Back in the mid-1960s, a Catholic by the name of John T. Elson was the religion editor at Time magazine. You may never have heard of him. But during Easter week of 1966, he made history, and made headlines. Elson wrote a long and theologically complex article that was published in the magazine. It was considered meaningful enough that the editors put it on the cover. And they gave it special treatment: it was the first cover of the magazine ever printed without a picture, without any artwork. It had just three simple words:

“Is God dead?”

What followed was seismic. Elson’s article was challenged from pulpits around the world. People debated it and argued over it on talk shows, at cocktail parties, in newspapers. Time received over three thousand letters to the editor and it became, up to that time, the best-selling issue of the magazine. To this day, it remains a cultural touchstone – defining what was happening in the late ‘60s in a powerful and, perhaps, prophetic way.

The uproar died down, and Elson faded into obscurity. This week, I read that he died a couple of weeks ago, quietly, at the age of 78. When he asked about God’s death, millions noticed. When he died, hardly anyone did.

But the question he asked has been repeated countless times, in many ways. The recent anniversary of 9/11 was a reminder of how many people asked, after that awful day, “Where was God?”

Is God dead?

I think it’s normal, very human question to ask ourselves from time to time. We can’t help but wonder — in between Iraq and the economic collapse and Darfur and Iran and everything else — whether God is there. Is He paying attention?

No doubt the apostles probably thought Jesus was out of earshot, and not paying attention, when they started wondering who would be greatest in the Kingdom.

This, just after Christ has foretold his own suffering, death and resurrection.

But he turns the tables on them, in a way they probably never expected: through the presence of a child.

He turns ambition upside down. Where is greatness? Where is God? Look closely. He is in that child. He is in everything we might consider small or insignificant. Christ is telling his followers: don’t look up to find the glory of God. Look down. Look at the child at your hip. The old man in the hospital bed. The woman in the wheelchair. Lower your eyes to see the man on the sidewalk with a cardboard cup. The baby in the womb.

Receive these in my name, Jesus says, and you receive me. And you then receive The One who sent me.

Here, he says, wrapping his arms around a child. Here is God. Receive Him. He lives. Here.

In our modern language, Christ sees a “teachable moment,” and he teaches.

A best-selling book years ago said that “All I really need to know I learned in kindergarten.”

In this instance, you might say: all I really need to know I learned from someone in kindergarten.

And learning is an important theme this Sunday. This is “Catechetical Sunday,” when we honor and pray for all those who seek to teach the faith – in our schools, in religious education, in various pastoral programs. But the truth is: we are all catechists — every parent, every neighbor, every brother or sister. Every Catholic who is living out his or her faith is, in that living, teaching it. You don’t need a classroom or a blackboard. To paraphrase St. Francis of Assisi, you don’t even need words.

But there are some things we all do need: like wisdom and courage, patience and commitment. We need ears and hearts that are open to others. We need a spirit of sacrifice, to give our time and to share our faith.

And we all need to know our faith better than we do. We need to love it as deeply as we live it. We need imagination, to find new ways to tell ageless stories – the New Evangelization.

We need to be steeped in prayer, saturated in it, so that we can find within our souls a deep-seated, honest answer to the question that could come to us at any moment:

“Is God dead?”

And we will be able to answer, without hesitation: “He lives. And let me tell you why.”

Or as someone once said, in what may be the best response: “The question isn’t ‘Is God dead?’ The question is really, ‘Are we alive?’”

Searching those questions, and explaining the answers — that is what it means to be a catechist. It is more than what we know. It is how we live. It is what we believe to be true – so true that we cannot help but pass it on to others. It is offering ourselves – all the talents we have, the knowledge we carry, the time we can spare – to spread this urgent news:

God lives.

That is Christ’s message. And that is ours, to share with the world.

If you have any lingering doubts about the importance of all of us being teachers of the faith, consider this: throughout the gospels, Jesus’ followers never call him by his given name. In fact, not until the end of his earthly life, when he is on the cross, does someone – the thief on the cross next to him – utter the name “Jesus.” Let us never forget that, in these earliest accounts of his life, Christ’s disciples call him something else — a title of great respect, and great love: teacher.

Teacher.

That says it all.

What he was.

And what we must aspire to be.