Ordinary 32-C (November 7, 2004)

I need one volunteer, someone who will come forward and who is a brave soul – not a kid, but an adult. Now I want to ask you a simple question. In my bag here, I have a few items. I want to ask if you would be able and willing to use these items for me, right here and now, in front of this entire congregation.

• (Pull out a diaper) Would you be willing to wear this?

• (Baby bib) Would you be willing to put this on?

• (Nipple and baby bottle) Would you be willing to drink from this and put this in your mouth?

• Why not?

Please give a big applause for our brave “guinea pig” volunteer here! Many thanks!

Now why was he/she unwilling or reluctant to use the items I pulled out of the bag? Because each of those items is for an infant, a baby – and he/she no longer is a baby, no longer an infant.

None of us stays an infant. We all grow up. And that’s what Jesus wants of us spiritually, also. On your handouts today, we’re going to talk about how to become mature, spiritually. It says, “Growing Up, Growing Wise: Learning to Ask the RIGHT Questions.”

We all grow up, physically. No one stays an infant. But some people never grow up spiritually or emotionally or psychologically. God wants us to grow, not just physically, but also spiritually. God wants us to become wise. And in today’s gospel, we see that part of spiritual maturity means asking the right questions.

In our gospel, we see in the Sadducees an example of spiritual immaturity – asking the wrong question. They are not interested in discovering the truth. They just want to trap Jesus, trick him, play spiritual games. So they ask: At the resurrection, whose wife will that woman be? For all seven had been married to her. – Lk. 20:33

Do you think some people still play spiritual games today? They aren’t interested in really discovering the truth. They just want to force everyone else to think like they do. Max Lucado, a popular Christian writer, wrote the following (which is on your handout). He’s a non-Catholic, so it is written for a Protestant audience, but the point is clear: Some time ago I came upon a fellow on a trip who was carrying a Bible. "Are you a believer?" I asked him. "Yes," he said excitedly. I've learned you can't be too careful. "Virgin birth?" I asked. "I accept it." "Deity of Jesus?" "No doubt." "Death of Christ on the cross?" "He died for all people." Could it be that I was face to face with a Christian? Perhaps. Nonetheless, I continued my checklist. "Status of man." "Sinner in need of grace." "Definition of grace." "God doing for man what man can't do." "Return of Christ?" "Imminent." "Bible?" "Inspired." "The Church?" "The Body of Christ." I started getting excited. "Conservative or liberal?" He was getting interested too. "Conservative." My heart began to beat faster. "Heritage?" "Southern Congregationalist Holy Son of God Dispensationalist Triune Convention." That was mine! "Branch?" "Pre-millennial, post-trib, non-charismatic, King James, one-cup communion." My eyes misted. I had only one other question. "Is your pulpit wooden or fiberglass?" "Fiberglass," he responded. I withdrew my hand and stiffened my neck. "Heretic!" I said and walked away – Max Lucado.

I’ve heard of churches that split over whether to sit or stand or kneel, whether to use glass or metal cups for communion, whether to use guitar music or organ music at Mass. How sad to fight over details, but to miss the opportunity to show concern for the real issues that trouble God – poverty, hunger, disease, war, violence, our cruelty to one another as human beings, government policies that ignore the weak and vulnerable.

Last week, I read about a woman who attended a Gay Pride parade in her hometown. There’s a parade of that sort going on this weekend in Palm Springs, I believe. Afterward, she wandered in to a Metropolitan Church, which is a church denomination that ministers to the gay community. As the church service began, a group of protesters from another church entered and started to yell that all gay people were going to burn in hell. The pastor instructed his congregation to turn toward the protesters and say, simply, “Jesus loves you.” But the protesters started yelling back, “Jesus hates you! Jesus hates you!”

Can you imagine Jesus saying that to anyone? We’ve twisted religion, and so often made God into our own image rather than imitate the real Jesus, who loved everyone and welcomed all into His kingdom. Spiritual immaturity – making mountains our of molehills and forgetting the essentials: Love God and love your neighbor as yourself.

God wants us to grow into adult spiritual maturity and to ask the right questions, not to play games with God. Saint Paul tells us:

When I was a child, my speech, feelings, and thinking were all those of a child; now that I am an adult, I have no more use for childish ways. -- 1 Corinthians 13:11 (Today’s English Version)

We must become like a mature person, growing until we become like Christ
and have his perfection. -- Ephesians 4:13 (New Contemporary Version)

Today, we are going to look at four questions, raised by today’s Scripture readings. First: Is there life after death? In the gospel, the Sadducees are trying to trick Jesus with their question – but it still is a good question, in spite of their motives.

I heard a joke about life after death. Two friends, Abe and Sal, who always sat together each day on a park bench, chatting, wondered if there was baseball in heaven. They made an agreement with each other: The first to die would come back as a spirit and tell the other if there was baseball in heaven. One day, Abe died. The next day, Sal was sitting on the park bench, all alone, and he heard a voice. “Is that you, Abe?” he asked. Abe replied, “Yes, it’s me.” “Well,” asked Sal, “is there baseball in heaven?” Abe replied, “I have good news and bad news.” So Sal said, “Give me the good news first.” “OK,” said Abe, “there is baseball in heaven.” “Great,” said Sal. “So what’s the bad news?” Abe replied, “You’re scheduled to pitch this Friday.”

Is there life after death? It’s a good question, and it urges us to ask ourselves, “Are we ready for it?” This is really the question of purpose and meaning in our life, because all of us yearn for our lives to count for something. We yearn for the purpose of our life to be more than spending a few short years on earth, then back to dust we go and we are forgotten and dead forever. Why am I here? Does my life have purpose and meaning?

God’s answer in the Bible is a resounding “Yes!” St. Paul tells us in his 1 letter to the Thessalonians: Since Jesus died and broke loose from the grave, God will most certainly bring back to life those who died in Jesus. -- 1 Thessalonians 4:14 (Message)

Paul tells us in First Corinthians: No eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no mind has imagined what God has prepared for those who love him. -- 1 Corinthians 2:9 (New Living Translation)

Paul asks us: How can some of you say that the dead will not be raised to life? If that is true, it means that Christ was not raised; and if Christ has not been raised from death, then we have nothing to preach and you have nothing to believe. More than that, we are shown to be lying about God… And if Christ has not been raised, then your faith is a delusion… But the truth is that Christ has been raised from death, as the guarantee that those who sleep in death will also be raised. -- 1 Cor. 15:12-15, 17, 20 (TEV)

The Bible affirms resurrection and life after death, but it doesn’t tell us much about the details. People ask: Will I recognize and know my loved ones? Will an infant who died be grown, or still an infant? Will people who’s bodies are scarred or maimed get new bodies in heaven? Will there be dogs and cats in heaven? Will the streets be paved in gold? What color will the sky be? On and on – and nobody knows!

For modern minds, think “Jurassic Park” – how the dinosaurs, long extinct, were brought back to life. Or think Star Trek and the transporter – “beam me up, Scotty!” Maybe God will beam us up to heaven and reconfigure us. Think maybe of DNA – how even when we die, our unique identity is still locked up inside the DNA that is transported down through the centuries, generation to generation. Maybe our souls are like spiritual DNA. Some people say resurrection and life after death make no sense in our modern, scientific view of the world. But at least one famous modern physicist, Frank Tippler, has written a scientific book entitled “The Physics of Immortality” in which he argues, using science, that immortality makes sense and is possible. Why not? When we die, the atoms and molecules or our bodies continue to exist. Why can’t God reconfigure them back, so that we become us again? Why can’t mind and soul transcend the body, just like DNA does?

But in our gospel today, Jesus gives us a different sort of answer – not, maybe, the answer we prefer, but an intriguing and amazing and wise answer, nonetheless. Turn to the second side of your handouts. Jesus asks us: Are you married to God?

Let me explain. Remember, the Sadducees are trying to trick Jesus by asking that, if someone is married and widowed and remarried several times during this lifetime, what happens in the next life? Who is their spouse? Jesus says: The children of this age marry and remarry; but those who are deemed worthy to attain to the coming age and to the resurrection of the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage. -- Luke 20:34-35 (NAB)

This might be good news for some, bad news for others. I heard a story of a bride who wanted to change the words of her wedding vows from “Until death to us part” to “Substantial penalty for early withdrawal.” No way! At weddings, grooms and brides are asked to say, “Until death do us part,” but that raises the question: what happens after death? I heard another story of a woman who was dying of cancer, but suddenly, her husband keeled over, dead from a heart attack. A friend, trying to comfort her, said, “Don’t worry. Soon you two will be together again.” The wife replied, “I guess I am never going to get away from him, am I?”

Jesus is saying that in heaven, we are wedding to God, not to other people. Jesus is saying that our first priority needs to be to God, even here on earth, because heaven (or hell, depending on our choices) begins here on earth. If you want purpose and meaning and significance to your life, you must wed yourself to God and to God’s plans and purposes, and not follow the false lures of the world. Jesus tells us in the gospel of Matthew: If you love your father or mother or even your sons and daughters more than me, you are not fit to be my disciples. -- Matthew 10:37 (CEV)

That leads to our second question: Am I living or just existing? What is the quality of my life? Am I just going through motions, or am I taking maximum advantage of the opportunities and blessings that God sends my way. The second part of Jesus’ answer to the Sadducees is this: Now he is God, not of the dead, but of the living; for to him everyone is alive. – Luke 20:38 (NJB)

Jesus tells us to focus more on living life to its fullest in the here and now, and don’t fear or worry about the future or about life after death. Just trust in God. God is a God of the living.

That leads us to a third key question, raised in our first reading from the Old Testament, from the second book of Maccabees: What would I die for? Do I live for the truth, or am I living a lie and living behind a false mask? What are my values and convictions, and am I true to those values and convictions? Or do I sell out the false values of the world?

In Maccabees, seven young Jewish brothers are arrested by the king and forced to choose: Renounce your faith in God and live, or die. Their answer is on your sheet: We are ready to die rather than transgress the laws of our ancestors. – 2 Maccabees 7:2 (NAB) --- The King of the world will raise us up to live again forever. It is for his laws that we are dying. -- 2 Maccabees 7:9 (NAB)

All of us, every single day, are bombarded with messages – some true, some false. There are many wolves in sheep’s clothing. For example, look at the following video:

[Video shows TV news bombarding us with the message of fear]

We are not always told the truth. I’ve become more and more aware, during these past months of the election campaigns, of all the false propaganda that is out there. Our children are taught this propaganda even in the schools – a blind and narrow nationalism, a false patriotism, what theologians call “civil religion” where we worship our country more than our God, and believe that our country is divinely blessed by God and can do no wrong. Politicians from both parties are guilty of this when they say, “God bless America” and invoke God in order to win votes. As Christians, we are world citizens – we think of all people as God’s children, not just people in our own nation or of our own race. No one nation is perfect or above critique or “chosen by God” – not even our own, despite the rhetoric and the rah rah of patriotism that sometimes can blind us to God’s cry for justice.

I was encouraged last week by the large turnout for the election. Lines were long at the polls here in Coachella. Some of our young people here in the parish really hustled to convince our community – which normally is apathetic –to vote! Their hard work paid off. Let’s give them a big round of applause! And we should applaud our candidates – winners and losers – but also urge them to lead by God’s principles, not the false principles of power and greed, but with love and compassion, especially for those who do not have a voice.

As Christians, we need to always be seeking the truth – God’s truth – and to hear opposing viewpoints. Let me show you another version of truth – one that is seldom taught in our schools or on mainstream TV, but that will make us think and maybe help explain why so much of the rest of the world hates Americans:

[Show video of American injustice and brief cartoon history of American violence]

Our last question: In God we trust? Do we? Is God in control of our lives? Do we really follow God, or do we follow what is popular and what the crowds are doing?

As Christians, we are to live in the now, and make God’s Kingdom real here and now. We can’t do it on our own. We need God. On your sheet are five action steps to help us put flesh on our faith and to develop a vibrant, authentic, mature faith marked by wisdom and prudence:

1. Commit. We need to choose – God’s way or our way, God’s way or the world and the crowd.

2. Pray. Talk, hang out, waste time with God, read the Bible, read newspapers, read books, learn, become informed about the world and about your faith. Lean on God, not on yourself. Connect with the power source.

3. Worship. We need each other. There is power in numbers. God created a church so that we can have a family that will help us to grow into our full spiritual potential. We will never become fully what God intends of us if we try to do it alone and cut off from other Christians. Go to Mass on Sunday and plug in with other Christians on a regular basis.

4. Grow. Water the seeds that God has planted in your life. Seize opportunities – retreats, small faith communities, Bible study groups, whatever.

5. Act. Faith without works is dead. Serve others to make the world a better place, don’t just serve yourself or your friends and family. Be generous. Be joyful and enthusiastic. Share your faith in God and your relationship with Jesus and your enthusiasm for building God’s kingdom with others.

Grow up and grow wise! God is raising up an army of mature Christian disciples. Will we join God’s team?