Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Cursed is the one who trusts in human beings; Blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord.

Catholics and Christians who were raised in the faith often take for granted the “theory of two ways.” They believe there are a good way to live and an evil way. We see reality through this bifurcated lens and we notice wisdom and foolishness, right and wrong, good and evil, truth and lies. We may go further, identifying saints and sinners, fools and wise, beauty and ugly, health and sickness, life and death.

We teach our children this “theory of two ways” in the hope they will use it as a basic guide for the decisions they must make every day and hundreds of times each day.

But the theory of two ways overlooks a lot of life’s complexity and it sometimes fails altogether. Good intentions sometimes inspire bad behavior. It would seem those unfortunate American missionaries in Haiti, now accused of child trafficking, let their good intentions outrun their prudence.

Sometimes right and wrong are not obvious. We often discover this in conversation. As we explore a given topic and search for the right thing to do, it just gets more and more complicated.

At the VA hospital I often hear Veterans say they do not discuss politics or religion. Is that because they don’t want their notions of right and wrong challenged? If there are two sides to every story, only two people are discussing it, and those two are probably not well informed.

One of my favorite veterans, my Dad, often used to say, “Here’s the thing about it….” But that was never the end of the conversation. There were always more things about it.

In fact it seems every issue has infinitely subtle levels of meaning and the human brain – as marvelous as it is – is staggered by all the possibilities. Sometimes we have no choice but to make a choice when there is no clear right or wrong; and sometimes we can make no choice at all.

I once met two brothers caring for their father, who was not obviously dying. They didn’t know what to do. Some doctors advised this; others suggested that. They hoped the old man might rouse himself to make the decision for them, but that seemed less and less likely. Should they just “pull the plug?” Should they let him "vegetate", although they knew he would not want that?

I suggested they wait and let the decision make itself. I’m told that babies ordinarily decide when to be born, not the mother or the doctor. Sometimes patients also decide to live or die with only support from others. And sometimes patients die before the family has decided what to do.

More often, decisions reveal themselves. What was not clear yesterday is clear today. Sometimes we can only wait on the right moment to arrive, and we neither know when it will come nor what we will do when it arrives.

In today’s gospel Jesus lays down some helpful prescriptions for knowing right and wrong. He blesses those whom the world regards as despised: the poor, hungry, grieving and hated; and he curses those whom the world regards as fortunate: the wealthy, well-fed, content and admired. 

Saint Luke’s gospel has been called the most revolutionary document in human history. He does not soften his description of God’s favored ones with Saint Matthew’s politic phrase, “the poor in spirit.” He simply calls them, “the poor.” In this gospel, Jesus consistently prefers the poor, weak, marginalized and mistreated.

In discussions about health care, education, opportunity, work and other basic necessities, it should be hard to ignore the Gospel’s preference for the poor, especially when we see Jesus born, living and dying among them.

But even Jesus’ preference for the poor, as enlightening and helpful as it may be, does not resolve every thorny moral issue. If only…!

Nor did he expect that. No moral teaching can anticipate every potential dilemma. Again, I see this predicament played out in my hospital ministry.

For example, many states urge adults to draw up advance directives, or living wills, to prepare for those final hours of our lives. But some people seem to think that document, signed and notarized, will end the discussion. “No more!” they say, “That settles it. Let’s get back to football. How about those Saints?”

In fact advance directives should start the discussion, and keep it open. No one can anticipate every possible decision that will have to be made, especially as a patient’s condition changes often, sometimes hourly.

But – Praised be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ – God has given us a much simpler solution. If we cannot always tell the difference between right and wrong, Jesus says:

… the Spirit of truth will guide you to all truth. He will not speak on his own, but he will speak what he hears, and will declare to you the things that are coming. (John 16:13)

Saint Francis of Assisi, “as if despairing of his own efforts, anticipated every undertaking with devout prayer – through which he infallibly learned what he was to do….”

            The Life of Saint Francis by Julian of Speyer, chapter iv

God wants us to turn to prayer for guidance. If we always knew the right thing to do – which food to eat, which juice to drink, which car to buy, which house to build, which person to marry – we would be gods. We would not need God -- so both should losers be.

We have some ideas of good and evil and they make for lively dinner discussions; but more often than not, these principles do not settle the thorny issues of everyday life.  And so we turn to God in prayer and ask God to guide us day by day, sometimes blindly, in the Way of Truth.