Your Wild And Precious Life

My parents used to love to have conversations about religion.  My brother, Marc, had been a religious studies major in college, and I had a degree in pastoral ministry. So whenever we were home visiting, we’d get into some kind of religious conversation. My parents were lifelong Catholics and faithful people and also struggled with many of the church’s teachings. And so they’d often ask us what we thought about a specific teaching when we were around – just to hear our reflections on it.

One of those topics was death and “where we go after we die.” Both of my parents really struggled with the heaven and hell idea and, like many of us, couldn’t quite envision what comes next. We’d talk about the possibility of reincarnation (my mom said she wanted to come back as a golden lab), “meeting” our loved ones in some kind of hereafter and what it will be like to cross that threshold someday.

How would you answer that question, “What happens to us after we die?”

In our readings today Paul takes on the subject of “what happens after” in his words from 1 Thessalonians 4. He speaks about “those who have fallen asleep” and reassures his readers that “if we believe that Jesus died and rose, so too will God, through Jesus, bring with him those who have fallen asleep” when he returns.

Paul thought that Jesus would be “returning soon” and so he wanted to reassure people that when Jesus came back (to inaugurate the new heaven and the new earth), “Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air.”

In other words, Paul was telling the faithful not to worry – that we will all be reunited at some point and that we will all, eventually, be with God. He ends the reading saying, “console one another with these words.”

I have to confess that there’s probably more about death that confuses me than consoles me, but I do love the idea that somehow when we pass we might be reunited with all of our loved ones and even recognize them. I miss my parents and grandparents. I miss my brother. I miss people like Fr. Jim. And I find it cool to think about seeing them all again. 

And so I would ask you again, “What do you think happens to us after we die?”

Well our gospel today from Luke 4 takes things in a whole different direction. In it, Jesus is just coming off of his time in the desert, and goes back to his hometown. During the Shabbat service in the synagogue, he reads from his own scriptures (Isaiah 61),

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to bring glad tidings to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to let the oppressed go free,
and to proclaim a year acceptable to the Lord.”

Jesus then rolls up the scroll and sits down. The people are just looking at him intently. They can FEEL his power and conviction. And then he says to them, “Today this Scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing.”

So if our first reading is asking what happens to us after we die, our gospel seems to be asking, “So what will you do with your living?”

Some have called this passage from Luke Jesus’ mission statement. And the passage goes on to get more complicated because Jesus has some words of tough love for his hometown crowd about their faith (which I have written about here).

But this gospel gets me thinking today about the words of poet Mary Oliver who famously asked, ““Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”

This is not always an easy question – especially in our culture of distraction and possibilities. This kind of spiritual question requires reflection, discernment and courage.

Minister and therapist, Wayne Muller, wrote a book called How, Then, Shall We Live: Four Simple Questions That Reveal The Meaning And Beauty In Our Lives.  In it Muller invites the reader to reflect on: Who am I? What do I love? How shall I live, knowing I will die? What is my gift to the family of the earth? And the book is not meant to help us find an Answer (with a capital A – meaning we have it all figured out) so much as it is meant to help us find an “answer” that guides us in the now – knowing that we must keep asking these questions again and again.

My guess is that during his contemplative time in the desert, Jesus asked himself these questions and found his “answer” in the book of Isaiah. He sees his life and work in this liberatory text.

In my life right now, I am going through some changes that are prompting my needing to reflect more deeply on questions like these. Maybe you are too. These prompts can come from a loss or crisis. They can come from an unexpected event. Or maybe even get stirred by what is going on all around us.

Muller says that “many of us, distracted by the rush and pressure of our days, manage to suppress or ignore these fundamental questions – until we are confronted by something that wakes us up…” But when we engage these questions, “they reveal the true nature of our love and our strength, our courage and our wisdom. They allow us to break free, to grow beyond what we already know.”

As seekers, it is ours to take up questions like the one Mary Oliver asks. 

I also know that when I think about Mary Oliver’s question, I think about Howard Thurman. Thurman, who was a mentor for Martin Luther King, Jr., was a profound spiritual teacher and minister. One of his more famous quotes – especially as it relates to how to live – is, “Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”

So today, our readings offer us a chance to reflect on what happens at death. But maybe more importantly, they invite us to reflect more deeply on what we will do with our living.  May we, like Jesus, do our own discernment in the desert, and emerge with a clarity, purpose and freedom that makes us come alive and serves a world in desperate need of healing.

Note: Today we also remember that it is Labor Day and lift up ALL of the work that people do in this world – much of it unrecognized and/or unappreciated. We affirm the dignity of all workers who deserve living wages, safe conditions, and worker protections. We echo the church’s statement that “The economy must serve people, not the other way around. Work is more than a way to make a living; it is a form of continuing participation in God’s creation. If the dignity of work is to be protected, then the basic rights of workers must be respected–the right to productive work, to decent and fair wages, to the organization and joining of unions, to private property, and to economic initiative.”