I understand that there was an election this week. Did you hear anything about that? Probably so, probably so.... Well, then you will pardon me for telling a political story, not from this last campaign, but from the campaign of 1968. In that year, Senator Robert Kennedy was striving to become the nominee of the Democratic Party and, on this particular day, he had spent many long hours on a very hot day going from one extremely poor neighborhood to another through Spanish Harlem in New York City. By the end of the day he was caked with dirt and covered with sweat. Accompanying him that day, and guiding him along the way, was a man by the name of Jose Torres who had been the world light-heavyweight boxing champ. Torres had accompanied Senator Kennedy on a number of these trips, especially through the very poor areas of the large cities. He could never understand why the Senator was doing this. He would spend sixteen hours a day in places like that, seeking after a nomination which was a long-shot at best. Finally, on the end of this particular day, Jose Torres, when they got back to the car, asked Senator Kennedy that question, “Why are you doing this? You are the son of privilege. You are the son of wealth. Why are you spending all this time in utter poverty?” The Senator spoke to him in a very quiet voice. He said to him, “Because I have learned something that I have never known before. I have learned that my world is not the real world.” Robert Kennedy had been challenged and changed by his experiences in that campaign, particularly by the time he spent with the poor and the destitute, the victims of racism and poverty and all of the other evils of the contemporary world.

Jesus is challenging us today. He is challenging the Saducees as well. But he is also challenging us about our view of reality, our view of the world. And what view is Jesus challenging? He is challenging the view that a professor of mine used to describe this way: “We come into life and we spend our earliest time in life as His Majesty or Her Majesty the Baby, with all of life revolving around us.” And of course that is necessary for an infant. Life has to revolve around the infant for the infant to survive. And so parents and family dote over the child and watch for the child and care for the child and do all the necessary things.

But there is a problem with that. The problem is we get too comfortable there. We kind of like having everything dote around us. And so, even though we grow out of infancy and even out of childhood and even well into adulthood, we might well manage to keep life centered around ourselves, or at least make that attempt, so that my way, my world, my agenda, my needs, my wants, my everything becomes the order of the day for everybody around me. And I might become pretty good at controlling the people around me to serve my needs, my agenda, my wants. I might even take this to the extent that God becomes one more tool for my wants, my needs. And so I might turn to God only at those times when I need something. And I might come to God and say, “God, OK, here it is, this is what I need and, by the way, can You have that by tomorrow, please.” This is the view of life, the view of the world that Jesus is challenging with this conversation with the Saducees. He is challenging us as well, on a few different levels.

The Saducees asked this absolutely absurd question in an attempt to trip Jesus up. Notice He didn’t answer the question, as He rarely does, especially questions like that. But He is doing something else here. He is challenging people who think that faith is all about having answers to questions. That is not what faith is about. You can have lots of answers to lots of questions. As a matter of fact, you can memorize all the questions and answers from the catechism and have no faith whatsoever, because that is not what faith is. Faith is not ultimately a matter of how much knowledge you have in your head. Faith is ultimately a matter of how much trust you have from your heart, and that’s very different. Faith is about a willingness to trust ultimately in God, which means getting myself out of the center of my own life and allowing God in. That ’s what Faith is about, and that’s a life-long journey.

And the Saducees were wrong about something else too, their attitude about religion. They thought religion was all about what happens at the end of life. A lot of other people think religion is all about what happens at the end of life too. And so you hear all these conversations that start with the question, “Have you been saved?” What’s going to happen at the end of life? Are you going to make it to heaven? Or, as some people like to put it, “Are you going to be part of the Rapture, or are you going to be one of those ‘left behind’?” And so, all of religion becomes about what’s going to happen at the end of life. And Jesus challenges that repeatedly. He says religion isn’t about what happens at the end of life. Religion is about how you are living life right now. What are you going to do with the next breath you are going to take? Are you going to use that for life or for death? Are you going to use that to find a way to be loving to somebody, or are you just going to use it for destructive behavior, or self-centered behavior? Jesus is always challenging people by saying, “If you are a follower of mine, you are doing it right now. You are following Me right now, today.” It’s not about pie-in-the-sky, bye and bye, after you die. That’s not what religion is about. Being a Christian, it matters how we follow Jesus today. And what He is saying is that the followers of mine are sons and daughters of the Resurrection, meaning that if we are following Jesus now we don’t have to worry about what is coming down the road. We are already there.

“Eternal life” doesn’t begin after we die. Eternal life has already begun. You are living an eternal life right now. If you are living an eternal life right now, as a follower of Jesus, guess what? That’s where you are going to be forever. If you are not living as a follower of Jesus now, you are not going to be there in the long run. But He is saying, quit worrying about the distant future. The question to ask is, “Am I living as a follower of Jesus today?” That’s the only time that counts, right now. It’s a challenge to live that way. It’s a challenge to make faith a matter of how much we are willing to trust, how much we are willing to surrender to God. It is a great challenge to live as a follower of Jesus now.

And something else that is even a greater challenge.... It’s all that language about Resurrection. We are going to hear it, not just in today’s readings. We are going to hear it for the next several weeks, as we come close to the end of the Church year and then, with the first Sunday of Advent, start another Church year. We are going to hear a number of readings that draw our attention to “the last things,” as they are called, to dying and rising. And you might think that, again, that is all about what happens when we die. Well, let me remove that false concept, if I can. That is not what these readings are trying to get us to reflect about, not about what happens when we die physically, but the great challenge that Jesus is laying down today and for the next several weeks is what, in me, has to die now so that I can live more fully now and forever. And maybe what has to die in me now is my bitterness. Or maybe what has to die is my anger, or my way of habitually judging people. Maybe what has to die is my prejudice, my refusing to forgive someone. Maybe what has to die is all kinds of forms of self-centeredness where life is always about me and my wants and my agenda and my needs and my whatever else. Maybe that’s what has to die, so that I can begin to live my life as a true follower of Jesus, starting today, not starting at some distant point in the future. As we are told in the gospel today, as Jesus said, once you have died and have been raised up, you don’t have to worry about dying again. So, do the dying now. It’s a whole lot easier. And you won’t have to worry about dying again because you will be raised up to a fuller life now, to a life marked by the presence of Jesus now. And you will have that life forever. But that is the challenge that Jesus lays down for us today. I pray that all of us might have the courage to take up that challenge and see where it takes us.

Father Brian mentioned at the beginning of the liturgy that he has invited me here this week to lead a few days of parish mission. He told me that the last time your parish had a mission was ten years ago. Perhaps some of you were here then or maybe you participated in a mission at some other time or in some other parish? Well, some of you might remember back in the bad old days of parish missions (That’s before I started doing them, of course.) that they typically included a large measure of hell, fire and damnation. Any of you remember those days? Well, I hope you won’t be terribly disappointed if you don’t get any of that this week, because that is not why I have come. I could explain that by telling you some stories, but, let me just put it very simply. No one has ever been frightened into loving God. Absolutely impossible. You cannot be frightened into loving God. You cannot be frightened into loving anybody. As a matter of fact, the biggest obstacle to love of all is fear. Most of us have far too much fear in our lives already. I am not about to add to it this week with stories of hell, fire and damnation. That’s not what the mission is about.

Well, what is the mission about? It’s about one hour. Begins Monday evening at 7:15, continues Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday evenings also at 7:15. I’ll also preach a brief homily at the morning masses each day, but the main part of the mission is in the evenings at 7:15. Now, in that hour or so each day, we will spend some of that time in prayer, some of that time in song. We are going to spend the bulk of the time reflecting on some old stories. (Boy, doesn’t that sound exciting!?) Ah, but you are going to like these stories. You have heard them before because they are from Sacred Scripture. but they are stories with so many levels and layers of meaning, that you might just be amazed to see how applicable they are in our time. So, in a nutshell, that’s what it is about. One hour, four days, about four hours if you choose to come for the whole thing. Now, you might be thinking to yourself at this time, “That’s all very well and good but I am a very, very busy person. I have this to do. I have that to do. I have all of these other things to do, and you can’t possibly expect me to miss my favorite television program.” (Yes, I can. That is what your VCR is for. And if you don’t know how to use your VCR, ask a ten-year-old. They will teach you how to do it.)

Or, you might be thinking at this point, “Wait a minute. It’s Sunday morning and I am here in church and that’s pretty good for me, but this guy wants me to come back to church as many as four times between now and next weekend? If I spend that much time in church in one week, I am going to get a rash and it won’t be pretty.” You know, to be honest, I don’t know what you’re going to get. It’s a surprise. It’s a surprise between God and you. You see, I don’t know what you are going to get because I don’t know what you need to get. But God does. As a matter of fact, I am willing to bet that God knows what you need to get better than you do. That’s why it’s a surprise, between God and you. Oh, and if you don’t come, you don’t get the surprise. Sorry about that. Now I wish I could tell you that if you choose to come and participate in the mission this week that, the next time you buy one of those lottery tickets, you are going to be really lucky. But I can’t promise that. Or I wish I could say that if you choose to come and participate in the mission this week, that your are going to find answers to all of your questions, solutions to all of your problems. Wouldn’t that be nice? I can’t promise that either. But I can promise one thing. I can promise this with absolutely no hesitation at all because so many people through the years have told me that it is true. If you are willing to give God four hours of your time this week (You can’t come all four days? How about three? How about two? How about even one? If you have one free hour this week?), because if you are willing to give God even one hour of your time this week, what I can promise you without any hesitation whatsoever is this: God will not waste your time. God will not waste your time. God wouldn’t do that. God would not miss the opportunity to give you something that God wants you to have and something that might just make a profound difference in your life. God’s not going to waste your time. That’s really all I can offer you. You want to take a chance on that maybe? If you are, let me ask one more question.

These last few years in our church have been extraordinarily difficult ones for most of us. We’ve learned far more than we ever wanted to know about stupidity, wrong-headedness, abuse, mismanagement, cover-up, ugliness and sin. And for many people that I know (Maybe you know some people like this too.) they’ve had it up to here. They’ve gone. They are not even with us anymore. Do you know somebody like that? Invite them to the mission this week. Or, even better, bring them with you. Because, who knows, you might just be God’s instrument of healing and reconciliation in that person’s life. Not a bad way to spend a week. So, I hope I will see all of you, at least once, in these next few days. And together we might give God the time, the opportunity to touch our hearts. Perhaps He can change our lives, and maybe in the process give us a greater measure of peace and joy than we have ever known.