Homily for the Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time of the Year A

The Most Reliable Refuge Is In The Lord

Rev. Marcel Divine Emeka Okwara, CSsR

Homily for the Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time of the Year A

St. Alphonsus Catholic Church, Brooklyn Center, MN

Sunday, January 29, 2023

One of the keys of becoming a faithful and holy follower of Jesus Christ is to find your life hidden in Christ. The more you align your life to that of Jesus, the more you become like him. In today’s first reading, we see the key to becoming more like Christ. This key is not something popular, rather something difficult for a lot of people. As New Testament people, we often rejoice that we are not doing what the Old Testament people did. But a close examination shows that in the New Testament, the bar has been raised. In today’s first reading (Zephaniah 2:3; 3:12-13), we are told that it is the humble that takes refuge in the Lord. Whatever it is that you are going through today, I urge you to focus on taking refuge in the Lord. What does this mean? It means that in the battles of your life, in all the pressure that is going on today in your place of work and at home, you need some refuge. And that refuge is in Christ. No one can find true, lasting and reliable refuge outside the true and living God. 

Christianity, I continue to maintain, turns the values of this world upside down. What we consider very significant is not so for God. What we think is the greatest value, the greatest treasure before God might be utter rubbish. Some might think that if Jesus really wants to grow his Kingdom, then he needs to bring popular people, people with great influence into the Church and use them to advance the Church. But what we see in today’s second reading (1 Cor. 1:26-31) is just the opposite. In his letter, St. Paul is not talking about powerful people with wide-ranging influence. He is not talking about people who are larger than life. He is not talking about people who sit in powerful positions in society. He is rather talking about people who were unwise, who were not powerful, who were not born into noble homes, who were weak, who were lowly, despised, and who count for nothing. They were reduced to nothing, but by the grace and magnanimity of God, they have been raised in Christ Jesus. In the calculations of the world, we are nothing. We are not powerful. We are not counted. We are easily dismissed. But here now is the good news: in Christ Jesus, we are more powerful and stronger than all the forces of this world can muster and can throw at us. Because we are in Christ, Christ has become our righteousness, sanctification, and redemption. Our boast is not based on the amount of wealth, power, honor and pleasure that we have. Our boast is in the Lord. Do you want to boast? Boast in the Lord! Boasting about the things of this world is meaningless and foolish. How come? Because they don’t last, and we don’t take them to eternity.

In today’s Gospel (Matthew 5:1-12a) popularly known as the Beatitude, Jesus insists and affirms that it is not the wise or those who are particularly talented that God uses but those who humble themselves before the Lord. When you live in Christ, your life takes on a whole new texture, a whole new aroma and a whole new flavor. The Beatitudes or the Sermon on the Mount tells us all about it today. Jesus going up to the Mountain is very similar to Moses going up to Mount Sinai and receiving the Law. Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount is now the new law. Seated on the mountain and surrounded by his disciples, Jesus opens his mouth and declares: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” The poor in spirit is not poverty of spirituality or poverty of spiritual things. It is rather humility. At the very heart of each of the beatitudes is the virtue of humility. Humility is a virtue. It means seeing God as the only true and indispensable good and treasure. Humility also involves seeing others as your equal and treating them as God would treat them. How does God treat us? He treats us with love! So, if God is your only true and indispensable value and treasure in life, you are a candidate for heaven. 

The new year 2023 has just started. Are you looking for a new attitude to cultivate? Look at the Beatitudes. It is often said that the Beatitudes are the attitudes we should adopt in our lives. But it must go from attitudes and deep into action. It must go into the way we live our life. The Beatitudes are really a description of Jesus. So, by walking this way, we become more like the Lord. And when we become more Christ, we will reap the reward mentioned in each of the Beatitudes. Generally speaking, in the Old Testament, the reward is on the outside— gold, silver, land, being the head and not the tail etc. all of which are good. But in the New Testament, the reward is even greater. It is greater than silver, gold, land, power, fame, wealth, honor, pleasure etc. It is greater than that which the world considers as the greatest. It is Jesus Christ himself. As we begin this year, I encourage you to take refuge in the Lord and begin to walk the way of the Beatitudes. Do you want to be happy? Adopt the Beatitudes. Do you want to be successful? Look at the Beatitudes. It is the way. It is the reward that is waiting for us, and it is Jesus Christ.