love, to strive for the bravery to be counted “blessed.”