Reflection - Buckets

By Steve Hall

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/112021.cfm
I Maccabees 6:1-13
Luke 20:27-40

Buckets have been around for a while. However, their usage has changed a bit in modern times.

Buckets today are frequently an alternative to Easter Baskets.

Or maybe buckets are around so comedians could sing songs: “There’s a hole in my bucket, dear Liza, dear Liza. There’s a hole in my bucket, dear Liza, a hole.”

But we also can’t forget that movie comedy ‘The Bucket List,’ in which two terminally ill men escape from a cancer ward and head off on a road trip with a wish list. That list enumerates things they want to do before they ‘kick’ the bucket.

And finally we should be aware that there is also a bucket for our post-death bucket list —the record of questions that only God can answer — the list of questions we take with us to the grave and beyond so they can finally be answered . . . with or without a bucket. Such a list might include such questions as: Who really shot President Kennedy? Is the universe expanding or not? How many angels can actually dance on the head of a pin?

After the encounter between Jesus and the Sadducees in today’s gospel, it is my understanding that the trick question — the question about the woman who successively married seven brothers — that the trick question put to Jesus was retired from future arguments between Sadducees and Pharisees and permanently placed on the Sadducees post-death bucket list. Personally, I don’t understand why they even bothered having such a list when they didn’t expect to be around to ask their questions. In any case, the post-death bucket list is worth some consideration. What, from deep in our hearts, will we choose to ask of Our Lord when we finally have the chance?

I’m getting to an age when it is appropriate to have my bucket list prepared, though there is certainly no requirement to wait til late in life to make your list. In such preparation we must start with a question: What kinds of questions should I ask? While the trivialities and curiosities of this life naturally arouse some questions, all will be consigned to the dustbin when this life is over. After all, who really cares where Jimmy Hoffa is buried? So we play the game now, and regularly add to our post-death bucket list, always though, with tongue in cheek. My suspicion is that the serious questions, the ones we really need answers for, will be automatically answered in virtue of our being there, not here. Even the question Jesus posed about the day of judgement — when did we see you hungry or thirsty . . . ? — is a question to be considered and answered now, not in some future place and time. 

All of which brings us back to the troubled Sadducees, suffering with crocodile tears over the dilemma they propose. We can, of course, give them the benefit of the doubt and assume they were questioning in good faith and not simply to thwart this new rabbi. But, taking their question at face value, we are challenged to find anything serious about it. So it is in our world, our country, our community today. We ask many questions, always assuming that our proposed solutions are the ones which should prevail. But our questions are directed to ourselves as if the answers were within us. Maybe they are; maybe they’re not. Only with theSpirit can we know for sure.

In the grand scheme of things our present questions will become irrelevant when we die — whether we get answers or not — and the questions that matter are questions for the ‘now.’ Those answers can prepare us for what comes next.

Pray with an openness to the Spirit with the questions we personally need answered for our eternity.