As gifts from His loving hand

I once saw a cartoon that said, “You can’t take it with you, so eat it now!” It’s a humorous piece of advice that can make us stop and think about a challenging balancing act: How do I enjoy the material blessings of life without making them my ultimate source of joy? In this weekend’s Gospel reading from Luke 6, we have Jesus teaching the beatitudes in a slightly different way than in Matthew 5, and at first glance it may seem as if He is telling us the more miserable we are, the more blessed we will be, and the easier our life is, the worse off we actually are. “Blessed are those who hunger, weep, and are hated for following Jesus. Woe to you if you’re rich, well-fed, filled with laughter, and when everyone has good things to say about you.” 

When it comes to reading the Scriptures, a basic principle is this: “Scripture interprets Scripture.” When we compare Jesus’ words in Luke 6 with the Beatitudes in Matthew 5:3-12, we hear “poor” refers to “poor in spirit,” and “hungry” refers to those who “hunger and thirst for righteousness.” In other words, you are very blessed if you realize not only your total dependence on God, but that your life is empty without Him. 

But unlike some philosophers throughout the ages who have made a distinction between the physical and material with freedom from the material bringing the ultimate joy, we celebrate the God of creation and His gifts that He created us to enjoy. We don’t make them into idols we trust to bring us lasting happiness, but receive them as gifts from His loving hand. And if we ever find ourselves lacking, we come back to those wondrous words with which David begins Psalm 23: “The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want.” Then, with Paul, we can say we have learned to be content in any situation, for we can do all things through Christ who strengthens us. (Philippians 4:13)