The Lord Is My Chef Sunday Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle C, 16 February 2025
Jeremiah 17:5-8 ><}}}}*> 1 Corinthians 15:12, 16-20 ><}}}}* Luke 6:17, 20-26
After the call of his first disciples last Sunday, Jesus went on to preach in Galilee as great crowds followed him with some of them becoming his disciples too. From among these many disciples, Jesus chose twelve to be his Apostles after praying one night on a mountain (Lk. 6:12-16).
As they went down from the mountain, Jesus taught the Twelve along with his other disciples and crowd of people who have gathered to listen to him in what came to be known as his Sermon on the Plain.
Luke patterned his Sermon on the Plain on earlier account of Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount that portrayed Jesus like the new Moses and moreover, the new Law himself. Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount has a smaller audience that was limited to just the Twelve while Luke’s Sermon on the Plain had a wider audience of not just the Apostles but also the other disciples and the crowd of people who have been following him.
But, more than their differences in their setting and audience, the two sermons differ greatly in the message itself. Both Luke and Matthew begin with four beatitudes, but Matthew concludes with additional beatitudes while Luke matched the four beatitudes with four woes that frankly speaking, are very disturbing.
“But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation. Woe to you who are filled now, for you will be hungry. Woe to you who laugh now, for you will grieve and weep. Woe to you when all speak well of you, for their ancestors treated the false prophets in this way” (Luke 6:24-26).
Again, Luke is telling us something deeper about Jesus in his version of the Sermon on the Plain that actually echoes the Blessed Virgin Mary’s Magnificat found only in his gospel too.
Recall in the Magnificat how Mary spoke of God sending the rich “away empty” (Lk.1:53) as he blessed the poor and the hungry. And here now is Jesus Christ fulfilling those words of his Mother.
The gospels and the whole Bible itself teem with many pronouncements against the rich and those in similar good fortune in life. Is God against the rich, those happy and those of good reputation? What’s wrong with being rich or well-off, of having our fill of food and laughter, and being spoken well of by others?
Nothing really.
Jesus is not against anyone for he loves everyone as he preached extensively on the need to love one another as we love God. If Jesus preached only love, he would have not been crucified, and most definitely would have not made so much enemies. But, the kind of love Jesus preached was so radical that shook not only the ways of the old but also of modern time because it is a kind of love that pulls down the mighty and favors the poor and those suffering. His Sermon on the Plain rings louder than ever today as we have not seemed learned from the lessons of the past. And believe it or not, the four woes declared by Jesus in his Sermon on the Plain are actually expressions of his magnanimous love, contrary to what others claim.
The four woes that are antitheses of the four blessings are not actually maledictions as most interpretations have expressed. A malediction is like a curse, an expression of one’s desire for someone’s harm like in calling down God’s wrath. The four woes of Jesus in his Sermon on the Plain is far from that reality nor a condemnation against anyone.
In calling the rich “woeful” along with those who are filled and those who laugh “now” as well as those of whom “all speak well”, Jesus is neither condemning them nor declaring them as evil-doers; in calling them “woeful”, Jesus reminds them and us today of being on the wrong and bad path in life that can lead to a fatal outcome or end.
Like in the parable of the rich man and Lazarus that only Luke has an account in his gospel, Jesus Christ’s “woes” are warnings – “red flags” – everyone must consider who might be in the wrong direction and wrong choices in “enjoying” life “now” without any concern for those who are suffering like the poor and the hungry, those who grieve and those maligned and hated.
The poor, the hungry, the weeping and the hated are blessed not simply because of their state in life but more of their willingness to forego so many worldly things “now” for they trust in God who shall deliver them to salvation and justice.
They are blessed because they have realized that things of the world are passing, something that the worldly could not accept. How sad that many today have lost sight of eternity and even of God, living only for the “now”.
Jesus is not asking us to be “masochists” or at the other end of the extreme, to be complacent in the face of widespread suffering and pains. Remember how in the synagogue at Nazareth one sabbath when Jesus launched his ministry by proclaiming from the Prophet Isaiah how the Spirit of God rested on him to bring glad tidings to the poor, liberty to captives, healing to the sick (3rd Sunday, Jan. 26).
By calling the poor and the suffering as “blessed”, Jesus assures them that God is with them and that justice shall be reestablished on “that day” when they enter the kingdom that has been prepared for them in eternal life. He called us “woe” to warn us while there is still enough time to change our course in life to be blessed not only now but in all eternity too!
See how our readings this Sunday are actually about our making of wise choices in life: in the first reading, Jeremiah warns us of the consequences of trusting God or trusting humans while the psalms show us the ways of the just and the ways of the wicked; Paul in the second reading presents to us the grace of believing in Christ’s Resurrection and the folly of denying it while in the gospel, Jesus offers us blessing or woe in living.
These readings show us there is no middle ground in following Jesus nor grey areas in God. Our decisions in life define the course of our lives like what the Pepsi Cola ad used to say in the 1990’s, “we are made (or unmade) by the decision we make.”
Moreover, in giving us those four woes, Luke reminds us that in making our decisions, we must consider more than the moral but the Christological perspective of life to be like Jesus Christ – who is himself the “blessed” because he is the poor one, the hungry, the weeping and the hated.
Should we make the wrong decisions in life, Jesus remains magnanimous, remaining in us, telling us those woes over and over so we would still make the right choices in life. Don’t take it personally; Jesus cares for you.
In three weeks we shall be entering the Season of Lent. Incidentally, the last time we celebrated Sixth Sunday of Ordinary Time in Cycle C was in 2010, the Seventh Sunday in 2007, and the Eighth Sunday in 2001!
Our gospel readings in the coming two more Sundays before Ash Wednesday would still be taken from Jesus Christ’s Sermon on the Plain to emphasize the closeness of God with those who are poor and suffering.
As we approach the holy Season of Lent that calls us to more prayers, fasting and almsgiving, we can already start this Sixth Sunday examining our lives to see if we are aligned with the blessed ones of God or are we the woeful ones. The choice is ours. Let us pray for the grace to choose Jesus, only Jesus, always Jesus. Amen. A blessed week ahead to everyone!
