Children Of The Resurrection

By Archbishop Joseph Harris.

Gospel 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.”

Homily

The western culture in which we live has told us over and over again that greatness lies in how many material things we can accumulate. We have even let that mentality affect our spirituality, so that we see holiness in how perfect we have become. Today’s Gospel passage has Jesus refuting that mentality.

In the culture of Jesus time, women were given inferior status and they found their identity in having children. A childless woman was a nobody. That is the reason St. Elizabeth, mother of John the Baptist and cousin of the Virgin Mary could say when she became pregnant “The Lord has taken away my shame.”

In the case put to Jesus by the Sadducees, the inferior status of the woman is summed up in the Sadducees’ question “To which of them will she be wife?” which can be interpreted as “She has no husband, so who will she be?”

Jesus answers the Sadducees by distinguishing between “children of this world” and “children of the resurrection”. Children of this world take husbands and wives and have children i.e. they devote themselves to achieving things. They define themselves by their achievements. In order to achieve they very often sacrifice very important values, truth, honesty integrity, compassion. The problem of course is that when we lose the things that we have achieved, we experience ourselves as nobodies. How many suicides have occurred because of that feeling of being a nobody. Children of the resurrection on the other hand, do not define themselves by achievements, “they do not marry, they have no children” but yet are found worthy of a place in the other world. “Why? Because they have lived with integrity and truth. This is in fact the message of Jesus’ death and resurrection. He had nothing to show for his efforts. He died on the cross, his followers ran away in the moment of danger, but he rose to new life precisely because he lived with integrity and truth. Pilate, who had the power, had no need or desire for truth. Remember his words to Jesus, “Truth! What is truth?” He who scoffed at the notion of truth, He has never risen, not even in the estimation of men.

Today the Gospel calls us to celebrate and to thank God for the children of the resurrection that we know; People who do not define themselves by their achievements.

We remember of course the great saints who in their earthly lives were not considered to be very much, but we remember also those many people who work and struggle against great odds for causes such as non-violence, prison reform, for the abolition of capital punishment, for harmony between religions, liberation of oppressed people, and equality for women. Often they do not see tangible results, are not praised, are condemned even; their sacrifices seem useless but they continue to live fulfilled and productive lives. They maintain their dignity, their sense of self worth, their sense of humour – they “cannot die”. If we ask them, “Who are you?” they will answer like Jesus, “I am a son or daughter of God.” They teach us that true fulfillment does not come from linking our identity to achievements, but rather from having our identity linked to the integrity of our lives.

As always the meditation on the Gospel forces us to look at ourselves. Today we ask, to what have I linked my identity? May the grace of the risen Lord help us all to understand that achievements by themselves do not form our identity. May we all understand that our true identity can only come from living lives founded on truth and integrity.

Prayer

All powerful and ever-loving God, we live in a world which defines us by our achievements. Help us to understand that the only thing which defines us before the Father is the integrity of our lives. Give us the grace not to be seduced by the false criteria of this world so that we may be alive for God and deemed worthy to attain to the coming age and to the resurrection of the dead. We ask this through the intercession of Jesus your Son and Mary, our Mother. Amen