32nd Sunday in Ordinary Time
07 November 2010
First reading 2 Maccabees 7:1-2,9-14
There were seven brothers who were arrested with their mother. The king tried to force them to taste pig’s flesh, which the Law forbids, by torturing them with whips and scourges. One of them, acting as spokesman for the others, said, ‘What are you trying to find out from us? We are prepared to die rather than break the laws of our ancestors.’
With his last breath the second brother exclaimed, ‘Inhuman fiend, you may discharge us from this present life, but the King of the world will raise us up, since it is for his laws that we die, to live again for ever.’
After him, they amused themselves with the third, who on being asked for his tongue promptly thrust it out and boldly held out his hands, with these honourable words, ‘It was heaven that gave me these limbs; for the sake of his laws I disdain them; from him I hope to receive them again.’ The king and his attendants were astounded at the young man’s courage and his utter indifference to suffering.
When this one was dead they subjected the fourth to the same savage torture. When he neared his end he cried, ‘Ours is the better choice, to meet death at men’s hands, yet relying on God’s promise that we shall be raised up by him; whereas for you there can be no resurrection, no new life.’
Psalm: Psalm 16:1,5-6,8,15
Second reading 2 Thessalonians 2:16-3:5
May our Lord Jesus Christ himself, and God our Father who has given us his love and, through his grace, such inexhaustible comfort and such sure hope, comfort you and strengthen you in everything good that you do or say.
Finally, brothers, pray for us; pray that the Lord’s message may spread quickly, and be received with honour as it was among you; and pray that we may be preserved from the interference of bigoted and evil people, for faith is not given to everyone. But the Lord is faithful, and he will give you strength and guard you from the evil one, and we, in the Lord, have every confidence that you are doing and will go on doing all that we tell you. May the Lord turn your hearts towards the love of God and the fortitude of Christ.
Gospel Luke 20:27-38
Some Sadducees – those who say that there is no resurrection – approached him and they put this question to him, ‘Master, we have it from Moses in writing, that if a man’s married brother dies childless, the man must marry the widow to raise up children for his brother. Well then, there were seven brothers. The first, having married a wife, died childless. The second and then the third married the widow. And the same with all seven, they died leaving no children. Finally the woman herself died Now, at the resurrection, to which of them will she be wife since she had been married to all seven?’
Jesus replied, ‘The children of this world take wives and husbands, but those who are judged worthy of a place in the other world and in the resurrection from the dead do not marry because they can no longer die, for they are the same as the angels, and being children of the resurrection they are sons of God. And Moses himself implies that the dead rise again, in the passage about the bush where he calls the Lord the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. Now he is God, not of the dead, but of the living; for to him all men are in fact alive.’
Reflection
By Jeanne Therese Hilario-Andres
Reading the account of the excruciating torture and death of a mother and her seven sons in Maccabees, one would naturally think: Was this family insane to give up their lives for the sake of being faithful to God’s law? For the sake of not eating what was considered, under Jewish law, “unclean?” Wouldn’t it have been tempting and more sensible to break the law? Just once, just to get the persecutors off their case, and then flee to safety, repent, ask for God’s forgiveness, and live to serve God another day?
But no. Instead of rationalizing, instead of making excuses, this mother and her sons stuck to their guns. They even strengthened each other’s faith as they were killed off, one at a time. They died for refusing to do what they believed was wrong. They died for not being willing to displease the Lord.
We will never know if the mother or any of her sons ever wondered, in the midst of their suffering, if God would have wanted them to sacrifice their lives for the sake of being obedient to the legalisms of their faith. We don’t know what went through their minds as they saw each beloved member of their family tormented, made to suffer and die a painful death, one by one, as they watched. As humans, the desire to stay alive is instinctive, and for a mother, it is even more instinctive to protect one’s offspring, at any cost. Surely, this Jewish family did not have a collective death wish? Surely, they DID want to live, DID have dreams and ambitions, just like the rest of us? What, then, drove them to forsake all these built-in survival instincts and relinquish their futures, their dreams and their lives?
Perhaps, just this: They regarded obedience to the Lord as their most important purpose on earth. For them, honouring the law of God was worth more than everything else they possessed, even their own lives. They considered God’s love to be a greater good, a finer treasure than life itself. And equally important, they believed that God and God alone was the Giver of life, who could raise them up from death, and would give them everlasting life.
As we reflect on the first reading more deeply, we realize that the whole crux of the story is not about the importance of following religious dietary laws or restrictions at all, to the point of sacrificing one’s life. What is or is not unclean, what is or is not fit to eat, is NOT the issue. This is much more than a sad, violent story which happened in Old Testament times. Indeed, this story is here to remind us of a truth which is timeless, which remains relevant to us now in the 21st century: God’s love is finer than life. God’s friendship is worth more than the riches of the universe. Life with God for eternity far outweighs the short, finite joys of earthly life.
All the saints, all the martyrs throughout the ages, including this woman and her seven sons, they got it right. They knew this truth. They lived by it. They died by it. All in the hope of the joy and glory to come.
In the context of this truth (the big picture of the resurrection and of eternal life with God), the question the Sadducees pose to Jesus in today’s Gospel thus seem to me even more ridiculous, irrelevant and small. The Sadducees did not believe in the resurrection of the dead, and so we can imagine how they must have wanted to trap Jesus and try to publicly disprove him. Imagine having the Giver of life, the Son of God, sitting amongst you, teaching and showing you what you must do to gain eternal life, and all you can think of to ask him is, “when the seven brothers are raised from the dead, whose wife will the woman be?”
Which is why, every time I read Jesus’ calm yet firm response in this passage from Luke, I fall in love with Him just a little bit more and want to become more like him. How can I not help but admire His infinite patience with those wily, legalistic and detail-obsessed Sadducees? Oh, Jesus knew what they were up to, of course. But He remained unperturbed by their nasty intentions and responded with grace and clarity. If I had been there when they had asked Jesus, I would probably have butted in, in what I am sure would be a much shriller tone of voice than Jesus’, saying, “Would you please stop being absurd and listen to Him? Jesus says eternal life will be on a whole different dimension from what we know now! We will be united with God as His children, never to be separated again from Him, and death won’t be able to touch us anymore. No more sin, no more sorrow, no more disease, no more pain, no more tears, no more loneliness, no more death, no more drama! Zero, nought, zilch! Marriage— and all those things which are important to us now on earth— will fade away into insignificance, and once we finally see God face to face, nothing else will matter! So instead of nitpicking, start believing! Start living your earthly life preparing for and anticipating your eternal one!”
But then again, I probably wouldn’t have needed to, because Jesus did say it best, much better than any of us ever can. Will you listen to His promise of everlasting life and fix your eyes on eternity?
Lord, You alone are the Giver of life, and I believe that when the time comes, You will raise me up from death into eternal happiness with You. May no human love or earthly riches blind me to the precious treasure of seeing You face to face. Everyday, remind me of how Your love is infinitely better than anything I can ever imagine. Help me respond to this in a daily way, in the way I think, the way I move, the way I speak, the way I choose. Your love is bigger than all the minute afflictions I may undergo in my tiny and temporary universe. Give me spiritual eyes that I may always see with an eternal perspective. Teach me to value and desire what is timeless and everlasting, rather than what is short-term and fleeting. Amen.
Persevere With The End In Mind
No comments:
Post a Comment
Tell us what you feel...