Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

I always enjoyed the humor of President Ronald Reagan. A political pundit once observed that Jimmy Carter often was in the office at 6 am and left at midnight, but Reagan seldom was in the office before 9:30 am and often left at 5.  The press began to badger Reagan about his “lazy” work habits at a press conference.   Reagan responded: “It's true hard work never killed anybody, but I figure, why take the chance.”   Good humor.

The word of God takes us back to the wisdom literature of ancient Israel, the book of Ecclesiastes. Here probably a preacher or “arguer,” named Qoheleth, reflects upon the transitory nature of life and the obsession of many people with wealth—and their compulsive desire to have more and more of everything—greed ran a muck at the expense of generosity. These, the author says, are empty pursuits. They won’t make us happy. Ultimately, we will die and leave them to someone else.

The word invites us to reassess our own lives, to live a simpler lifestyle so that others can simply live, and to be generous with what we have.

Paul, in his letter to the Christian community in Colossae (western Turkey), proclaims we are one with Jesus Christ, new creatures by virtue of the waters of baptism. Therefore, focus on heavenly things. Practice virtue. Rid ourselves of vice, Paul says, because we are images of God, and our everyday behavior ought to reflect God's likeness.

Jesus, in today’s Gospel parable, calls the one who accumulates wealth only for him/herself a fool. The rich man forgets his absolute dependency upon God, his own mortality. Greed drives him to accumulate wealth. But for what? He dies that night; and someone else benefits from his greed.

Perhaps in light of the Gospel, we should imagine for a moment that we have died. Friends and family gather to remember us. What conversations would they have? The real question at a funeral is not, “has this person been successful?” but rather, “who was this person?” and “how would we characterize his or her life?”

Yes, we do need things in order to live, but the only things we can take with us in death are our good deeds. As the saying goes, you never see a u -haul trailer following a hearse to the cemetery. And so Jesus urges us to make sure we have our priorities straight. Seek first the kingdom of God.

Now did you ever wonder what really happens after death? Millions of people in America say they have had near-death experiences. Some describe hearing themselves being declared dead, being lifted out of their bodily selves and seeing a figure blazing with light reaching out to them. Then they come to a boundary. Finally, they feel themselves being pulled back into their bodily selves. Some would argue that these are self-induced or hallucinatory visions. But one thing is certain: either we live on or we don’t. There’s no middle ground.

Blaise Pascal, a 17th century French philosopher, faced this dilemma: either there's life after death or there's nothingness. Confronted with two irreducible options—one of which had to be true, one of which had to be false, one appealing, one alarming—and having no certain way of knowing which was true, the only realistic option for Pascal was the appealing choice.

When the doorway to death opens, I believe “I’m entering into a new, indescribably transformative, happy life.” And if I’m wrong, Friedrich Nietzsche, the philosopher who proclaimed the death of God, won’t be thumbing his nose at me, saying, “I told you so.” I simply won’t be. And neither will Nietzsche.

The reality of death challenges us to answer the most important questions in life: how shall we live and what shall we do? It’s interesting that the Roman Senate decreed that each time a victorious general entered triumphantly into Rome, someone stood behind him, holding a golden wreath over his head and whispering into his ear, “Memento, mori! Remember, you will die.”

The so-called last things—hell, purgatory, and heaven—are challenging beliefs in Christianity. How can we say at the same time there’s an all-good God, and there’s a hell? Think about it. Yes, scripture describes the last things.

But I also suggest you consider Dante’s The Divine Comedy, one of the greatest masterpieces in literature. Dante imaginatively reveals how he awoke in a dark wood (perhaps a midlife crisis) where the Roman poet Virgil leads him through earth to hell (remember Dante’s famous line, “Abandon hope, all ye who enter here”). They see sinners undergoing punishments in nine descending circles until they reach a frozen lake, the abode of Satan. Then they emerge to begin their ascent to the seven cornices of purgatory, and finally, with his beloved Beatrice, Dante climbs the nine heavenly spheres of paradise and into the dazzling vision of the Triune God.

The Divine Comedy is a masterpiece in poetry, not easily readable but profoundly instructive about life, especially hell, purgatory, and heaven. Heaven and hell answer the question of justice. Many good people die without receiving in this life an adequate reward for their goodness, and many wicked people die without paying for their wickedness. If there’s such a thing as justice, there has to be some place where wrongs are righted, good rewarded.

So what are hell, purgatory, and heaven? The language is best understood symbolically. God does not “send” us to hell; we freely choose to go. Also, although we must accept the possibility of hell (in light of the dynamic between God's unconditional love for us and our human freedom to reject that love), we don’t have to believe that human beings are actually “in” such a “place.” In fact, we hope all human beings will find salvation. If we peel away its fiery imagery, hell can be described as the absence of God, the failure to realize our true selves, whereas heaven is the ultimate fulfillment of our true selves. In heaven, we participate in the mystery of God.

Purgatory then is a “purification” in which we become our true selves. And judgment is our own recognition of what was good and wrong in ourselves.

Finally, we believe that in the mystery of death, God will transform our earthly selves, like Jesus before us, into a new, indescribable heavenly reality. St. Paul put it well when he wrote, “No eye has seen, no mind has ever imagined … what God has prepared for those who love Him.”

May today’s word of God challenge us to get our priorities straight and seek first the kingdom of God.