I have a friend undergoing chemo right now. When asked how she is doing she says she’s doing okay. That is not how she used to respond to that question before her diagnosis and treatment. Before, she was energy personified. She has three teenagers and with her husband, was involved in their school activities. She was a jogger and was a catechist at church and took communion to the elderly. She designed webpages. That was then - this is now. All she can say these days, when you ask her about how she is doing is, “I’m okay.”

I’m thinking about her as I hear today’s scriptures. She will be in her ususal pew with her husband and kids. What will she hear when the scriptures are proclaimed? There is a thread running through today’s readings that both my friend and we will hear. It reminds us that what people value most and put their confidence in may not have anything to do with God and God’s ways. Jeremiah in our first reading states quite clearly, “Cursed is the one who trusts in human beings who seek strength in flesh, whose heart turns away from the Lord.” My ailing friend will not hear that the doctors, technicians and dedicated scientists working for a cure are not to be trusted. Jeremiah did not say that. I hope she hears that at the root or foundation of her life God is trustworthy, even as she goes through this bleak period.

The Jeremiah passage belongs to a section of wisdom which emphasizes the importance of putting faith in God - that is where true wisdom lies. While the one who is alienated from God and who looks elsewhere for security is like a bush planted far from water in the desert - that person will wither. I hope my friend, I hope all of us, stay well rooted in God even when life tests us. This is not the time for self-reliance or the American virtue of “rugged individualism.” In times of struggle we need to be surrounded and supported by caring people - people of faith - God’s people.

There is an interesting, almost incidental detail in today’s gospel that I believe brings great comfort. This gospel is frequently called “the sermon on the Mount.” But that is not what it is called in Luke. In this gospel Jesus has previously gone to the mountain to pray. Prayer is a repeated theme throughout Luke. The gospel tells us that after his time in prayer on the mountain Jesus came down and “stood on a stretch of level ground.” When your life is in great turmoil, there is comfort in a Jesus who is not “on high,” but down on our level. Jesus is not distant from those who need him. You sense throughout Luke’s gospel that anyone could easily reach out and touch him. For those in need that is comforting. Jesus is not lofty and above it all - he is in the midst of the people who need him - he is, in other words, on level ground.

And then, on this level ground, Jesus looks into the eyes of the people around him and speaks to their poverty, their hunger, their grief. When misfortune, whether it is physical or spiritual, when misfortune befalls a person, we are challenged. The challenge comes down to this: will where we have invested our time and energy sustain us and survive the testing? When we are in need, on what or on whom can we rely? Jesus says that when we are in what seems like misfortune we will know God’s “blessings.” Not that God has put the misfortunes on us, but that in them we will know God’s abiding presence and strength. We will, in Jesus’ description, be blessed. “Blessed are you who are poor”....Jesus is not giving a blessing to starvation and misery. Poverty and misery are evil and every Christian ought to be trying to eradicate poverty from our midst. What is being blessed is reliance on God. Those who put their trust in human things will be disappointed; Those who put their trust in God will not. Only God can fill our emptiness; only God can satisfy the hunger of our hearts.

We don’t make ourselves worthy of the blessings or happiness Christ promised us. The difficulties of life: sickness, poverty, emotional pain - these sufferings also dispose us, or open us to what God offers us. When we cannot provide for ourselves we can learn to rely more on God and the coming kingdom. Coming to know and trust God, when all else fails, can give us a deep and lasting inner happiness. It is hard to explain how that can happen. The proof is in the pudding. Don’t we all know someone who has gone through a very hard time who, nevertheless, exhibits a deep calm and joy? How do they do that? They don’t. God does it within them, because they trusted God at the lowest points of their lives, the are “Blessed.” They can see God in their present and God in their future. They trust Jesus’ promise to them, “...for the kingdom of God is yours” and “...you will be satisfied...you will laugh...and your reward will be great.” The poverty that is blessed is the poverty of those who put their trust in God. Only God can fill our emptiness; only God can satisfy the hunger of the human heart.