My friends, if you follow the Sunday Scriptures closely, you may have noticed that again this week I didn’t use the chosen feast, that of, The Dedication of the Lateran Basilica, which we celebrate about every seven years on a Sunday, when November 9^th falls on a Sunday.  As I looked at the chosen Scriptures for this feast, which calls us through readings from the prophets, Ezekiel, Saint Paul in his letter to the Corinthians, and Jesus in the gospel of John, to respect and treasure the temple, with our brother Jesus clearly telling us in John that he, Jesus, basically, “is the only temple that we should treasure,” I felt that clear idea could be woven into the Scriptures for the 32^nd Sunday in Ordinary Time and added upon, as Jesus always wants us to go deeper.

   So, turning to the 32^nd Sunday in Ordinary Time, we see the virtue of faith being uplifted in the Old Testament reading from Maccabees, where we come face-to-face with what seven brothers are willing to endure to remain faithful to their God at the hands of their Greek captors. 

   At first glance this reading may seem to some as an unusual choice because of the violence that it depicts, and we may ask why?  The “good,” if we can use that word, comes when we take the next step, beyond the violence, to understand why the brothers are willing to endure what they do.  Because they – each, believed so strongly in the God who made a covenant with their people, “to be their God, and they would be God’s people,” they received the courage to stand strong in the face of ignorance, and cruel violence.  These brothers knew that there was more than this life, and that basically, God would more than give back anything they may have lost in their earthly journeys.

   The times in which we live my friends, have shown us an uptick in this same kind of ignorance and cruel violence around our world.  Many days for me, and I know this is true for you as well, I wonder how much more evil that shows itself in the form of greed, selfishness, and lack of concern for the common good, we can endure. 

   One of the lessons of the Maccabees’ reading that we should see, and lay upon our hearts, is the counsel, “to not become what we abhor.”  Those of you who demonstrate on Monday evenings with placards asking for better in our country than what we are seeing at present, are sometimes abused by violent reactions from some driving by  — loud cars and other abusive gestures. We must always remember not to react in like manner. 

   Paul, in his letter to the Thessalonians encourages his converts to pray that they be “delivered from confused and evil persons” – a worthy prayer for all of us too, it would seem.  Paul goes on to pray, “may the Spirit rule in your hearts.”  This reminds me of the Christian Brothers’ Prayer that Jim Hanzel, a former Christian brother, and member of All Are One pray each time we are together – “Live Jesus in our hearts forever.”  In my years as a chaplain, and now as a pastor, I routinely encourage people in times of trouble, when seemingly the path forward doesn’t appear clear, to simply utter the name of “Jesus” – there is, I know from personal experience, great strength in his name. 

   The story we heard today in Luke’s gospel about another seven brothers who attempt to “give” the same woman children, in turn upon the death of a previous brother who failed, is one that ties together well, I think, the two feasts we are considering today, that of the Dedication of the Lateran Basilica and the 32^nd Sunday in Ordinary Time.  As with so many issues that Jesus comments on in Scripture, encouraging people to see “a bigger picture,” this gospel from Luke is no exception. 

   The teller of the story wonders out loud whose wife the woman will be in eternity as all have married her.  And even though we may smile at this story, having off spring was of great importance in Jesus’ time, especially for women, and here it would be to have a son who could care for and support a mother if widowed, who had no power in this society, but that she was connected to a man.   But again, Jesus must direct his hearers to a greater message – life in eternity will be different – all will be cared for, all will be equal, somehow, in the embrace of a Loving God. 

   You may be wondering why an annual feast celebrating a basilica that sometimes falls on a Sunday, and when it does, is so important that it takes precedence over the regular Sunday feast.  When Constantine made Christianity the state religion in 312 CE, Christians received, through the gift of this basilica, which has grown over time, a place to publicly worship, and pray, which in the first few centuries, they didn’t have.

   There is, always, as we all know, the danger of making material things more important than spiritual things and I believe it is for this reason that all the readings for this Dedication of the Lateran Basilica point not to the “material building,” but to the temple, which is Jesus, the Christ, living within each of us.  Again, when too much emphasis is placed on the “material” temple, there is the danger of losing sight of the spiritual temple that exists within each of us, within all of creation, really.  Paul said it in the letter to the Corinthians – “Don’t you realize that you are God’s temple”?!  He says further, “Jesus, the Christ” lays the foundation” [!]

   The seven brothers in the Maccabees reading, even well before our brother Jesus lived, had a sense of this awesome reality – that they were God’s temples, and that is why they had the strength to give their lives to uplift the importance of answering to a higher power. 

   So my friends, when times are tough in our own lives, we need to realize that life brings both good and not so good, tyrants come and go, but by holding onto our core values, attempting each day, to be our best, we will be true to our baptisms, saying, “yes” to who we follow, not merely the “material” temples of this world, but more so, the temples that exist in each person, in all of creation. 

   And because we all love a good story, I will end with one. Steve Hartman, CBS commentator and producer of the On the Road series this past Friday shared the story of a 6-year-old girl named Marion from Springfield, Massachusetts, who took it upon herself to help save an endangered salamander, the axolotl. She felt, it was her responsibility to do so . The axolotl, it turns out, can reproduce its limbs, if for any reason, it loses them.  Scientists from Harvard have been studying how axolotls do this in the hopes that we humans can learn how to do the same when they lose limbs. Harvard sadly, lost its funding for this project in the spring, so enter 6- year-old Marion to help—she made a power point and established a fundraiser, which brought in $1,000. Steve, in talking to Marion, wanted to know why this was important for her to do. She said, it wasn’t just because the axolotl “is cute,” but because it can grow again any of its body limbs! –she felt that even though many animals are endangered, “it was her destiny” to save this one.  The female scientist at Harvard interviewed, and her colleagues were given great hope not in the amount of the gift (and their funding was later reinstated), but in the size of the giver—that someone so small could care so much!

   So, there you have it friends, each of us doing our part, recognizing the “temples” where we find them, and as we heard here, even in an animal, one, I had never heard of   before! Amen? Amen!

    My friends, as I said in the bulletin, I opted for the readings from the 31^st Sunday in Ordinary Time rather than those for All Souls’ Day which falls on this Sunday, because I felt the readings would serve both All Saints’ Day which was yesterday and All Souls’ Day well.  In that context, it is good for us, right off, to remember that we are all saints and souls journeying within our humanity, back to God, in a more complete way, because, as we know, our God is always with us.  On this day then, it is good to remember all the saints from our parish who have gone before us, Cathy and Eric Bartleson, Shannon Hanzel, Mike Maher, Warren Galbus, Bob Sherman, Giles Schmid, Mary Paszkiewicz, and from our respective families and being grateful to God for their presence and example to us. 

   Looking then at the readings from Wisdom, 2 Thessalonians and Luke, for today, we can recognize with a deeper look that each is about salvation.  And here I mean something other than Jesus coming to die for us, but more so, “to live for us,” “to show us the way. 

   The beautiful story of Zacchaeus today is a grand case in point of this truth.  Zacchaeus, a man, short in physical stature, climbs a tree to see the famous man, Jesus, who has come to his town.  He like others wants to get a view and “up a tree” will give him that view, plus he will be, “out of sight” and safe, or so he thinks. 

   But, as we see, and Zacchaeus also sees, Jesus finds us where we are at and then loves us to more.  So, what do I mean by that?

   In order to understand Zacchaeus better and how Jesus calls him to a better place, we have to look at how Zacchaeus makes a living – he basically works for the Romans collecting taxes from his neighbors.  Tax collectors were generally looked down upon because not only did they collect the needed amount, but an extra portion for themselves and apparently there was no limit on what they could ask for, and we know that this was the case with Zacchaeus because the Scriptures say, “he was wealthy.”

   The human tendency, which each of us is probably guilty of to some degree, is to look down on those whose actions we don’t approve of.  With our brother Jesus, we see a different example to follow – Jesus “sees” people first, then their actions.   Zacchaeus no doubt knew that people despised him and that would explain the additional reason that he was “up a tree” – “to be safe.”

   Jesus, in the great heart of God, knows and understands Zacchaeus—he knows what he does for a living, and he knows why he does it—he knows all that makes up Zacchaeus’ life.  He doesn’t judge but moves to the next step — he respects Zacchaeus and loves him to be more than Zacchaeus thought was possible.  When we talk about salvation then, this is what it is really all about — finding the strength to be all we were created to be.

   There is an interesting twist in the story of Zacchaeus that Jesus ultimately calls “the lie” to.  In the time in which Jesus lived, any ailment that a person acquired and lived with was thought to be caused by a person’s sins – and “shortness of stature” would be seen in this way. 

   By the action that Jesus took, meeting the tax collector “where he was,” he showed that such “narrow” thinking could not be right, just or compassionate.  And Jesus’ response comes right out of the 1^st reading today from the Wisdom literature, “You love all things that are created and loathe nothing.” 

   Looking at this tendency of people despising what they don’t understand, we might feel inclined to judge such actions as less than good, but the truth is, we may be guilty of the same.   In our times a very unchristian tendency seems to be afoot in the thinking that we don’t want to remember, or take blame for the sins of previous humans because, we are told, “it might make us feel bad.”

   The solution: deny that such sins as the Jewish Holocaust, or Shoah, attempts at extermination and assimilation of Native peoples in our country, and our deep-seeded racism ever happened or exists, still today.

   And yet, we have the memory of Jesus of Nazareth, who we are told in many other places in Scripture besides the story of Zacchaeus today, that Jesus wants to “know” us – a great truth that we should not miss for ourselves in this story. 

   For each of us friends, Jesus is on the look-out every day of our lives to enter in through the sorrows, the joys, the “ah-ha” moments.  We try to hide,  in safe places too, up our own “trees”—behind our names, our situations—our pain, the people we know—thinking that God won’t find us or probably doesn’t care.  And if we think that, we would be wrong.  Let me say that again—if we think that our God doesn’t care—WE WOULD BE WRONG!  All we have to do is reflect on all the Scriptures where Jesus goes out of his way to make a difference in people’s lives like today with Zacchaeus.    Because Jesus looked into Zacchaeus’ heart, Zacchaeus found the strength, the grace to change his life. 

   The easier choice is always to judge people, considering them wrong, and us right, put them in a box, and expect no more.  Jesus shows us how loving someone that we don’t agree with, can call them “to more.”

   Friends, I know for most of us, myself included, we are daily frustrated with those so-called leaders in Church and state who seem to be absolutely, “clueless” about moving out of their “safe trees” and speaking the truth about the wrongs they see as Jesus did in today’s gospel through his actions with regard to Zacchaeus.  Too many today, claiming to be “Christians,” and shame on any of us who do claim this awesome title, but play it safe by never following through in our actions!

   Paul, in his letter to the Thessalonians in today’s 2^nd reading, says it well, “We pray constantly that our God will make you worthy of the call.”  In a homily from last Sunday, Pope Leo gave us some pointers toward being more “Christian” in our world:

• No one is called to dominate, but all are called to serve.
• [Act] “not [with] power, but with love.”
• [We need] “a more humble Church.”
• [restless hearts should be] “in love with LOVE”

   So, friends, let us each pray that we might be, every day, more worthy, through our actions, of being labeled, “a Christian” in our world.    Amen? Amen!