Homily for 32nd Sunday in Ordinary Time

Thank God for foolish questions! What would happen if people had not challenged Jesus? What if everyone had believed what he taught and did not give him opportunity to elaborate on it? This is especially the case with the Resurrection which is one of the greatest mysteries. Indeed, you could say that it is the most important. Saint Paul wrote to the community in Corinth: “For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised. If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have died in Christ have perished.” (1 Cor. 15: 16-18)

So, what is the Resurrection? How does it work? The Corinthians had questions just as we do. For us it is central to our faith and we need to know about it. It is said that there is no such thing as a stupid question. Mind you, occasionally there are answers that make the questioner feel stupid.

The intention of the Sadducees, who were a Jewish group comprised of rich families associated with the High Priest, was to make Jesus look stupid. They wanted to mock him and discredit him in the eyes of the people by coming up with a deliberately foolish scenario. Instead, as he had already done with the Pharisees, Jesus turns the tables on them and gives us, at the same time, insight into the Resurrection. Let us look closely to see what he had to say:

First, Jesus makes it clear that the resurrection does not consist in a replica of our present life. Aspects of life, such as marriage, we are familiar with now no longer apply. Questions about what people look like or what they eat will not be relevant. Anything that admits of change will pass away. The only thing to remain will be those things which are transformed by God’s power.

Second, once people have risen there is no longer any possibility of them dying again. They will last for eternity. Like angels they will exist in the presence of God. There is no “Plan B” for God or idea of reincarnation for thhosde wanting a “second chance” at life.

Third, Resurrection is a birth into a new reality. Being reborn we become children of God, children of the resurrection. This means we cannot at the same time be “children of the Evil One, children of death.”

Fourth, although the term “resurrection” is not used in the Torah, which includes the first five books of the Bible accepted by the Saducees, there is indirect evidence for the resurrection in words spoken to Moses in the Book of Exodus. God, who is revealed as being eternally present, is shown as continuing to be the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. The Resurrection has been a part of God’s plan from the beginning as he wants the human race to share his life. Nothing can separate us from the love of God. Saint Paul tells the Romans: “For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Rom 8: 38-39)

Fifth, to God all people are alive. We cannot escape God through physical death rather all of us will live in eternity. What remains to be decided by me is how I will experience that eternity. Will I experience it as bliss, communion and infinite joy together with all I have loved throughout my life or will it be for me a state of regret, anger and resentment at the God who summoned me into existence in the first place?

Would Adolf Hitler feel happy to experience eternity together with all the Jews, Poles, priests, homosexuals, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Gypsies, Social Democrats, etc that he had tortured and murdered in this life?

Since the Mass is a sign and sacrament of the worship of heaven how I will experience the resurrection is indicated by how I experience church here and now. The question for me is: do I sense the in breaking of God’s life here and now? Do I welcome it? Am I already conformed to the life I will anticipate in the reality of the Resurrection? What is within my heart? Is it light or darkness? Saint John tells us: “This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light and in him there is no darkness at all.” (1 Jn: 1: 5) How then can I know I love God, walking in the light, when I can’t see God? John goes on later to write: “Those who say, ‘I love God,’ and hate their brothers or sisters, are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen.” (1 Jn 4: 20)

The Resurrection, therefore, may be in the future and different from our present reality however the way I deal with God and my life now will endure for eternity. That is why we turn our hearts to God and pray we do not take with us into the resurrection the things that have cause us and others pain. Eternity is a very long time.