Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Sunday, February 13, 2022

First reading: Jeremiah 17:5-8

Second reading: 1 Corinthians 15:12, 16-20

Responsorial Psalm: Psalm 1:1-4, 6

Gospel reading: Luke 6:17, 20-26

The second reading today presents us Paul’s classical exposition of the Christian teaching on the resurrection of the dead. Earlier, he said the tradition that he received and handed on to the Corinthians is that Christ died, that He was buried and that He rose again on the third day. What Paul is doing is that he is starting from the foundational belief in the bodily resurrection of Jesus on the third day which apparently the Corinthians accept. It does not seem from his argument, that they had problems with that. However, they had problem believing our own resurrection, the final resurrection of all humanity on the last day. Keep in mind, the Corinthians were converts from paganism and many had encountered Greek philosophy. And so, there were all kinds of ideas about what happens after a person dies.

Greek philosophy and paganism thought that death was an escape of the soul or spirit from the body. They had a negative view of the body. This idea did not go away and later led to a heresy called, ‘Docetism,’ a heresy that denied that Jesus had a real body as man. They said He only appeared to have a body. Docetism was condemned in the Council of Chalcedon in 451. The Corinthians allowed that Jesus was raised from the dead, because He is God, the Son of God, but they struggled with the idea that the rest of humans, that they themselves will one day be raised from the dead.

This is not just about the Corinthians. Sometimes we tend to reduce eternal life to the immortality of the soul. Scriptures say, that the souls of the just are in the hands of God and enjoy the beatific vision even as souls without their bodies. It is also true that the souls in heaven who see God face to face are still waiting for the resurrection of their bodies at the end of time in the final resurrection of the dead. This is an article of faith that we profess every Sunday, “I believe in the resurrection of the Body and the life of the world to come.” Paul wants us to see how, if we deny one article of faith, in this case, the resurrection of the dead at the end of time, it affects another article of faith like the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ. Denying our bodily resurrection often comes from an erroneous understanding of the resurrection of Jesus. This is a very important passage in Christian eschatology and especially because it was written before any of the Gospels. Paul is telling us, if you deny the resurrection of the dead, you deny the resurrection of Christ and if you deny the resurrection of Christ, you undermine the entire Christian faith.

In the Gospel today, the eight Beatitudes which Matthew gives us (Matthew 5: 3-12), are summed in four by Luke. What is wrong with being rich? What is wrong with eating a sumptuous meal and laughing? What is wrong with people praising you and saying good things about you? The truth is, there is nothing wrong with any of these things. The danger is that they can make us feel satisfied that we do not need God anymore. The Beatitudes teach us that true poverty should be an expression of faith in God and a sign that the heart is not satisfied with created goods and aspires to God alone and that it wants to be filled with the love of God so as to be able to give this same love to everyone.

The resurrection of Jesus is at the very core of our Christian faith. Inextricably tied to it is our own resurrection. This is so important that the primary task of the Apostle is to witness to Christ’s resurrection and to live a life that points to the life of the world to come. The Beatitudes is a portrait of one whose only aspiration is to witness to our faith in the resurrection. If there is no resurrection, Christianity is a lie and the Beatitudes is a sham. 

Happy Sunday

Rev. Fr. Chidi Onwuka MSSCC