Raising up Dead Men & Dead God

Franciscan Fr. Mychal Judge

Raising up Dead Men & Dead God

November 7,, 2010, 32nd Sunday of Ordinary Time
2Mac 7: 1-2, 9-14 2Thess 2:16-3:5 Luke 20:27-40

Alleluia, alleluia.
A reading from the holy Gospel according to Luke.
Glory to you, Lord.

Then some Sadducees, who do not believe in the resurrection of the dead, approached Jesus with a wily question: “The Law of Moses states that if a man dies without children, the man’s brother shall marry the widow in order to procreate children who will legally carry on the man’s name.[1] We know of a family of seven brothers. The oldest married and then died without any children. And so it went, one after the other, until each of the seven had married her and died, leaving no children. Finally the woman died also. Now we have a question we want to ask you: whose wife will she be in your `supposed resurrection‘of the dead? Remember all seven of them were married to her!”

Jesus answered them, “How wrong you are! It is because you don’t know the Scriptures or God’s power. For when the dead rise to life, they will be like the angels in heaven who have no bodies and do not marry. Now, as for the dead rising to life: have you not read what God said to Moses when He appeared to him in the burning bush? He said, `I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.’[2] If God said He is their God, then these men are not really dead, for God is a God of living, not dead, people. ” When the people heard this, they were amazed at Jesus' teaching. Some of the Scribes (who do believe in the resurrection of the dead) responded, “Well, said, Teacher.” After that the Sadducees didn’t dare ask Him any more questions.

The Word of Lord.
Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ.

----------------
Introduction
Seasonal light and darkness

On this first Sunday of November 7th 2010, Daylight Saving Time ends at 2 AM, and we return to Standard Time. Today we set our clocks back: 6 AM becomes 5 AM. It’s lighter now when we get up at 6 AM. With Standard Time 4 PM becomes 3PM, and it’s darker now when we go home from work or school. It’s that season of the year when the light and darkness impinge themselves noticeably upon our psyches.

Pharisees playing gotcha

In the scripture passage immediately preceding today's gospel some Scribes [3] were playing 'gotcha' with Jesus.

He had just told a parable which was aimed against them. That angered them, but they were too afraid to do anything openly against Jesus, for they feared the people with whom He was popular. So they sent some agents who were to try to catch Jesus in saying something against the authority of Rome which occupied their land. The agents asked Him a wily question:”Master, we know you always tell the truth. Now tell us—is it right to pay taxes to Rome or not?” If He said “no” it is not right to pay taxes to Rome, that would anger the Romans. If He said “yes” it is right to pay taxes to Rome, that would enrage His fellow-Jews. Jesus answered then, “Render to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.” His clever answer outwitted the wily question of the Scribes (most of whom were Pharisees[4]). ”Unable to trap Jesus and astonished by His answer, they fell silent.” (Lk 20: 19-26) At the end of the day, the passage is more about gotcha than about whether or not it is OK for a Jew to pay taxes to Roman occupiers.

Sadducees playing gotcha

Immediately following the “Render to Caesar” Scripture is today’s gospel in which the Sadducees,

[5] are also playing `gotcha’ with Jesus. The Sadducees (who don’t believe in the resurrection of the dead) approach Jesus with a `serious question.’ A woman whom they knew had gone through seven husbands (all of them brothers), who one by one died. Now they ask Jesus whose wife will she be in His `so-called resurrection of the dead’? The Sadducees were simply out to stump Jesus, and show how foolish was His idea of a resurrection of the dead. If they could stump Him (a reputable itinerant preacher), that would indeed be a big feather in their hat. At the end of the day, today’s gospel is more about gotcha than about whether men do or do not rise from the dead.

Murderers of God

Down through the ages we humans have always been plagued by the problem of dead men; do they really rise from their graves? Christian faith settles that doubt for us. In the Apostles’ Creed we profess belief “in the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come.” That in turn is predicated on the belief that “on the third day He rose again from the dead,” and that He has now become “the guarantee that those who sleep in death will also be raised.” (I Cor. 15:20)

However, the problem of dead men which has plagued us down through the ages has been superseded in the present age by a strange new problem: that of a dead God! The expression "God is dead” is a famous quote from the German philosopher Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844–1900).

[6] In his work, The Madman, he places the expression in the mouth of a demented man who declares,

God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed Him. How shall we (murderers of all murderers) comfort ourselves? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has known has bled to death under our knifes. Who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to cleanse ourselves? (The Madman)

God murdered by `religious’ people

Jesus crafted a great parable about God murdered by `religious’ people. 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 Levite who passed the poor man by, leaving him to die by the side of the road. Those `religious’ people murdered God for the poor man waylaid by robbers. And it was `an irreligious’ good-for-nothing

[7] Good Samaritan who brought God came back to life for the poor man. Nietzsche was right about man’s power to murder God. And strange to say, it is `religious’ people who far more effectively murder God than irreligious people!

God murdered by Nazis

72 years ago this coming Tuesday, 2010, on November 9, 1938, the Nazis rampaged through Germany and in one night destroyed 7000 Jewish businesses and torched 191 synagogues. That night goes down in history as Krystallnach.

[8] It marks the beginning in earnest of the Holocaust. By the time the German Nazis had accomplished their 'final solution of the Jewish problem' they had murdered six million Jews.

But the Nazis had murdered not only Jews, but also and especially murdered God Himself; the most prominent fatality of the Holocaust was God Himself! Elie Weisel, the Holocaust’s most noted Jewish survivor, recounts in his little volume entitled Night his first evening in the concentration camp of Buchenwald. There he saw the bodies of little children going up in smoke from the crematories. He writes, “That was the night which murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams into dust. Never shall I forget it, even if I am condemned to live as long as God Himself. Never!“ Nietzsche was right about man’s great power to murder God.

God murdered by empty ritualists

Even ritualists can murder Him. Karl Jung, the father of modern psychology and the son of a minister described the day of his First Holy Communion for which he had great expectations.

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 in them. 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 of church, 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.

Like that first night in the concentration camp of Buchenwald which had murdered God for Elie Weisel, the day of Jung’s First Holy Communion had in its own way soundly murdered God for Jung. Only gradually in the course of the following days did it dawn on Jung that nothing had happened on that long anticipated day. And he found himself saying, “I must never go back there again, for there I experienced not life but death.” He never returned; his First Communion proved to be so fatal that it became his very last! (Memories, Dreams, Reflections by Jung) Nietzsche was right about man’s great power to murder God.

A murdered God raised up from the dead

If man murders God, man also raises Him from the dead. On 9/11, 2001, Islamic terrorists soundly murdered God for New Yorkers and for the whole nation. The story of Franciscan Fr. Mychal Judge, a celibate gay man, a recovering alcoholic, and a chaplain for the New York Fire Dept. was one of the first to come out of the apocalyptic event of 9/11. He had taken off his helmet to give the last rites to a dying fireman when suddenly debris came crashing down upon him. He died there on the spot, and his body was carried off to a nearby church, and there was laid upon the altar.

Fr. Mychal was a legend in N. Y. City. He was famous for his encyclopedic memory for people’s names, birthdays and passions. He knew everyone from the homeless to the Mayor. 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 wasn’t acquisitive or grabby; he was utterly unselfish and uncomplaining. He was the `saint of the streets of New York City.’ He’d tell drunkards lying in those streets that they weren’t bad people -- that they simply have a disease that makes them think they’re bad, and that’s going to foul them up.

No wonder then that when the Mass of Christian Burial was held for him (September 15, 2001,) it was presided over by Cardinal Edward Egan,

and was attended by a throng of more than 2,800 people. And when a Month's Mind Memorial was held for Fr. Judge, ( October 11, 2001), 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 to memorialize a Roman Catholic priest in an Anglican church. Fr. Mychal’s generous life which was always giving, and his selfless death in which he gave everything, raised up for New Yorkers and the nation a God murdered by Islamic extremists on 9/11.

Conclusion
Man’s mighty power

The murderers of God come in all shapes and forms. They are Jewish priests and Levites, `religious’ people, who walked right by a man in great need. They are Nazis who incinerated human beings in the crematories of Auschwitz, Buchenwald and Dachau. They are empty ritualists who made the bread and wine taste flat, and who sent the congregation swiftly pealing out of church “neither depressed nor illumined with joy,” and with faces which seemed to say, "Well, that's that."

Nietzsche was right about man’s deadly power to murder God. He was also wrong; he neglected to speak of man’s mighty power to raise up God murdered by man. That’s the power of the Good Samaritan, who raised up a God murdered by `religious’ people walking right by. That’s the mighty power of people like Fr. Mychal Judge who, for N.Y. City and the entire nation, raised up a God soundly murdered on 9/11.

[1] Dt. 25:5-6
[2] Exodus 3:6
[3]` The Scribes were not a religious party but a profession; they were copyists of Scripture (paid by the line,) and some were also teachers of the Law.
[4] Pharisees were a religious party, strict in observing the Law of Moses, to which they added a huge accretion of rules and regulations of their own.
[5] Sadducees were a small Jewish religious sect composed mostly of priests, who believed only in the first five books of the Old Testament. They did not believe in the resurrection, and they rejected the many accretions of the Pharisees.
[6] In the middle of the 20th century; there rose a group called the `Death of God Theologians.” Their message: God is dead! The movement quickly passed.
[7] Samaritans were considered as half-breeds and heretics by Jews.
[8] The Night of the Shattered Crystal