Sunday, February 16, 2025

Of Dependence, Deprivation & Habit


6th Sunday in Ordinary Time (C)


Readings: Jeremiah 17:5-8; Psalm 1:1-4, 6; 1 Corinthians 15:12, 16-20; Luke 6:17, 20-26

Picture: By Saurav S on Unsplash


My dear friends, how is an addiction uncovered? Whether it’s chocolates or cigarettes, Pokémon or pornography, overwork or gambling, alcohol or narcotics, how do we tell when an occasional indulgence, a mere guilty pleasure, has become something more problematic? Well, addictions are typically born of habit. Behaviour is repeated to the extent that it becomes compulsive. The addict becomes so dependent on the drug as to even experience withdrawal symptoms when deprived of it. Addictions are cultivated as habits, and experienced as dependence, which is then revealed through deprivation. Isn’t this why we rightly tend to be sceptical whenever someone engaging in addictive behaviour claims to be able to stop whenever they want to? They just never seem to want to. Without being deprived of the drug, it’s hard to tell whether we are actually addicted to it or not. I imagine that it’s sort of like playing Jenga. That popular game where wooden blocks are stacked up to form a stable tower. Players then take turns to remove a block and place it on top of the tower, making the structure ever more unstable, until it eventually collapses. The tower’s collapse reveals how much it had depended on that last-removed block to prop it up.


Dependence is revealed by deprivation. This is true not just of addiction, but also of what we find in our scriptures today. Both the first reading and the psalm present us with a striking contrast between two kinds of people. Those who trust in things of flesh, and those who place their hope in the Lord. Those who keep restlessly chasing after material things, versus those whose hearts seek and find their rest in God. The first type of people are cursed, and the second are blessed. But how to tell one from the other? How to uncover what is often kept hidden deep within a person’s heart? Again, dependence is revealed by deprivation. In a time of trial, those who hope in the Lord are like a tree by the waterside. They continue to thrive and even to bear fruit. While those who trust in the flesh are like dry scrub or winnowed chaff. The winds of adversity blow them away.


Dependence is revealed by deprivation. Could this be why it’s precisely those who are deprived in some way, whom Jesus proclaims happy or blessed? The poor and the hungry, those who weep, those who are persecuted on account of the Son of Man. And the second reading would have us include even those who are deprived of their very lives. Those who have died in Christ, hoping in the Lord’s Resurrection. Could it be that all these people are blessed, not so much because of the deprivation they suffer, but because of what that deprivation reveals? Their dependence on the Lord. In contrast, it is those who never suffer deprivation who are cursed. Why? Could it be it’s not so much because riches and satisfaction, laughter and popularity are sinful in themselves, but because their continual enjoyment serves to conceal one’s dependence or even addiction to them? And didn’t Jesus himself choose the path of poverty and humiliation over that of riches and popularity? And hasn’t Pope Francis reminded us that (i)n the Beatitudes, we find a portrait of the Master, which we are called to reflect in our daily lives (GE, 63)?


So what are we to do, particularly if we happen to live lives of relative comfort, and even luxury? Could it be that this is where it’s helpful to recall something else we considered earlier? Dependence is not only revealed by deprivation, it’s also cultivated through repetition. So could we not intentionally cultivate a habit of learning to accept our trials as opportunities to trust more in the Lord? And could we not also consciously try to depend more on God? Such as by repeating simple acts of self-denial, perhaps to benefit those in need. Not to build up our own pride, but to learn humility. To better recognise how much we need God. And to do this, not just as individuals, but also as families and communities, as a parish, and as a whole Church, the living Body of Christ. For scripture scholars remind us that when Jesus uses the words yours and you in today’s gospel, he is using them in their plural form, meaning you all. Rather than a bunch of individuals, the Lord is really speaking to his disciples, to us, as a group. Which may lead us to ask ourselves this important question: Even as many of us may work hard to build up our own families and communities, our own parish and the whole Church, what version of these realities are we really building? One that’s rich and satisfied, laughing and popular? Or one that’s poor and hungry, weeping and persecuted, because it stands and speaks on the side of the Lord? Following faithfully and courageously in his steps. Reflecting the portrait that he paints for us in the Beatitudes.


Sisters and brothers, if it’s indeed true that dependence is both revealed by deprivation, and cultivated as habit, then what kind of dependence are we really cultivating? Upon what foundation is our Jenga tower standing today?

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