God
and Man Resurrected from the Dead
2Maccabees 7:
1-2, 9-14 2Thessalonians
To the church in the
diaspora[1]
& to the church of
the unchurched[2]
Alleluia,
alleluia.
A reading from
the holy Gospel according to Luke.
Glory to you,
Lord.
First reading
It happened that seven brothers
with their mother were arrested and tortured with whips and scourges by the
king to force them to eat pork in violation of God's law. One of the brothers,
speaking for the others, exclaimed, “What are you trying to find out from us?
We are prepared to die rather than break the law of our ancestors.” The king
had him put to death by means of indescribable torture. The king and his men inflicted
the same torture upon a second son who exclaimed with his last breath, “Inhuman
tyrant, you might send us from this present life, but the King of the world
will raise us up to live again forever since it is for his laws that we die.” Then
they tortured a third son who exclaimed, “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.” Then the king and his men tortured a fourth son. As he was about to
expire he exclaimed “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. For you, however, there can be no resurrection to new
life.”
Gospel
Then some Sadducees, who do not
believe in the resurrection of the dead, came to Jesus. He said to them, "As
to your question—whether or not there is a resurrection— even the writings of
Moses himself prove this. For when he describes how God appeared to him in the
burning bush, he speaks of God as being
the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob, as though they were
alive. He does not speak of God as having
been the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob, as though
they were dead. So to say that the Lord is some person’s God means that
person is alive, not dead. From God’s
point of view, all men are living.”
The Gospel of
the Lord.
Praise to you, Lord Jesus
Christ.
----------------
Introduction
Dead sure
The Maccabees brothers were dead sure that
God would raise them up on the last day. The Sadducees, on the other hand, were
dead sure that God does not raise the dead up on the last day. By a kind of
convoluted thought process, Jesus proved the resurrection to the Sadducees by
reminding them that the writings of Moses speak of God not as having been but as being the God of Abraham, Isaac and
Jacob. That bit of convolution proved to the Sadducees that Abraham, Isaac and
Jacob were not dead but alive.
Eventually we all wonder about resurrection
from the dead. We do not wonder about it when we are young. We do wonder about
it when we are 82 years old and are living on borrowed time. After 82 years, I, too, have developed a
convoluted approach to the question of the dead rising. When God is dead for us, then it is difficult
(in fact, impossible) for the heart and mind to believe in a dead God raising
up dead people. When, however, God is
alive for us, then it is easier for the heart and mind to believe in a living
God raising up our loved ones and us from the dead on the last day.
A dead God
”God
is dead” was the fashionable cry of a group of philosophers in the middle of
the 20th century. They were called The Death of God Theologians. As a theological movement
it did not attract a large following nor did it find a unified expression. It passed
on as quickly and dramatically as it had arisen. The
expression "God is dead"
is a famous quote from the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. It first
appeared in his book The Cheerful Science. In section 125 of that work he wrote,
“God
is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we comfort
ourselves -- the
murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the
world has yet known has bled to death under our knives. Who will wipe this
blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves.”
God
murdered by religious people
Who are the murderers of God? A
man going from Jerusalem to Jericho was
waylaid by robbers and was left dying by the side of the road. Along came a
Jewish priest and a Levite. With monstrous inhumanity and indifference they
passed the poor man by, leaving him to die by the side of the road. Those
religious people, precisely because they were religious, effectively murdered God for that poor man and made it quite
impossible for him to believe that his God, who was dead, was going to raise
him up on the last day.
God
murdered by Nazis
Who are the murderers of God? Perhaps no other event of the 20th Century and perhaps of
all recorded human history so murdered God as did the Holocaust. In fact, the
Holocaust was a powerful factor in the sudden rise of the Death of God Theologians in the 1960s. In his book entitled Night, Jewish author Elie Weisel (a very well-known survivor of the
Holocaust) writes of his first night in the concentration camp of Buchenwald where he saw the bodies of
little children going up in smoke from the crematories. “That was the night which murdered my God and
my soul and turned my dreams into dust. Never shall I forget these things, even
if I am condemned to live as long as God Himself. Never!" The German Nazis
had murdered God for Elie Weisel and
made it impossible for him to believe that his God, who was dead, was going to
raise him up on the last day.
God murdered
by ritualists
Who are the murderers of God? Karl Jung, the father of
modern psychology, masterfully describes the deadly day of his first Holy
Communion which was supposed to be a great moment in his young and bourgeoning religious
life.
I
awaited the day with eager anticipation, and the day finally dawned. There
behind the altar stood my father in his familiar robes. He read prayers from
the liturgy. On the white cloth covering the altar lay large trays filled with
small pieces of bread which came from the local baker whose goods were nothing
to brag about. I watched my father eat a
piece of the bread and then sip the wine which came from the local tavern. He
then passed the cup to one of the old men. All were stiff, solemn, and it
seemed to me uninterested. I looked on in suspense, but could not see nor guess
whether anything unusual was going on inside the old men.... I
saw no sadness and no joy. Then came my turn to eat the bread which tasted
flat, and to sip the wine which tasted sour. After the final prayer, the people
all pealed out, neither depressed nor illumined with joy; rather their faces
seemed to say, “Well, that’s that." In
a minute or two the whole church was emptied.
Only gradually in the
course of the following days did it dawn on me that nothing had happened. In
addition, I found myself saying, "Why, that is not religion at all. It is
an absence of God; the church is a place I should not go to. It is not life
which is there, but death"
(Memories, Dreams, Reflections).
The day of his
very first Holy Communion proved fatal for Jung; it proved to be the day of his
very last Holy Communion! Those rote ritualists with their passionless prayers
and ho-hum homilies murdered God for Jung and made it impossible for him to believe that his
God, who was dead, was going to raise him up on the last day.
A murdered God raised up by
a Samaritan
It is man who
murders God and puts Him in the grave. However, it is also man who raises God
from the dead. A man was
going from Jerusalem to Jericho and was
waylaid by robbers and left half-dead. Along came a Jewish priest and a Levite.
With monstrous cruelty and indifference they passed him by, and thereby murdered
God for the poor man. But along came a Samaritan who stopped to pour the oil of
compassion in his wounds, then hoisted the man’s dead weight upon his beast of
burden and hurried him off to the nearest inn where he paid for his care and
cure. The Samaritan raised up a dead God murdered by a Jewish priest and Levite,
and made it possible for the poor man to believe that a living God would raise
him up on the last day.
A murdered God raised up by a priest
It is man who murders God and puts Him in
his grave. However, it is also man who raises God from the dead. On 9/11, Usama bin Laden murdered God for
Mychal
had an encyclopedic memory for
people’s names, birthdays and passions. He knew everyone from the homeless to
Mayor Giuliani. Though he was a true New Yorker, born and raised in the city,
he lived on an entirely different plain of priorities than most New Yorkers. He
was non-acquisitive. He was non-grabby. He was utterly unselfish and
uncomplaining. No wonder then that his entire funeral was televised from start
to end. And when they held a memorial
service for him, an endless flow of priests, nuns, lawyers, cops,
firefighters, homeless people, rock-and-rollers, recovering alcoholics, local
politicians and middle-age couples from the suburbs streamed into Good Shepherd
Chapel on Ninth Ave in Manhattan, an Anglican
church, to do a memorial for a Roman Catholic priest.
For
New Yorkers Fr. Mychal raised up a God murdered by 9/11 and made it possible for them to believe again in a
living God who would raise them up on the last day.
A murdered God raised up by
lively liturgists
It is man who
murders God and puts Him in his grave. However, it is also man who raises God
from the dead. Karl Jung speaking of the lethal liturgy
of his first Holy Communion, wrote, “Why, that is not religion
at all. It is an absence of God; the church is a place I should not go to. It
is not life which is there but death." Listen to a remarkable e-mail
account of a living liturgy which was a whole light year away from Jung’s
lethal liturgy.
My husband and I were in
I so enjoyed the
service. Father was absolutely fabulous, his sermon was out of this
world, the choir was phenomenal, the lector was dynamic and the beauty of your
church was just so stunning. It was a pivotal moment for us, especially
me. I lighted a candle after Mass for
our lost baby, and I am looking forward with hope to our family’s future.
I know now that God has bigger plans for our family – bigger than we even
realize, and I know we are blessed. Gratefully…. “
That indeed is a whole light year away from Jung’s
lethal liturgy which dismissed a crowd with faces which were neither depressed
nor illumined with joy, but which simply seemed to say, “Well, that’s that!” If
that woman’s God was for the moment murdered by her miscarriage, lively
liturgists of celebrant, homilist, singers and lectors raised Him up from the
dead for her and made it easier for her to believe in a living God who would raise up her little angel and her on
the last day.
Conclusion
A favor repaid
Friedrich Nietzsche said that God is dead, and that He was murdered by man. He’s right. The Jewish priest and Levite murdered God for the poor man dying on
the road to Jericho when they passed right by him. The Nazis murdered God for Elie Weisel’s in
the concentration camp of Buchenwald. The ritualists murdered God for Jung on
the day of his first Holy Communion.
Nietzsche also said that God is dead and remains dead. There
he is dead wrong! God does not remain dead, for the Good Samaritans and the Mychal Judges and the lively
liturgists of this world bring God back to life for us, and make it easier for
us to “believe in the resurrection of
the dead and the life of the world to come” (Apostles’ Creed).
1] Diaspora is a Greek word
meaning dispersion. Originally it referred to the settling of scattered
colonies of Jews outside
[2]] By the “the unchurched” is
especially meant not those who have left the church but those whom the church
has left!