32nd Sunday of the Year C (10 Nov 2019)
Homily of Fr. Paul Panaretos, S.J.
Alive to God
Alive to God
Like people of every age we read history through our culture and our norms. A result is that we tame the scriptures and much of the ancient, Middle-Eastern culture of Jesus. A cultural historian put it well: “The Middle-Eastern culture of Jesus was a rough-and-tumble world. Modern-day ‘negative campaigning’ and sharp political debates are tame in contrast.”1 Jesus’ debate with the Sadducees was more “rough-and-tumble” than hearing it may suggest.
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All Jews did not believe alike. Sadducees believed only the first five books of scripture, not in the prophetic or other writings. Because resurrection from the dead was not stated in the five books of Moses they didn’t believe it. It developed a century before Jesus.We heard a Maccabean martyr testify to God’s fidelity: You accursed fiend, you are depriving us of this present life, but the King of the world will raise us up to live again forever. It is for his laws that we are dying. Note the insult on the martyr’s lips.
Insults were common; they asserted one’s standing against others. Better to show a command of language rather than shriek in pain. Even the king and his attendants marveled at the young man’s courage, because he regarded his sufferings as nothing. Insults were also common among the learned. In debates with Pharisees and scribes Jesus called them hypocrites.2 Hypocrite meant actor as Jesus and his contemporaries used it. The religious professionals only acted a role; they were not attuned with God’s heart.
Sadducees conflicted with Pharisees on many fronts; one was the resurrection from the dead. When Sadducees bated Jesus over it he insulted grown men by rehearsing the facts of life: procreation is necessary for mortal humans, but life with God means absolutely new, indestructible life. Nor did Sadducees believe in angels, so Jesus aimed at their disbelief: not only are those raised from the dead like angels; they are the children of God, “a favorite Old Testament name for angels…since they share in the resurrection, a life-giving act of God.”3
Jesus also insulted the Sadducees’ priestly ability to interpret. He quoted scripture they believed. Moses called God the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. Our logic is not theirs; their logic was this: one would shame the living God by joining dead ones to God. The living God no part with death. With that logic Jesus rebutted that Moses, in whom the Sadducees believed, would have shamed God if he joined dead ones to God. Meaningful for us is that in a way unknown to humans yet very real Abraham , Isaac and Jacob are alive to God.
In our time and culture Jesus is not encouraging us to insult. Jesus encourages us to let our images of God be alive in ways we experience is real yet beyond us at the same time. How might that register in us? The responsorial psalm suggests confidence in God present with me and for me. I call upon you, for you will answer me, O God…and upon waking I shall be content in your presence. This is not magical or immature; it is to live the faith of Jesus, the Source of our faith.
Give Jesus 15 minutes each day this week.
- Rest in the presence our triune God.
- Ask Mary and your patron saint to present you to Jesus.
- Thank Jesus for dying and rising for us; thank him for the everlasting encouragement he offers us by Holy Spirit to make him present by how we live.
- Ask for grace to live more attuned to the Spirit to help us walk with the endurance of Christ.
- Close saying slowly the prayer Jesus taught us. Christian endurance allows us to make alive his words, on earth as it is in heaven.
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- John J. Pilch, The Cultural World of Jesus, Sunday by Sunday, Cycle C (Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, 1997), pp. 161-163. A shorter form may be viewed at The Sunday Website.
- The word is especially concentrated in Matthew 6-7; 23. Also Luke 6.42; 12.56; 13.15; Mark 7.6.
- Pilch.
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