HOMILY:
Thirty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time, 2013 C
2
Maccabee 7:1-2, 9-14
Psalm 17
2
Thessalonians 2:16-3:5
Luke 20:27-38
We usually think that all Jews of first
century Palestine believed the same things. To appreciate today’s Gospel we
should understand that the Jews of Jesus’ day were as divided in their beliefs
as are modern day Christians.
One of the biggest divisions in Judaism
was between the Pharisees and the Sadducees. The Sadducees accepted only the
written tradition of the first five books of the Bible as God’s Word. The
Pharisees, on the other hand, accepted both the written and the oral traditions
of the 46 books of the Old Testament Bible plus the writings of some of the
Jewish rabbis.. Pharisees believed in life after death; Sadducees did not. In
today’s Bible reading, some Sadducees confront Jesus over His shared belief
with the Pharisees regarding life after death. We Catholics call this
everlasting life.
People
in the United States have mixed feelings about death. On one hand, we spend lots of time and money
trying to hold off the moment of death. We add safety features to cars and
homes, go on the latest diet or exercise craze, and take life-enhancing herbal
supplements -- all with the hope of delaying our day of death a few more years. On the other hand, movies and television
often feature violent death to attract viewers.
Death seems to fascinate us --as long as it's someone else's death.
Most
teens and most adults would rather not think too much about their own death.
This usually isn't hard to do, because most people in our country rarely have
to address the reality of death. Yet everyone once in a while have to face the
death of someone we know well or probably the sadness of all: the death of a
young child. Or we have to face the
possibility of our own death because of an accident or a serious illness. At
time our minds race with the thought: what will happen to me when I die?
Facing
our own death isn't easy. It can be
sobering, even frightening to face the big unknown. Some people are thrown into despair and even
depression thinking about death. Our Catholic faith has answers to the question
of death, as do most religions.
What Jesus did is to
tell us clearly that the life to come is nothing like the life we know now. But
we have the advantage because the person who supplied those answers has
actually died and risen again. Believing in Jesus' promise that we will rise to
a new life does not completely take away the sting of death, but our faith does
help us understand that death is not a final ending but a new beginning.
Is
death simply the end, like putting out a light or snuffing out a candle. If
there is life after death, what is it like?
We have all asked questions like these. It is right to consider them on
this November weekend, when the natural world of vegetation has died, and as we
remember Veterans Day. It is good to hear the words of Jesus about life after
death.
All
our Bible readings today have a forward look. They describe a today out of
which a future flows. Because it is our
present faith in God that ensures our enduring life.
There is within the human spirit a will to
live—not only our earthly life, but beyond it. Most people want to be
remembered for having made a difference in the world during their lifetime, no
matter how long that life has been. Sometimes we muse about what we would want
on our tombstone. For what do we most want to be remembered? For people in
Jesus’ day, it was important to leave their mark in the world through the children
they left behind.
The
notion of resurrected life only began to emerge some 200 years before Jesus.
Ideas varied about what it would be like. In the first reading today, we see
the belief expressed that only the just would be raised, not the wicked. In
other texts we find the notion that both would be raised, the former for
eternal reward, the latter for everlasting punishment.
By
Jesus’ time, there were two large sects within Judaism: the Sadducees and the
Pharisees. The Pharisees had come to
believe in a resurrection of the body. Jesus told them that life after
death is not the same as life on earth. What Jesus promised is that life with
God is the very thing for which we are born; therefore, it will be a happiness
we cannot imagine. We can no longer die for we will be like angels.
Jesus
replied that there was no need to think about heirs. The dead will be children
of God. Marriage to preserve a name will have no place. Life after death is not
an extension of life on earth, but a radical renewal of life that knows no more
death.
Our
Catholic religion teaches us that death is not an end to life, but the passage
to a new life that will have no end. In
Baptism we began a relationship with Divine Love. Love does not end, nor do
loving relationships die. They may change, but they continue.
At
this time of the year as nature begins to shut down for a few months, our
Catholic religion is reminding us of the temporary nature of all things and of
our own mortality. But in today’s Bible readings it also reminds us of the hope
we have, that God is not only the God of the living but also the God who
continues to create. Through Jesus God
is also creating a new world, he is calling us to a new life. This new
life is not just something we can expect
to get automatically, which our present day culture tries to lead us to
believe. It is a place we are all
invited into, but whether we enter depends on our free choice as to whether we
follow the way of Jesus has shown us. Jesus
has made that very clear: I am the way he told us. It is not just an
intellectual assent Jesus is asking of us; it involves being willing to hear
Jesus telling us what we must do and must not do.
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