In the Gospel passage of Mark 12:18-27 (see also Luke 20:27-40), the Sadducees bring in a fantastic story of seven brothers and their wife to Jesus. "Whose wife will she be?," they ask him. They want to trap Jesus, and discredit him. But above all, they want to discredit or disapprove resurrection. The Sadducees were wealthy materialists, they did not believe in resurrection. They were so happy in this material world, they denied a spiritual world or an after-life.
Jesus' answer to them is so refreshing, and eye-opening. He asks them to stop seeing heaven with materialistic, earthly eyes; but to see even this material universe with heavenly, spiritual eyes. The universe is not inert, but is “inspirited matter.” The universe is composed of subjects to be communed with, not objects to be exploited. Jesus says, "God is not God of the dead, but of the living. For God all things in this universe are alive." It is not a dead universe that we are living in. The physical structure of this universe is love.
Jesus, in this context, also tells the Sadducees, "You neither know Scriptures nor the power of God." Are we drawing new power and new life from the gospel? Or is the above statement applicable also to us? Our belief in God will be concretely "seen" in our daily lives, if we allow it. The Holy Spirit is creatively at work in this moment urging us to become a new kind of human being such as the world has rarely seen before. Do we believe in this power of God, who is active beyond our imagination? Do we understand the gospel and the Scriptures expressing this same power of God? Do I read and meditate the Word of God? Do I observe and contemplate the material universe expressing God's love to us? Very often, I'm afraid, we believe in a "dead" God, or a God though alive who is not powerful enough. Or we may believe like the ancients that He needs a lot of coaxing and novenas from our part... lots of recited mantras and candles to make Him work.
God is not outside of this universe. He is not out there. He is inside of us, already working powerfully. The Creator is not completely different from his creation; He resides within it. If we're completely different than God, then there will be an impassable gulf between us. We can't know something that's totally different than we are; the idea of such a remote God should be broken. We actually participate in the very mystery of God—who is the Trinity. The indwelling presence of the Spirit within us (Antaryamin) already knows God, already loves God, and is already in love with God. There's nothing we can add to or subtract from this! All we can do is jump on this train, which is already moving. This is true prayer. True prayer is not appeasing a remote, unconcerned God to work, but is seconding the motion—accepting God's work inside of us. True prayer, therefore, is to merely "participate" in this mystery. Aren't we lucky?
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