Usually on a Sunday our first reading (Zephaniah 2:3; 3:12-13) and the Gospel (Matthew 5:1-12a) have a close link, the second reading follows its own path (1 Corinthians 1:26-31). Today all three readings point very clearly at the same truth. Who is God looking out for, where is his special attention focused? Yes, he loves all his daughters and sons, but some are closest to him.
These reading tell us those are poor, the persecuted, the humble and lowly. As Paul tells us, in his ‘straight for the throat’ style – “God chose the lowly and despised of the world.” Why? Because they are the ones we have to learn from: “so that no human being might boast before God”.
Only people who have nothing, people who truly cannot be tempted to boast, to imagine that they can achieve something by their own power, by their own cleverness, only those people can be our teachers – the “remnant, a people humble and lowly, who shall take refuge in the name of the Lord.” Those people “shall do no wrong and speak no lies”.
“They shall pasture their flocks with none to disturb them” – a few pathetic beasts – because nobody cares about them. They are worthless – except in the eyes of God. To him they are the most precious in his creation.
Only when we fully accept that we are nothing do we become everything. Then the love of God can fill us, then we will be blessed. While we are full of belief in ourselves there is no space for the knowledge that only God can satisfy us.
When we are empty, then we can be filled.