Ep 4: You Are More Than Your Present Life [Homily]

Homily by: Fr. Philip Merdinger
Recorded: 11/10/2019 (32nd Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C)
First Reading: 2 Maccabees 7:1-2, 9-14
Gospel Reading: Luke 20:27-38 
Location: St. Lawrence Catholic Church and Newman Center at the University of Minnesota

Reflection Question:  What can you do to keep the reality that you are worth more than this present life at the forefront of your mind and heart?

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The first reading, everyone might not be familiar with it. It's from that part of the Old Testament, the story of the Maccabees. When Alexander the Great died prematurely, having conquered all the Near East, his kingdom was divided up amongst his generals. So each general took over one section, and the general that took over the area where Palestine is decided that in order to emphasize unity amongst us all, he decided to suppress all particular religions and only have certain sacrifices to pagan gods.

This spurned a resistance by the Jewish people, and particularly a family of the Jewish people. They were given the nickname Maccabee, which means hammer, because what they did to their enemies was a hammer. So the story of the Maccabees includes this story and this account, which is read in the first reading this morning.

But I want to risk something with you this morning. I want to speak about the future. I don't mean five years from now. I mean your future after this life is finished. You think, well, I mean where's the reality in that? I have my apps. I have got 500 apps on my phone, and here's where reality is. It's all here. It's all here. It's the various things that I go one after the other after the other after the other after the other. That's the world I live in, that really life is who I know and what I wear. So talking to me about after death, where is that at? What is the reality of that?

So I suppose it's dismissed by many of us as being pleasant, perhaps, but irrelevant, because it's the present that counts, and nothing else than the present. But I think if you ponder the matter a little bit, wouldn't you want to say that you're more than that? Wouldn't you want to say that your life is more than the present, that your life is more important than any of those apps that promise total bliss? Your life is more than that.

It's the instinct in the human race that surfaces, especially either where there's a lot of persecution, say during the Second World War when the Jewish people in particular were persecuted, but in times of great prosperity like we're living in now with so much available to us. Whip out that credit card. Just spend it. And we're accustomed to that.

So what do you want to tell me about something beyond that? Okay, when I'm dying then you can tell me about it, but not until then. Okay? I think that's where a number of people live, wouldn't you say? The present and the immediate future, what am I going to do with a job or career after I leave the university or whatever, that's where life is at. And I don't need to go anywhere beyond it.

But I would propose to you that you're worth more than that, that you're worth more than the present, that you're worth more than the career that you want to embrace. You're worth more than the situation of marriage or celibacy that you enter into as your life state. You're worth more than those things. And if you're worth more than those things, than those present things, then it's important for us every once in a while to talk about them. It's important every once in a while to talk about them.

So I decided to do it today, because the Gospel talks about Jesus says, "The children of this age, our age, marry and remarry, but when they have passed into the next age that is their life before God Himself, the marriage and any other human arrangement is set aside, because some else is happening." So that's where I'd like to ask you to engage me in this, that you're worth more than anything that the present life brings to you. You're worth more than anything that the present life promises to you. You're worth more than any kind of advertising that tells you that you'll be in bliss if you buy, have, do this or that. You're worth more than those things. You will meet people in your life who don't think they're worth more, and their lives are a perpetual sadness, often ending up in death.

But if you think you're worth more than all of those things, then the Gospel has something to say to you, and it's this: once you have been given life, brothers and sisters, nothing can take it from you: not death, not sickness, not anything. Nothing can take what God does for you, and that God has given you life. Out of all the possibilities He gave life to you, to me. Nothing can ever erase that, no human action, no human activity, no human tragedy, nothing, because we are worth more than anything this world has for us, even though it has so much for us, all those apps and all the promise of happiness that they offer to us.

So that's why we need to talk about what happens after this life is finished, because you're worth more than this life. I hope that in life you're never deceived by the evil one who says, "You're only what this life is." No, you're worth far more than that. Because once God has given you life, and it's very evident that there's lots of life in this church, once God has given you life nothing can ever take it away: not your death, not your illness, not your mind, not your strengths. Nothing can ever take that life away.

Because what God has in mind for you is that when He gave you life He has not only a vision for this life, the life of apps, but He's got a vision for you forever, beyond even this life. Now the cynic amongst can say, "Well, who cares? Right? Who cares? It's very nice to hear. Maybe at Sunday morning homily it's nice to hear these things, but really, who cares? It's all now. It's all now. If it's not now, it ain't."

And brothers and sisters, 2000 years of Christian life says that's a lie, and you can be deceived, and the Lord doesn't want that for you. He doesn't want you to be deceived about how important you are, how you, as an expression of God's creative power, and me too, we're worth more than anything or anybody, because there's the gift of God in us.

So therefore when I speak about life after this life, I'm speaking about something that's for you. It's supposed to be the fullness of who you really are, and the Lord Jesus come not simply for this life, but He's come to prepare you and me for the fullness of life for which we were made, for which God gave us life to start with. God's gift of life, dearest brothers and sisters, is not some cheesy thing dependent upon this or that or that or that or that. It's His gift of love to you and to me.

So what the Gospels summons us today is to recognize that in me and in you. So whatever I do with my life, and I have lots of things I need to do with my life, whatever I do with my life, it's always going to be centered around I am more important than me. There's more to me than my life here. In fact what the Lord has in mind for us is that our relationship with Jesus Christ is meant to find its full maturity one day when we actually see Him—the church uses the phrase face-to-face. Nice phrase, isn't it? The church uses the phrases face-to-face to describe that you and I are going to see Him as He is.

We don't see Him as He is. We see Him under the species of the Eucharist, for example, or we see Him under the species of the Word that I'm proclaiming to you. That's only a hint. He wants us to see Him face-to-face. And when our life in the body is ended for whatever sets of reasons: age, disease, whatever, our life is not ended at all, because you're more important than that. You're more important than your body and your career and your marriage. You're more important than any of those things.

So the Lord says that to us today, because He wants to encourage us about where we are in fact going. The second reading puts it this way. "May our Lord Jesus Christ and the Father who has loved us give us everlasting encouragement and good hope, not only for this life, but for the permanency of our life in the Father's house."

So dearest brothers and sisters, I encourage you to hear this word. It may sound strange to you or maybe of little importance. Maybe it sounds, well okay, that's nice, but who cares? But I ask you to try to receive it, because that's the truth about who you are. Your meaningfulness, your importance, your worth, far exceeds anything about you in the present life. Because the Father has given you life. You live because His life is in you and me. And because of that we have a future, a future of a life that's not going to simply pass away when this old body—which for me is old, not for you, but for me it's old, kind of broken down—when this one says, "I've given up. I can't do it anymore," beyond that there lies fullness of life.

And what is the fullness of life consist in? It doesn't consist in sitting around with halos being bored to death. It consists in attraction to the person of Jesus because I see Him. I see the Father with the eyes that are given to me by virtue of my passage from this life to the next. I see them in a way I have to see them in faith now.
But I will see them, and that sight, like any relationship, will fill me with such joy, will fill me with such power, will fill me with such fulfillment of everything that I've ever wanted to be in my life, will come to pass in the presence of the Father and the Son and the Spirit, in presence of Mother Mary and all the saints, in the presence of perhaps many of our relatives who have gone home to the Father's house. It's all there.

So I encourage us for today to accept this teaching, even if it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to you. Just try and receive it and let it mature inside your heart, so as you make your choices here in life on this earth, you'll make them in light of the future and what it holds out for you. I think, dearest brothers and sisters, if we will do that and not shrink back from that, not sink back into the apps of our world, but rather to look for the fullness of it, then our life takes on a shape and a form it can't take on otherwise, and that's what the Lord wants for you, wants for me. He fully expects it to happen, but we have to choose it for ourselves.

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Fr. Philip Merdinger is the founder of the Brotherhood of Hope and the national chaplain of Saint Paul's Outreach (SPO).