“God, not of the dead but of the living.”
I don’t know about you, but I get into these conversations,
sometimes philosophical, theological, or (God forbid) political.
And people ask questions but they are not really questions;
it is almost like they are asking a question
to get you to say what they want you to say;
or to get you to say something that is the opposite.
It can be very frustrating because they are not really seeking the truth
as much as they are seeking to be right or to make a point.
Does that happen to you? Is it just me?
Okay. It’s happening to you. Okay.
I get into a lot of those conversations as a priest.
They are always trying to pit one against the other.
It’s been going on for 2,000 years!
Because we hear Jesus getting it today in the gospel
in this reading about the Sadducees.
Let’s understand the context.
The Sadducees did not believe in the Resurrection.
The Pharisees believed in a shadowy version of the Resurrection
but the Sadducees did not believe in it at all.
They believed basically that if you were good now
then you were rewarded with goodness.
Your life was good.
You were healthy and wealthy; and all was good.
If you were not healthy or wealthy,
then you must be bad because the opposite is true.
We call that today the gospel of prosperity;
and it is very much imbedded in our society.
We think “Oh the Lord has blessed me!”
It noodles its way into our thinking and we don’t realize it’s there.
“Oh I’m blessed! The Lord has blessed me!”
As if our actions determine how God will reward us.
At some level we do believe that the Lord is good to us
and that he rewards us for our goodness.
But it is not true:
I know too many good people who have been good all their lives;
and have suffered terribly.
They have just got one bad thing happen after another.
I often wonder “Where is God?”
The Sadducees are going at Jesus with this mindset.
They are almost asking a trick question, right?
“Oh, so in the resurrection
there were these seven brothers who married the same woman.
So whose wife is she?”
They don’t even believe in the Resurrection
so they are not looking for the truth;
they are looking to be right.
And the challenge with that is it does not help us.
We believe as Catholics, as Christians, that life is eternal and
that no matter what happens to us in this life
that God is the God of the living and God of the dead
that God is present to us in all things at all times.
It even happens to me all the time.
For example, recently many of you know, I hurt my knee.
I don’t know how I did it or what I did
but I ended up in the Emergency Room;
and ended up with a walker; and I wasn’t able to walk.
It has been very frustrating.
For two weeks, I have not walked.
I can tell you that it must be at least 20 years
since I have not walked every day for two weeks.
I was getting really depressed.
Now this happened after I came back from pilgrimage.
I kind of had it out with the Lord and I said,
“Lord, I don’t understand you.
I just did this wonderful trip because you asked me to do it,
I led this pilgrimage trip;
gave everyone a great experience
and then this is what you do as soon as I come back.
Help me out. Any chance you could throw me a bone here?
Help me to understand how you reward the good.”
That’s only a veiled difference from the Sadducees.
It sounds lovely and pious but in fact,
there is not much difference between that
and what the Sadducees asked today.
In other words, if I do good, you need to reward me.
God is not in control; we are in control.
We have to understand that is just not true.
God is present to me just as much as when I’m sick
as he is when everything is going well.
I know that doesn’t feel good
because we want God to stop all those bad things from happening to us
and let them happen to all the bad people
but then we go back to the gospel of prosperity.
God is present to us at all times good and bad;
and no matter what happens, even if we die,
God is still present to us because we live for life eternal.
God is always with us and in all places.
Let me give you an example of this:
Boys and girls, you know that I have hurt my knee. Right?
And I have not been able to walk for two weeks.
I want to give you an example of how to be a saint.
And it is important for me because this week, I experienced it.
I wasn’t a saint.
It was one of you.
So here is what happened:
I haven’t been able to walk for two weeks.
And my dog woke up in the morning
and was looking at me asking me
“Take me for a walk.
It’s been two weeks since you took me for a walk.”
With those big puppy eyes looked at me.
I wrapped up my knee and
I took a very slow walk in the neighborhood.
Just a mile around the neighborhood.
And it felt wonderful.
And just as I was coming back, one of you,
a 2nd grader was jumping out of the car
as school drop-off was happening.
And he comes out and his eyes are beaming,
he looks up at me and says,
“Fr. Brendan, you’re up and you took Bella for a walk.
Oh, I’m so happy that you are better.
I have been praying for you every day since you got sick.”
And then he came up to me and gave me a big bear hug.
You know it made me cry, boys and girls?
That made me cry.
You have no idea how much I needed that little hug;
and how much I needed that little walk.
Boys and girls, we have to believe that God is with us at all times
and when we believe that these moments of grace happen to us.
You can be that boy or girl that does that to somebody else;
maybe your Mum and Dad has had a hard day.
We can transform somebody else’s day when we do that.
Does that make sense?
That is how you become the very saint
that you are dressed up as; it is not complicated.
It is not any massive thing
but it is about being present in the moment
and believing that God is there, right there,
in the middle of all of that;
and that sometimes we can be the presence of God to somebody else.
Does that make sense, boys and girls?
How you give your Mum and Dad a hug
when they have had a long day;
when you do something around the house;
when you do some of these little things;
that is you expressing God and
you have no idea how much that makes a difference in their lives.
Maybe your teacher.
Or maybe even a priest!
Boys and girls, head back to your seats;
let me finish this with your Mum and Dad.
Sometimes, we seek to be right in these arguments or discussions
and instead what we need to do is to seek
what is beautiful;
what is true; and
what is holy.
What does all that mean for us?
It means that we need to be open to these experiences.
We need to look around,
and maybe you do not have a child
who is going to run up and give you a hug
and tell you they are praying for you,
but you can look at these beautiful mountains
and no matter if your knee is hurting;
or your back is hurting;
or your head is hurting;
or whether your life is just in a bad space,
you can look up and be grateful for the goodness
that God is surrounding you with each day.
Or maybe you could look at your spouse,
or your child, or your parent;
and look at the goodness that God has brought here.
It may not be perfection
but it is goodness and holiness that surrounds us.
Once we believe that God is present to us at all times
then we start to see.
It is not the other way around.
We do not see it first and then believe;
it is that we believe it then we see it.
Today as we celebrate,
let’s not get into philosophical, theological
and certainly not political argument and seek to be right
but rather, look for the moments of conversion
that are moments of beauty, truth and of holiness.
They are all around us.
God is the God of the living and the dead;
and no matter where we are and
no matter what is happening in our lives,
God is present to us.
May we always look for the beautiful, the holy and the true.
