Take "The Way" less traveled by

Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time February 16, 2025

Jeremiah 17:5-8 Psalm 1:1-2, 3, 4 & 6 1 Corinthians 15:12, 16-20 Luke 6:23ab Luke 6:17, 20-26

My Father-in-law, back when Bonnie and I were dating, had the following expression: “Pay me now or pay me later.  Suffer now or suffer later.” The expression was about being prudent with one’s money and the importance of saving money not only for retirement but for emergency needs.  It is better to make the choice to willingly suffer now through self-sacrifice while saving for the future, rather than to suffer later.

I was reminded of this the other day in Adoration when I was reading and reflecting on one of Matthew Kelly’s book called “The Three Ordinary Voices of God.”  At the very beginning of the book, he asks the question and reflects on “is it possible to mis-live our lives?”  Let me share a few lines from the first chapter.

“We often wander carelessly through life as if a well-lived life were guaranteed.  It isn’t.”

“What does it mean to mis-live your life?  It is the opposite of a well-lived life.  It means to live poorly.  It means to lead a life marked by wasted potential and misaligned with all that is good, true, just, and noble.”

“We live or mis-live our lives one choice at a time.  Some choices are full of goodness and life, others are nothing but death and destruction.”

“Build your tomorrow with your choices today.  Envision the person God created you to become and build toward that vision of your future self – one choice at a time.”

Now, not only did this remind me of my Father-in-law’s wise words about saving for the future, but it also reminded me about what I shared in my homily back in late December about my Diaconate Formation and how our instructor for Moral Theology, Fr. Henke, made it very clear that every choice we make, every decision we make, everything we do or don’t do has a moral implication; some more so or greater than others.  That morality is not simply about choosing between good and evil [right and wrong], but it can also be about choosing between evil and a lesser evil, or about choosing between good and a greater good.  Every decision we make has natural and logical consequences, be it good or bad. 

In our first reading this week for daily Mass, we heard the story of creation, which culminated yesterday, Saturday, with the fall of man and expulsion from the Garden of Eden when Adam and Eve partook of the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.  In a way, we could say this was man’s first bad choice, in choosing to trust in the serpent rather than to trust in our Creator, God.

What does this all have to do with our readings today? 

In our first reading from Jeremiah, we can either chose to trust in the Lord, or trust in human beings.  If we put our trust in the Lord, we will be Blessed.  This is echoed by our Responsorial Psalm which says, “Blessed are they who hope in the Lord.”

Clearly there is a choice here, and the consequences for not choosing to hope and trust in the Lord is that we will be cursed, and we will suffer, though we may not see it or experience it until it is too late. 

As for our Gospel, we have Luke’s version of the Beatitudes, which is at the beginning of what is known as the Sermon on the Plain.  Now notice how there are four “blessed” statements followed by four parallel opposing “woes.”

Blessed are the poor but woe to the rich.

Blessed are the hungry but woe to the filled.

Blessed are the weeping but woe to those who laugh.

Blessed are the hated and despised but woe to those spoken well of.

What do these have to do with choice?

Is there anything wrong with being rich? Wouldn’t that or shouldn’t that be counted as a blessing? 

What’s wrong with laughter? Should we not be happy and enjoy the life we have, and have a good time with family and friends? 

The point is that none of these things are good or bad in and of themselves.  Rather it is about what we do and how we obtain.  Jesus does not say condemned, but woe.  And the word “woe” that Luke uses comes from the Greek ouai [oo-ah'ee], which is a primary exclamation of grief, and in this context, a warning, not a condemnation.  In other words, he is challenging us to pause and take a self-inventory of ourselves; to reflect on not just who we are but why we are who we are.  Why am I rich, and filled, and full of laughter, and why am I spoken well of, and by whom?  Then ask the tougher question about what am I doing for the poor, the hungry, the weeping, the outcast who are hated, despised and marginalized?  Then we need to ask ourselves the game changing question; am I willing to be poor and hungry, to weep and mourn, to be hated and despised? 

This goes back to what we heard from Jeremiah, do we trust in human beings or in the Lord.  Do we place our hope and trust in worldly possessions, fame, power, and glory; or do we seek to gain the heavenly Jerusalem.  How are we choosing to live our lives, so as to live a life well lived instead of a life mis-lived? 

The “challenge of these Beatitudes” is the question of:  Will I be happy in living the world’s way – or in living and following Christ’s way?  In fact, one of the first names for Christianity in Apostolic times was simply "The Way.”

With that, I’ll leave you with these final words from the poem “The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost.

I shall be telling this tale with a sigh Somewhere ages and ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I – I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.

Let us take “The Way” less traveled by.