Homily 32nd Sunday: What happens to us after we die, depends on what we do before we die?

Homily for 32^nd Sunday of Ordinary Time Year C 2016

2 Maccabees 7:1-2,9-14, 2 Thessalonians 2:16-3:5 and Luke 20:27-38

Introduction

"What happens to us after we die?"  This is an important question that all human beings wonder about.  But perhaps during this election week, the question at the forefront of our minds instead is: "who should I vote for?"  I would like to suggest that in fact the two questions are somewhat related and I will try to show how.

The question of the after-life often receives one of two kinds of answers.

·        On the one hand, some hold that nothing happens after we die; this life is it.  After death there is nothing, zilch, nada!

·        On the other hand, others hold that there is life after death, but they don't agree on exactly what kind of life.  For example, some eastern religions believe in re-incarnation, with us coming back as plants or animals.

Fortunately, today's readings provide an answer to this question, an answer that not only tells us that there is life after death, but also what kind of life it is, and that what happens to us after we die, depends on what we do before we die.

Scripture and Theology

Both the gospel and the first reading teach us this message using the example of seven brothers and one woman: a wife and her seven husbands in one case, a mother and her seven sons in the other.

The setting of the gospel is an argument between Jesus and the Sadducees. The Sadducees were a group of temple priests who believed that only the first five books of the Bible were the Word of God; and since those books did not say anything about the resurrection, there must not be any life after death.

And so, they set before Jesus a situation of seven brothers who, one after another, married the same woman.  Following the law of Moses, they married her to raise up descendants for their deceased brothers, who had died childless. Perhaps also, they married the widow to support her financially and socially.

The Sadducees use this scenario to trap Jesus with this apparently difficult question: “Now at the resurrection whose wife will that woman be?”  They think that they have placed Jesus between a rock and a hard place.

·        If he says that she will be the wife of all seven brothers, that is ridiculous; since even in polygamy, men married multiple women and not vice versa.

·        His only alternative is to cave in and agree that there is no life after death.

But like a good debater, Jesus escapes the dilemma by demolishing the wrong assumptions on which 

their question is based.  They assume that life after death is exactly like life here on earth.  But Jesus corrects that view and shows that the resurrected life is entirely different from the kind of life we have here on earth.

·        In this life we die, like the seven brothers and the woman did.  And that is why in this life, we need to marry and beget children, so as to replace those who die and continue to propagate the human race.  Death and marriage are part of the human condition here on earth.

·        But life on the other side is quite different.  In that life, we don't die anymore; and that is why we don’t need to marry and beget children.  Those seven brothers and their wife, after death, had no more need for descendants; for they had reached the highest form of life, where, as St. John tells us, we shall be like God and we shall see him as he really is.

Clearly in this debate, Jesus is ahead: Jesus – 1, Sadducees - nil.  But wishing to score another point, he goes ahead to quote from Exodus, a book the Sadducees believed in.  He reminds them that when Moses met God at the burning bush, Moses called him, "the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob," using the present rather than past tense, to show that Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, although they had died centuries earlier, were in fact still alive on the other side.  Jesus – 2, Sadducees – 0.

The first reading from the book of Maccabees gives us another set of seven brothers and their mother.  They too, by their willingness to die rather than break the law of God, also teach us this something about the afterlife.  What they did is similar to what our military men and women, police officers and first responders do every day, putting their lives on the line, for the nation, peace, life, law and order.  As for the seven brothers and their mother, what motivates their courage and sacrifice is much greater and more valuable.  The words of the eldest brother sum up what they believe.  He says: “You are depriving us of this present life, but the King of the world will raise us up to live again forever.”

And so, what happens to us after we die?  Well it depends; if we have lived virtuous lives like these seven brothers, we can like them, hope to live with God forever.  We can hope to live the kind of life that has no more death, the kind of life where the love of wife and husband will be raised to a much higher level, so that it can be shared with more than just one person in the communion of saints.

Christian Life

Unfortunately, this teaching of Jesus, might be too distant for some of us.

·        Why should I think about death, that may not come for years down the road, when right now I have more urgent issues like work and bills, family and children to be concerned about?

·        Why should I think about the resurrection of the dead, whose timing even Jesus confessed not to know, when the future of our country is at stake during these elections?

And yet, like the Lord's prayer says, "your will be done on earth, as it is in heaven."  What we do here on earth affects what happens to us in the after-life!

During a recent interview, Pope Francis was asked by an American journalist, what advice he would give to American Catholics about this rather difficult election.  And this is what Pope Francis said:

You pose me a question where you describe a difficult choice, because, according to you, you have difficulty in one [candidate] and you have difficulty in the other. In electoral campaigns, I never say a word. The people are sovereign. I'll just say [this] a word: Study the proposals well, pray and choose in conscience.

The Catholic bishops of this country, including our own Archbishop Aymond, have essentially told us the same thing, giving us a list of important issues for us to study, pray and decide.

Of course not all Catholics have welcomed this guidance of the Church, suggesting that it is too general.  They say: "why don't the bishops and priests be more direct and tell us who to vote?"  When people ask me this question, what they often want me to do is to preach the particular decision that they have reached by their prayer and study in conscience.

But because I must be a father to all rather than merely a hero to some, my role as a minister of Christ is to form consciences, not to replace them with my own conscience, much less that of other Catholics.  Catholic ministers form consciences by our preaching the issues all year long, not just at election time.

Conclusion

The reason we must each follow our conscience is because when we get to the other side, we shall each stand before the Lord alone, to give an account of our decisions.  Nobody, not your political tribe, not your family and friends, and especially not your priest will answer for your decision.

Because we are dual citizens of earth and heaven, it is only by carrying out faithfully our citizenship here on earth, can we hope to secure our citizenship in heaven.  May God guide our consciences now and always.