The Power of the True Gospel

Homily for February 1, 2026
The Fourth Sunday after the Epiphany
Matthew 5:1-12

In a December, 2024, article in the New York Times, David Brooks wrote of hiking in the mountains of Colorado and, when he paused to sit by an alpine lake surrounded by peaks, had a religious experience that brought to mind the Beatitudes.  Brooks writes:

Most of the time we go through life governed by a straightforward logic:  Practice makes perfect, effort leads to reward, winners get admired.  But here was a moral logic radically at odds with that: The meek shall be exalted,blessed are the poor in spirit, blessed are those who hunger and thirst, where there is humility there is majesty, where there is weakness there is might.  This logic struck me as both startling, revolutionary and astonishingly beautiful.  I had the feeling I had glimpsed a goodness more radical than anything I had ever imagined, a moral grandeur far vaster and truer than anything that could have emerged from our prosaic world.  It hit me with a force of joy.  (NY Times, December 19, 2024).

The Beatitudes are indeed“startling, revolutionary and astonishingly beautiful.”  And, as we heard at the opening of today’s Gospel lesson, how “his disciples came to him,” and how, “he began to speak to them, and taught them,” Jesus preached the Beatitudes not so much to be startling and revolutionary, but in order to form disciples.  In this morning’s homily, I will speak of the nature of the discipleship Jesus seeks to form in us, and then also the context of the discipleship into which Jesus forms us.  

First, the 1) nature of discipleship.  To better understand the nature of the discipleship Jesus seeks to form in us, it helps to unpack the meaning of the word “Gospel.” Our word “Gospel” comes from the Greek εὐαγγέλιον, which we frequently translate as “Good News.”  While “that sounds attractive…  it falls far short of the order of magnitude of what is actually meant by the word εὐαγγέλιον”(J. Ratzinger, Jesus of Nazareth, p 46). The term originally referred to proclamations made by Roman emperors, in Latin called evangelium, whose words were believed (by some) to have the power to change the world.  In this context of the emperors’ proclamations, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John co-opted the term and wrote their Gospels, as if to say, “We have the realεὐαγγέλιον.  ‘What the emperors, who pretend to be gods, illegitimately claim, really occurs here ’in our Gospels” [interior quote, Ibid, p 47]. “For if the emperors’ words are human words that merely assert and cannot perform,” they reasoned, “our words are from the living God, and they perform, cause and create.  These words can change the world.”  The nature of the discipleship Jesus seeks to form in us is one in which we allow not the emperor’s but Jesus’ word to permeate us and to perform within us, such that his words change us.  In last week’s Gospel lesson, we saw an example of Jesus’ word permeating and performing:  “Follow me,” Jesus said to the first disciples; and they left everything and followed.  

Which brings us to the 2) context of the discipleship in which Jesus forms us. Recall how last week, in his account of Jesus calling the first disciples, Matthew cited Isaiah chapter 9: “The people who sat in darkness have seen a great light, and for those who sat in the region of the shadow of death, on them light has shined.”  Isaiah is thought here to refer to the people of Galilee under the occupation of the notoriously brutal Assyrian army in the 8^th century BCE.   By citing these verses from Isaiah, Matthew suggests that, as did the residents of Galilee under Assyrian occupation, so do they now under Roman occupation sit in darkness and in the region and shadow of death.  Jesus’ call to these first disciples,suggests Matthew, is an invitation to choose an allegiance:   “Do you choose to sit in darkness and in the region of the shadow of death that is Rome? Or do you choose another, more life-giving way that I, by my word, now cause and create?”

The 1) nature of Christian discipleship, suggests Matthew, is to allow Jesus’ word to permeate and perform within us such that it changes us and we follow him ever more faithfully as his disciples.  The 2) context in which Jesus forms disciples, suggests Matthew, is a world in which “Rome” and its “emperors” proclaim false εὐαγγέλια in order to try to win our allegiance.

Today, the choice between“sitting in darkness and in the region of the shadow of death” and following Jesus is no less stark than it was in Matthew’s time.  To glance at the headlines is to see daily the violence and force, the greed and pride of “empire,” “emperors” and their empty “gospels.”

In this context of “empire,”“emperors” and false εὐαγγέλια, Jesus proclaims the true Gospel and calls us to follow him ever more closely as his disciples.  In a world in which many seek security in wealth, Jesus says, “Blessed are the poor in spirit.”  In a world in which “emperors” seek to dominate, Jesus proclaims, “Blessed are the meek.”  In a world that tends to avoid suffering and loss, Jesus says, “Blessed are those who mourn.”  In a world marred by injustice and corruption,Jesus tells his disciples, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness.”  In a world in which “emperors” trample upon human dignity, Jesus tells his disciples, “Blessed are the merciful.”  In a world in which “emperors” promote falsehoods, Jesus says, “Blessed are the pure in heart.”   In a world in which many seek to settle differences through force or conflict, Jesus proclaims, “Blessed are the peacemakers.”

Jesus’ words are “startling, revolutionary and astonishingly beautiful,” but can we live by them?  It would seem Jesus expects his disciples to live by them, for “Everyone… who hears these words of mine and acts on them,” Jesus says later in his Sermon, “will be like a wise man who built his house on a rock.”  But “everyone who hears these words of mine and does not act on them will be like a foolish man who built his house on sand.  The rain fell,and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell – and great was its fall!”  (Matt7:24-27).  

I wonder, might we allow Jesus’ words to permeate us, to cause and create something new within us so that we can live these words?  Jesus’ words are challenging, to be sure; but, as Pope Francis urged about the Beatitudes:  “Let us allow Jesus’ words to unsettle us,” let us allow his words “to challenge us and to demand a real change in the way we live” (Gaudete et exsultate, 66).  “The Beatitudes are,” as another theologian put it, “the transposition of the Cross and Resurrection into discipleship” (J. Ratzinger, Jesus of Nazareth, p 74); and it is only by allowing Jesus’ words to permeate and perform within us, to cause and create within us something new, that we will find the grace and power to make Jesus our priority, to give our allegiance to Jesus. Not to follow not false “empires” and would-be “emperors” with their empty “gospels,” but to follow him who alone who has the power to heal and to save.