God is the God of the Living Not the dead

NOVEMBER 10TH, 2019 ~ 32ND SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME

LUKE 20:27-38

Some Sadducees, those who deny that there is a resurrection, came forward and put this question to Jesus, saying,

"Teacher, Moses wrote for us, if someone's brother dies leaving a wife but no child, his brother must take the wife and raise up descendants for his brother.

Now there were seven brothers; the first married a woman but died childless. Then the second and the third married her, and likewise all the seven died childless.  Finally the woman also died. Now at the resurrection whose wife will that woman be?

For all seven had been married to her."

Jesus said to them, "The children of this age marry and remarry; but those who are deemed worthy to attain to the coming age and to the resurrection of the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage. They can no longer die, for they are like angels; and they are the children of God because they are the ones who will rise. That the dead will rise even Moses made known in the passage about the bush, when he called out 'Lord, ' the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob; and he is not God of the dead, but of the living, for to him all are alive."

Our God is a God of the living not of the dead, for to him all are alive. We are alive for ever in relationship to God who loves us.

November is the month that we are invited to remember the Dead in a special way. We celebrated the feast of all Souls on November 2^nd, we remembered the day of the dead, we have our altar here in Church and most importantly we come together to remember those who have died and have gone before us every time we celebrate the Eucharist.

There are few references to heaven in the Scriptures. Jesus speaks about the Kingdom of God, he invites the good thief to paradise but today’s Gospel gives us a rare glimpse at what heaven is like.

I am a believer in Jesus Christ, I believe in the Resurrection of the dead but I also most confess that I am influenced by the American Popular culture. Mexican culture sees death as a friend, something to be embraced with joy, but the American culture sees death as the ultimate enemy, something to be avoided at all costs. In the American culture youth is better than old age, getting old is seen as a curse.

Even though scripture says so little about it most of you have an image of heaven. I think of my parents in heaven and I imagine them in some heavenly kitchen together, my nephews whom have died come over to visit, my grandparents live near by. I have this image of what heaven is like, and while I might not be wrong, there is nothing in scripture that supports this kind of image. A few years ago there was a book, “Heaven is for real.” It was the story of little boy who had died and came back to earth and in vivid detail he explained what heaven was like. The little boy’s heaven looked a like lot a upper middle class suburban neighborhood in the US, something Friendly Hills but without the traffic.

Scripture never talks about heaven in this way. When the scriptures speak of the after life the focus is completely on our covenant relationship with God. What is important in heaven is our relationship with God.

In the first reading we meet the Maccabee brothers: 7 brothers who very viciously martyred in the presence of their own mother.  As the brothers are lead to death they speak with confidence to the persecutors, but they don’t say, “You can’t hurt me; I’m immortal.” No there focus is completely on their relationship with God their creator. It is God who will reward them in the resurrection of the just. They aren’t dreaming about going to heaven where they will have no more pain or suffering. No they are dreaming about heaven where they will be in relationship with God who gave them life.

In the Gospel Jesus is talking to the Sadducees, the ones who do not believe in the Resurrection. They say there can be no resurrection because the first five books of the bible never mention it. And Jesus uses the same Torah to prove to them that there is a resurrection of the dead. He says, “God is the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, if Moses mentions them it must be because they are still alive in the eyes of God.

These readings remind us to put death in the proper perspective. We may wonder what life in heaven is like and come up with some vision of heaven that is just a perfect California, where there is no suffering, no pain and no traffic. That misses the point. Our faith in the resurrection rests in our hope in a permanent covenant relationship with a God who loves us. This puts our hope in life after death in the right place – not in wondering what heaven will be like, but wondering what God will be like.