32nd Sunday in Ordinary Time
[Fr. Chukwuezugo Nnamah]
First Reading: 2 Maccabees 7:1-2,9-14; Second Reading: 2 Thess 2:16-3:5;
Gospel: Luke 20:27-38
MY VALUES, MY LIFE.
The first reading today presents us a story of seven brothers with their mother from the second book of Maccabees. (We remember that 1st and 2nd Maccabees are among the seven Deutero-canonical books i.e. books considered by the Catholics as canonical books of the Old Testament, which are not among the canon of the Hebrew Old Testament books, and are
regarded by the Protestants as Apocryphal books).
In this story, the seven brothers decided to give themselves to torturous death. The question is why? The response is simple: Pork meat.
Yes…they vowed to die rather than to eat pork meat. Funny right? I mean, what is there in eating a meat of something that is part of God’s creation and Genesis 1 says that God, after having created anything, would look at it and say that it is good.
Hence, even pigs were created in goodness and have goodness in them. In the second chapter of Genesis, these creatures were
graciously offered to man to be their custodian and to serve man’s cautious nutrition. So, come on…why did these Maccabean brothers preferred death to eating sweet pork meat? Even the text says that the king only wanted them to have a taste of the pig’s flesh. What is there in eating a meat? Is their death not to be considered stupid and suicidal?
At the facial value, what is being asked is “to taste pork meat” but for the seven brothers, what is in play here is not what is being eaten but what will be broken or betrayed. It is just like saying, why are we suffering just because someone ate apple.
The point is not what is eaten but what is broken, what is destroyed. The brothers were bound by the laws of their ancestors, and they were bent on even giving their lives than violating it. In Lev 11, we have the list of animals that must not be eaten by the covenant people of God (the Jews), and among these animals is pig (11:7). They are considered unclean.
The most interesting part of the forbidding order is not just that the animals are considered “unclean” but that they render “unclean” anyone who eats of them. They refused to allow themselves to be compromised. They saw the
trial for what it really was. It was like saying “O king, what you are asking us to do is to break God’s law. In your eyes, it is simply eating pig’s flesh, but for us, you are simply asking us to choose your attractive offer against God’s law to us”. They were happily going to their death rather than betraying whom they were.
How often do we find ourselves in situations that challenge us to either do the considered “common thing” and go our way or refuse to be compromised even by a little bite and suffer grievously. We should know that a continuous downplaying of little things, a gradual loosening of our sense of sacred and regard for God even in its minimal demand, will amount to our complete loss of sense of God when faced with bigger trial. If we are not able to identify
vices for what they really are…if we continuously rebaptise sins as to make the sound of them less offensive…if we continue to give in to small temptations…then when faced with bigger challenge of standing for truth and losing everything, we will be too weak to take a firm grip.
The world has fashionable ways of presenting grievous offences against our commitment to God’s love. The world offers sweet and attractive reasons why we must follow its instructions as against the great virtues and values handed over to us by our virtuous fathers and mothers.
Such things like “it is outrageous to continue that kind of life in 21st century”, “who keeps those nonsense rules that keep one in captivity these days?”; “everyone does that”; “whatever helps to survive, is a sure thing”; “just close your eyes over this because of something bigger that will come out from it”; “the end justifies the means” etc. are the wonderful carved expressions that make us lose our Christian values and the traditional values taught us by our forebears.
These seven brothers did not even allow death to scare them into relaxing any part of the law given to them.
It is interesting to see these seven brothers as they surrender themselves to death. They saw the trial as choosing either to go against the law and continue to live or uphold the heritage they received and surrender their lives to the most torturous death. They did not begin to “diplomaticize” over the law in question and whether it has been outdated or that it makes no
sense again in their age.
No… their interest was “our fathers upheld this value with their lives for it means a great deal in their relationship with God, we are therefore not going to allow you, O king, take away our treasured values because of a pleasant bite and honour”.
This is not easy…it takes one who really understands that everything is not about the earthly gains or fame but who understands that there is someone he lives for and to whom he must one day return. This point becomes the second motivation for the seven brothers. They had belief in a living God who will judge their actions and find them worthy of living with him
even after their death.
The basis of the resurrection of death is not just that “I will die and rise again”. Rather, it is that “The One who gave this passing life to me is alive, and when I have passed from here, I will go back to him, as to live with him”. It is not a reincarnation, but what I will call a “re-eternation”. It is a new life in the realm of the living God.
As seven brothers, in the First Reading, were affirming their new life in God when this earthly life has been taken away from them, the Sadducees who do not believe in the resurrection of the death, were asking Jesus in the gospel reading, (Lk 20:27-38) about how seven brothers would share one woman they all married to here on earth on their resurrection.
They do not understand how men will be after this life. Jesus does not hesitate to teach them that in that life, all will live, not for anyone else but for God (πάντες γὰρ αὐτῷ ζῶσιν). There will not be any need of marriage because there will not be “Mr. Jackson’s family or children” and “Mrs. Jenny’s daughters and sons”. But all will be among one children of God.
Jesus explains the distinction between the life we live here and the life of the world to come. The only thing that matters out of the things we do here on earth is “whether we will be among the children of resurrection”.
Then the question is: Who or what is this resurrection? Christ tells us, I am the Life and the Resurrection (John 11:25). If Christ is the Resurrection, then it means that what matters is whether we are the children of Christ at the end of our earthly lives. It does not matter how many wives, children, investments etc we have in this world because these will not be part of our identities hereafter.
As St. Paul said in the second reading, “this faith [in the resurrection] is not given to everyone”. So, if we are privileged to be blessed with such faith, may we not give it off over a pork meat but with the strength from God, we may continue to live in obedience to the laws of God (even when they make little or no sense to us) and in the hope of resurrection. If we are children of the resurrection, and live as such, we will always be strong and not allow any
worldly offer to make us compromise our commitment to God, who is our Life and Resurrection. Amen.