32nd Sunday-Open to new ideas

In the latter part of the 1800’s, physicists were thinking they had everything about solved and they were done.  They could explain everything and why everything.  There would be nothing new to learn.

Yet, a few physicists and other scientists began to imagine and think differently.  They thought: "what if..."

These persons, men and women, broke open the scientific world, and from it we are still trying to understand the material makeup of our world and universe.

All because people had open minds and imaginations.

Jesus Christ, if he is personally part of our lives, does the same for us.  

He opens our imaginations to a living God; a God who desires that we be alive too.

The Sadducees, scripture tells us, did not believe in the resurrection.  

Now understand that the concept of Resurrection came late to the Jewish people.  They really did not have a concept of an afterlife until a couple of hundreds of years before Jesus.

So these Sadducees were holding onto an old concept.  They could not imagine anything different.

Their lack of imagination shows too in the way they tried to best Jesus in this passage.  If the resurrection was true, in their minds, it will be like life now, and that would cause too many complications therefore it must not be true.

Jesus just utterly destroys their argument.  

He tells them they are wrong from the very beginning.  Resurrection is so beyond our human concepts:  so don’t apply them to God.

Then he goes further and says, open up your mind.  Re-read the scripture, and imagine differently.  God is God of these living persons.  Dead in our reality, but alive with God.

Jesus does the same for us.  

When we place him, sincerely, into our lives, the very reality of who is Jesus opens our minds and hearts to new ways of living; to new ways of imagining being alive, in this world and the next.

We get ourselves into trouble when we limit God and and we limit ourselves.  We get ourselves into trouble when we think it has to be this way and only this way.  It causes stagnation.  It causes us to lag behind.  It causes divisions.

I think that is why we seem so divided now in our culture.  We don’t imagine very well.  We fall into the sin of “it must be this way or not”

I think of families.  Some have this vision of how their family must be!  White picket fences, manicured lawns, 3 car garage, kids with rosy cheeks, getting good grades, etc…

And their energies are placed into making this happen.

Now, is it wrong?  No.  

But the issue is that sometimes some hold onto this vision so tightly, it takes over.  They feel this pressure that they must have the “perfect” family, the “perfect” life.

And when life does not go according to our defined plans, there is suffering, there is chaos.

What happens when we can’t afford the 3 cars, what happens when the kids don’t have the rosy cheeks?

The families that survive and thrive are the ones who hear Jesus’ words that say, it is okay.  Let go, and find other ways to live.  They hear the words “God is control, not you.”  God is with you, not testing you.  You will survive.  They hear the words that what is more important is love, is family.

Or people who struggle in their identity.  The try to prove themselves to others, to themselves.  So they must be the perfect child, the perfect friend the perfect employee..the perfect whatever.  And when they aren’t...man it is so devastating.  Jesus, you are a child of God, you are loved.  All the rest, not as important.

People get hurt.  We get hurt by others. We get angry because people make mistakes, consciously and unconsciously.  The world around us says, get back at them:  gossip about them, ignore them and be passive aggressive, write them off.  

Jesus says:  forgive.  Jesus says, be humble and talk with them.  Jesus says reach out, take the first step.  Jesus says be humble and realize you have no idea of the wounds the other may carry.

God is alive.  God is alive in ways that exceed our way of thinking.  The saints understood this, and opened themselves to this great mystery.  They were willing to let go of their lives and be open to God’s great plan.

They experienced life.

Life is to let ourselves be loved and to love others.  This is the grace of the Holy Trinity.  God’s very nature.  This is the life into which God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit invites us to enter.

This is why the Eucharist is so essential to our salvation.  It is not just the mere consuming of the body and blood of Christ.  It is the whole reality of it, and making it, making him, part of our lives.

Our faith, our imagination says that the bread and wine become something more.  All of God, contained in the bread and wine.

Our faith, our imagination says that we too can be so much more as well.  We, being all of humanity, not just as individuals.

The world repeats this story over and over.  Evolution shows us that those species that did not adapt to the changing world went extinct.

Species that adapted, evolved, they continued.

God desires our eternal life.  God gives us Love to adapt.  God graces us to let go, grow, and thrive.