Homily

Many of you have probably heard of Stephen Hawking, the British-born mathematician physicist and cosmologist whose works in a number of areas of research were highly praised for many years. He was a brilliant scholar and thinker—he died in 2018. Hawking created a short documentary called, "The Meaning of Life." He begins by asking one of the most basic and profound questions that people can ask: Is there a meaning to life, a reason why we exist in this world? Hawking said that philosophers have asked that question for many centuries, but science has now ended that search for an answer. He claimed that science has changed everything. The first thing we must accept as we go searching for the meaning of life is that all of this is nothing more than physics. Hawking was a materialist who believed there is nothing outside or apart from the material universe; no God, no soul, no heaven, no spirit.

Very much simplifying his documentary, Hawking holds that we are simply marvelous, self-aware creatures, who interact with our world and each other based on physical laws over which we have no real control. We act and react based on electrical-chemical connections in our brains which are fantastically complex. We believe we have free will, but in fact what we call free will is nothing more than the actions and responses of our brain, which we could predict accurately if we were sophisticated enough to measure them. Hawking says that reality is not "out there," but rather reality is in the mind of the beholder. We build our own personal realities in our own minds. Therefore, the meaning of life is whatever you choose it to be. "The meaning of life is not something out there, but it's right between our ears. In many ways this makes us the Lords of Creation." Of course, what Hawking does not mention is that science can’t prove any of this. You’ll just have to believe him.

Hawking was an atheist. He said that Heaven "is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark." (And I was tempted to turn out the lights in church last night to prove him wrong.)

Stephen Hawking was one of the most intelligent people in the world in his day. But my one grandmother, who only went to school for a couple of years in Eastern Europe may not have been as smart as him, but she was much, much wiser than Stephen Hawking, because she believed in God, because she knew God.

So why bring this up today? I would say that the vast majority of Americans would reject Hawking's views that there is nothing beyond the physical world. That's not the problem. The problem is how many Americans live as though there is nothing beyond the material world? How much are people pre-occupied with material life instead of a life which satisfies the soul and our very deeply ingrained need to connect with our Creator? That need is there, but it can be pushed aside, ignored, and neglected as we look for ways to try and satisfy that hunger with people and things in this world. People may surely believe that there is a God, a heaven and maybe even a hell, but it's simply not very important, it finds no real place in their everyday lives. There are a million distractions all the time and many of them promise comfort, peace, happiness, pleasure and satisfaction. Lots of people spend lots of time in lots of these distractions.

So then, it's not surprising that many people have adopted ideas and values that are very compatible with Hawking's materialistic philosophy. How many people believe that science and technology are always leading us to a better future? How many people hold that reality is, in fact, in the eye of the beholder and different for each person, that people can hold different truths. How many people do think that the meaning of life is not out there but it's "in here?" How many people believe we are much better as human beings mostly due to science, technology and education, and that those are the most important elements we have to gain a better future?

Science can indeed be very good, but it cannot tell us what is good. There's no doubt people, most people, will tell you they believe in a spiritual reality, but with every passing year fewer and fewer people think that is important enough to have a solid place in their lives. They may not hold all of Hawking's views, but they accept some of his arguments, and this materialism creeps along.

What an irony then that we worship a God today Who did not come to save us from the material world nor for the material world, but instead He calls us to transform the material world by living in His grace. A God Who does not want to condemn the material world, but in super-cosmic act of humility becomes a creature Himself, born of a creature, born among creatures, born to be able to share His divinity with us who are nothing in the eyes of the universe, but everything in the eyes of the Creator. Hawking is so absolutely wrong. Science hasn't changed everything. It hasn't changed the human heart. It has no power to do so. It cannot tell us the meaning of our lives in this world, it cannot extinguish our desire for eternal life, it cannot answer our fears when we face the tragedy of death, it cannot pardon our sins or help us grow in virtue. That is why God became man, to offer us all these things, to give us hope in Him. He came so that we might see the face of God.

Yes, we often get too caught up in this material world, but today let's be sure we get caught up in Him Who became a man, took on matter for our sake, for our lives. Everything and everyone here is and will change, is and will pass away. Only the love of Jesus Christ will remain for us unchanged forever.