Comedian George Carlin has an old routine in which he describes his life in Catholic grade school. Each week the parish priest would come to visit their classroom and he and his classmates would pose questions to the priest. With vivid imaginations and twisted logic, George and his friends would exaggerate the smallest facts of religion, trying to find a question that might stump the priest.
“Father, what if someone was killed on the way to confession?” might be followed up by questions about a hypothetical person killed after confession on his way out of church – but who had committed a sin as he exited – who then repented and turned to go back into church – but before he could return was hit by a car… The questions became convoluted, unrealistic
-- and very funny.
Those grade school questions weren’t real searches for answers, but an intellectual game, which kept them from having to deal with the real lessons of faith. I think of George Carlin and his classmates in today’s readings as the Sadducees try to trap Jesus into answers to impossible questions. Surely Carlin was inspired in his routine by today’s challenge to Jesus of a woman who married seven brothers, each of whom died without children. When she finally died: whose wife was she?
The Sadducees’ questions weren’t a search for truth but a way to avoid a real discussion with Jesus about the after-life, the real life that awaits us after death. Jesus doesn’t try to answer their silly questions but tells them they understand neither scriptures nor the power of God. Instead Jesus points out the truth they have been missing or avoiding all along: that God is the God of the living, not the dead and that we will all be raised again from the dead.
Aren’t we like the Sadducees at times? We allow ourselves to be distracted from a deeper relationship with God because we carry a lot of baggage with us. Perhaps we dwell on religious rules we don’t comprehend or hang onto a hurt inflicted by some cleric. We are certain in our hearts the rule is unfair or we can’t forgive the religious professional who was profoundly wrong – and maybe just as profoundly human. Certainly struggling with faith questions and relationship is a part of our lives, but could our “baggage,” our challenges and our questions, be a way to justify our move away from a deeper relationship with God? Maybe we are allowing our own unwillingness to forgive to come between us and a deeper relationship with the one who wants to love us endlessly, the one who forgives us always.
Today Jesus invites us to lay down our baggage, our complications and those questions that aren’t really designed to draw us closer to God. He invites us to look at our lives and place our trust in the gift of life promised by God.
Maureen McCann Waldron
The most important part of my life is my family – Jim my husband of 47 years and our two children. Our daughter Katy, a banker here in Omaha, and her husband John, have three wonderful children: Charlotte, Daniel and Elizabeth Grace. Our son Jack and his wife, Ellie, have added to our joy with their sons, Peter and Joseph.
I think family life is an incredible way to find God, even in (or maybe I should say, especially in) the most frustrating or mundane moments.
I am a native of the East Coast after graduating in 1971 from Archbishop John Carroll High School in suburban Philadelphia. I graduated from Creighton University in 1975 with a degree in Journalism and spent most of the next 20 years in corporate public relations in Omaha. I returned to Creighton in the 1990s and completed a master’s degree in Christian Spirituality in 1998.
As our children were growing up, my favorite times were always family dinners at home when the four of us would talk about our days. But now that our kids are gone from home, my husband and I have rediscovered how nice it is to have a quiet dinner together. I also have a special place in my heart for family vacations when the kids were little and four of us were away from home together. It’s a joy to be with my growing family.
Writing a Daily Reflection is always a graced moment, because only with God’s help could I ever write one. I know my own life is hectic, disjointed and imperfect and I know most of us have lives like that. I usually write from that point of view and I always seem to find some sentence, some word in the readings that speaks right to me, in all of my imperfection. I hope that whatever I write is in some way supportive of others.
It’s an incredibly humbling experience to hear from someone who was touched by something I wrote. Whether the note is from someone across campus or across the world, it makes me realize how connected we are all in our longing to grow closer to God.
