Big Sugar Buddha: A Homily - The Thirty-first Sunday of Ordinary Time (Year C)

Sunday, November 2, 2025

A Homily - The Thirty-first Sunday of Ordinary Time (Year C)

All Souls Day

First Reading – 2 Maccabees 12:42-45

Responsorial Psalm – Psalm 62(63):2-6,8-9

Second Reading – Philippians 3:20-21

Gospel Acclamation – John 6:39

The Gospel According to Luke 7:11-17

(NJB)

Listen!

The narrative from Maccabees attests to a belief in the an afterlife, an ideology that was present and burgeoning in this era that we often refer to as the intertestamental period (a two-hundred year span of time between the last writings to be included in the Hebrew Testament and the letters of Paul, which were the first writings of the Christian Testament).

The narrative from Maccabees misappropriates the faith by suggesting that God, the creator of the universe, had a stake in the Maccabean Revolt; God did not. God does not choose the victor in battles, but rather laments over all of the violence that we inflict on each other.

Know this.

God is not concerned with temples and idols, fetishes and tokens, or what kind of talisman we might be wearing beneath our clothes. God does not require that sacrifices be purchased at the altar so that the spirits of the dead can be freed from sin, or any other terrible fate in the next world.

Be mindful.

It is right to thank God for all the good things that come our way, neither should we blame God for the hardships we suffer in our bodies, on this world, in this life.

The good and the bad come to us irrespective of who we are, what we do or have done, or who we might become…there is no plan it; God is no respecter of persons, and does not love any single one of God’s children more than God loves any other.

Praise God and give thanks for the good we enjoy, while we enjoy it, share it if you can, as far as you are able…and do not dwell on the bad.

Understand this.

There is peace to be had in patience, in contemplation, meditation and prayer…make your life a constant prayer, asking only for the grace that comes from God and bringing peace to the spirit.

Let the peace of God within you bubble up like a fountain, like a spring overflowing for others to see, let their thirst be quenched and their spirits sustained by it.

Know this.

God truly dwelt within Jesus, as God dwells within all of us. God is with us now, as is Jesus…wait for them no longer, the transfiguration which Jesus passed through was not of this world, but marked his passage to the next…like Jesus we were made for eternity by God.

Not one of us will be lost.

Consider the gospel reading for today and what message it is sending; the authors of Luke present us with a fiction of magic and miracle making, a narrative filled wonder working and acts of power, equivalent too and perhaps greater than works of the prophets from the ancient world.

Understand this.

None of the authors of Luke’s Gospel ever met Jesus, not a single one, including Luke himself, who was a follower of Paul, who also never met Jesus. At least half a century had passed from the time of Jesus’ death, to the time that Luke’s Gospel was written, and by the time it was written; Palestine (Judea and Samaria) were completely under Roman rule, Jerusalem had been ruined, the temple destroyed and the population scattered across the Empire in the second great diaspora.

There were no witnesses to the events Luke describes, like the raising of the widow’s son. There was no one to any stories with him concerning the reactions that had been present among the assembled people in the crowd. The story itself bears all the hallmarks of a fabrication…it is a myth, it never happened, but it became a part of the Christian tradition and was handed down as evidence that Jesus had both great compassion and great power.

Fabrications of this type possess little into the teachings of Jesus unless we treat it as a metaphor, therefor let me suggest this:

The raising the dead man at Nain was not a physical miracle, it was an assertion of the notion that widow should not be left alone, with no husband and no son to protect her in a world where women needed male representation to survive. The resurrection of the widow’s son represents the role that the church will play in protecting widows everywhere. It is a summary of values, stating that the church will pick up the familial obligations for the woman, to protect her and keep her in life. This is the role of the church, to be the guardian of the meek, to serve as caretaker...this is the miracle, see it as such because it is in contradistinction to the common way of life, which commonly saw widows and orphans forced out into the margins of society.

Understand this.

God does not violate the laws of nature; not once, not ever; God does not reserve to God’s self the right to abrogate the laws God in God’s own self has established. If we are going to accept this story as a part of the Gospel we must find a way of reading it that rules out the supernatural, because there is no such thing as magic.

This reading does just that; it is not that the widow’s son died and returned to life. It is that Jesus appointed the church to care for the widow, in place of her dead son; this is what keeps her well and this is what puts Jesus directly in the tradition of the prophets…not the miracle making, the wonder working, the acts of power and the phantasmagoria of magic. It is his work as an advocate for Justice, for community, and compassion that make Jesus of Nazareth into prophet that he was.

First Reading – 2 Maccabees 12:42-45

Sacrifice for the Dead

Judas took a collection from them individually, amounting to nearly two thousand drachmae, and sent it to Jerusalem to have a sacrifice for sin offered, an altogether fine and noble action, in which he took full account of the resurrection. For if he had not expected the fallen to rise again it would have been superfluous and foolish to pray for the dead, whereas if he had in view the splendid recompense reserved for those who make a pious end, the thought was holy and devout. This was why he had this atonement sacrifice offered for the dead, so that they might be released from their sin.

Responsorial Psalm – Psalm 62(63):2-6,8-9