Why do we do what we do? What
drives us?
Why do we choose what we choose?
What do we base those decisions on?
Often our choices are one step this
side of the un-intentional, more of a habit, the easiest and safest choice.
We make countless choices, without
a second thought, as if they do not matter at all.
Life sometimes forces us to make
more deliberate decision. When we need to take a moment to figure out the next
step. Still this usually starts and ends
with - what’s best for me.
Here the Church reminds us that we
should make the effort to look beyond ourselves, and make our decisions and
choices out the freedom that only comes from our Faith - the freedom to choose
the better good; a more selfless choice for the good of the spouse or family or
for the common good for neighbor and community and even for the good of the
world.
But, sometimes there are choices
that must be made from the deepest part
of our being.
They go beyond the better and the
common good.
These choices can only be made out
of absolute living faith and a confident
hope that is more real and tangible than what confronts us, whatever that
may be.
We must (and there is no other
option) base our decisions on the absolute reality that the Kingdom of God, His
love and mercy, is more real than the kingdom of man and what it offers us and
that Jesus (not ourself) is the only way,
truth and life.
Sometimes, we must step up to the
plate.
The rein of King Antiochus
Epiphanies, some 150 years before Jesus, was heavy handed and oppressive.
His regime used every means to
stamp out Jewish religion and culture.
He had the Temple desecrated and holy scrolls burned.
He attempted to crush all sacred and cultural
intuitions that were the life blood of the Jewish people.
The authorities struggled to stamp
out anyone or anything that tried to return Israel back to God.
Under this oppression many were
arrested as were the mother and her seven sons in today’s 1st
reading.
All were imprisoned, cruelly tortured
and in the end killed for holding fast to their faith.
They were given options, of course. “Just renounce your faith and you can go
home.” They might have said.
We know this scenario. It continues to be played out, in one form or
another, around the world; everywhere the light of faith confronts the darkness
of oppression and sometimes it’s only a lone voice in a wilderness.
We read that each brother was
forced to make a decision that no human being should have to make, but which
all human beings must be ready and able to make.
Confronted by hatred and fear each person
(in their weakness and vulnerability) had to look their captor in the eyes and
choose.
“We are
ready to die” one says. “It is my choice to die at the hands of men” says another.
Why this courage? another son
explains.
“You are depriving us of this present life,
but the King of the world will raise us up again – forever.”
Each had to dig deep into their
very being because there was no faking it.
There was no pulling a rabbit out of a hat.
Only truth would do; a faith that had already
been lived day in and day out. In fact
they had already made their choice countless times before. Each had already decided long before that day
that
We are not afraid “God will raise
us up again”
This was not, nor can it ever be, empty
bravado - it was conviction, a deeply lived realty.
And what a reality it is.
The second reading describes this Christian reality.
“May
our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God our Father, who has loved us and has
given us everlasting encouragement and good hope through his grace, encourage your hearts and strengthen them in every good deed and
word.”
This is the Truth and the Faith we must
build our lives on.
It is what we must base our choices
on. It is how we measure our lives.
God loves us and has given us everlasting
encouragement (which is faith) and through
the gift faith the grace of hope is born.
St Paul knows gift of faith, which
is received through baptism, is not the same as living faith that transforms
lives and turns us, by what we say and do, from believers into disciples.
“May God encourage your hearts and
strengthen them in every good deed and word.” Paul prays
The gift of Faith must be nourished
and exercised, claimed as our rightful inheritance, held tight and most
importantly used as our guiding light for our daily, ordinary lives.
Faith and Hope must the foundation of every
choice and decision we make.
If we do not live our lives in the
light Faith and Hope, if we do not choose Jesus and the Kingdom of God over the
Kingdom of deception, selfishness, pride and prejudice, then we can never hope
to choose eternal life over this transitory life when push comes to shove.
Unless we strengthen our faith by
making daily choices that reflect God’s love and compassion, we will always fall
short and choose the cheap over the costly.
Love of this world over the love of God.
This is what Jesus is telling the
Sadducees.
You love yourselves rather than
loving God.
You trust your rules and laws that
only tangle and entrap.
You love this life without regards for eternal
life to come. And you dent the resurrection.
Sure we need to be engaged in this transitory
world because we have responsibilities;
as spouses and parents, friends and workers, and as helpful strangers but always acting out of love of God, and
always acting to restore His Kingdom that is already growing here.
The salvation of the world goes on -
one choice, one decision at a time. Thousands upon thousands small choices, each one bringing us closer to God and adding
to the building up the Kingdom or taking us further from God and hindering that
growth.
The choice is always ours. God had
given us that freedom.
But before we choose (in little or
great matters) we must recall to mind Jesus’ promise
“I am the resurrection and the life, whoever believes in me, even if he
dies, will live”
“If you believe you will see the
glory of God”
This - we can always bet are lives
on.
