Prior, Fr. Joel Macul, OSB - celebrant
2 Maccabees 7:1–2, 9–14
2 Thessalonians 2:16–3:5
Luke 20:27–38
Do we remember the last line of the creed we say every Sunday? After saying “I believe” and “I confess,” the last statement of the creed is introduced by “I look forward.” “I look forward to the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come.” The creed does not reach a climax in another “I believe” statement. After expressing our faith in the Creator God, his gift of the Son and the Spirit, and confessing the Church, we now move into where we are at the moment. At the moment I look forward to the resurrection of the dead and the life to come. All of what I believe shapes my present position; it defines me and my existence. Precisely because I believe in the mystery of God who raised Christ to his right hand and from there sends out his Spirit to make a new community, I can now name what I look forward to: namely resurrection. I have professed my faith in Jesus’ resurrection—now I can say that I look forward to my own.
The Word of Scripture we have heard this morning is the grounding for the last creedal statement. It clarifies clearly what I look forward to: resurrection. It also makes certain that I am in no delusion about what resurrection might look like. The words of the creed aside, we could ask ourselves what do I look forward to, really? Do I look forward to anything? And if I do, does it direct my actions, my life, my hope in the present. The Maccabean brothers are very clear about what they looked forward to, what they expected. If I say that I look forward to the resurrection each Sunday at the Eucharist then it may challenge my expectations, my longings, my desires. I may look forward to many things, but are they in line with the mystery of the resurrection, with God’s powerful love to transform us and gift us with new being? Can I look forward to something that is beyond my control or some thing that is pure gift-life that does not end?
The brothers from the Maccabean times a few hundred years before Christ eloquently give voice to what it is they look forward to. And what they look forward to clearly influences the choices they make in the face of threats against their lives. In the gospel, Jesus’ interaction with the Sadducees should help us to understand what the resurrection looks like.
It is helpful to know who the Sadducees are who are challenging Jesus about resurrection. They were an aristocratic body of Jews confined to Jerusalem for the most part. You could say they were the power behind throne. Originally all priests, by Jesus’ day probably a mixed body. Two things characterized them: politically and socially they curried favor with the Roman occupying forces. The majority of people wanted the Romans out. The Sadducees did not want anyone to disturb the status quo. The Roman presence allowed them to keep their social status. Religiously, they confined their scriptures to what was written in the first five books of the Bible. This meant they did not value the prophets or the wisdom of the elders that had accumulated over the centuries and was written down. This meant that for them they did not believe in angels or the resurrection as these were not to be found in Torah or Pentateuch; they were a later development. They were rather conservative in their thinking and certainly did not think in terms of developing doctrine. Apparently Jesus had spoken in favor of resurrection and they responded with an absurd argument against it. Jesus does not join them in their sarcasm but merely states that they have missed the point about resurrection. They simply do not understand it.
What was the problem? While mocking the idea of resurrection they thought of it in terms of this life: whose wife will the woman be if she married all seven? Jesus makes it clear that resurrection brings about a whole new order: a new order with regard to our bodies and then to our relationships. There is no marriage as there is no need of procreation or passing on the family name since there is no more death. All are alive.
We cannot but think of resurrection in terms of this world and this life. It is true that this life is all we know and it is inevitable that what we look forward to is somehow determined by present bodily experience. But Jesus doesn’t want resurrection to be determined by this life alone. It is far greater than that simply because the creator God has no limits. And yet resurrection is linked to this life; it is our dead bodies that rise but as a new creation. Recognizable but not the same; a new order of existence is working in the resurrection.
Jesus clashed with the Sadducees because he took the future out of their hands, out of our hands and gave it back to God for whom all things are alive. A resurrection, a future, left in our hands would hardly reflect the newness and transformation it demands. We tend to control, to manipulate and administer. Resurrection is not about some spark of life continuing on after we die; it is not about re-incarnation, the same life on earth with a better chance to make it work; it is not about resuscitation of dead bodies. Resurrection is about God breathing new life into what has grown old, tired and worn out. It has to be God’s work for he began it all, the universe, my unique being. He can and will make it all new.
Wherein lies the hope of the future. The hope says Jesus lies in the covenant. God covenanted, entered into a relationship, with Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, the prophets, the people of Israel. He covenanted with his Son, Jesus. Once God enters into a relationship, he does not let go. He is faithful, he is alive and so are those he has drawn into covenant with him. We who are in Jesus are in that living covenant, that relationship. We are alive for God in Christ Jesus, always alive in God.
Let us come back to the last line of the creed: It is challenging and even dangerous. What am I looking forward to? Have I grown comfortable with what is present? So comfortable that I am concerned only with making this life better on my terms? Have I so planned the future that I control everything about it? If so, then it might be a dead end. Do I determine the parameters of my relationships? Do I want he future to look what I think the present should be? Or is there in my expectations room for a surprise, for imagination, for what scripture calls the impossible? For us, the surprise that God offers is called resurrection—life in the heart of death.
Saying that I look forward to the resurrection of the dead is saying that I am allowing God to be the mysterious life force that shapes what I might call a dead end. It is saying that there is more here than I can imagine. If I look forward to resurrection from the dead, then my life here and now must be different. The life I am living is life with the God of the burning bush; it is a fire that burns yet does not destroy as Moses discovered. So, God’s burning love purifies all that it touches now until it is totally transformed in the resurrection to reflect the glory and beauty of the Creator who made it in his own image and likeness. Surely I can spend my days looking forward in hope to that transformation. And in so doing live with courage and strength and boldness. Surely, I can look forward to a life in which my love, our love now is crowned with a joy, intimacy and beauty that is beyond our wildest dreams. For those who love, God prepared the impossible, the unthinkable. That is where our creed ends, but that is where we begin to come alive.
~Prior, Fr. Joel Macul, OSB