Ken Overberg, S.J.

Feb 11, 2007, Sixth Sunday

Last week the readings and homily invited us to ponder God’s call and our response. We heard the stories of the call of Isaiah, Paul, Peter, John and others, all limited people, indeed sinful. All called to a great adventure. So too for us, called in our baptism to be disciples of Jesus.

Last week’s prayer is a necessary foundation for our readings today.

The gospel begins to fill in our great adventure. The beginning of Luke’s Sermon on the Plain describes part of Jesus’ surprising vision of life. The Reign of God is not what his hearers expected. And it’s not what we hear from so many sources in our lives, including all the ads in last week’s Super Bowl. No, Jesus’ vision offers comfort, hope, and profound challenge.

To prepare for this gospel, we first hear from Jeremiah. To emphasize the priority of trusting God Jeremiah uses strong language about trusting humans. This overstatement, using rich images, draws our attention to ultimate values. The continuing reading from Corinthians gives us some of Paul’s reflections on the basis for our lives as disciples—the resurrection.

Let’s listen to God’s word!

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With only one more Sunday before Lent, we have only today and next week to ponder Luke’s Sermon on the Plain. Perhaps you will find time to pray through the whole sermon. That would be an excellent way to prepare for Lent!

Here we MAY begin to catch a glimpse of the heart of Jesus’ vision:

life in the Reign of God, life characterized by nonviolence and compassion, intimacy and integrity, forgiveness and love. This “empire”

is drastically different from the Roman Empire that his peasant hearers experienced and knew all too well. Some things never change—for Jesus’

conviction about the good life is now drastically different from the Empire that shapes our lives, an Empire of the economic and military powers.

For Jesus, God’s loving and faithful presence produced a new creation, surprising, unmerited, overflowing with goodness right now in the midst of life. Free from wealth and self-sufficiency, perhaps his hearers could also experience this presence, living a life of radical trust in God, and not the system.

Later followers may have switched the focus to a more distant future and place, but that does not fit Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus speaks in the present tense: “The Reign of God IS yours.”

Can you and I hear and struggle with the meaning of the strong words of this gospel? How do we discern God’s presence here and now? Dare we let go of our securities, and trust in a God of life, love, and the surprisingly different?