32^nd Sunday in Ordinary Time (C); November 6, 2022

2 Mc 7:1-2,9-14.  Ps 17.  2 Thes 2:16-3:5.  Lk 20:27-38

Deacon Jim McFadden

       Today’s Gospel reading offers us an uplifting teaching of our Lord Jesus on the resurrection of the dead.  Jesus is pitted in an argument with some Sadducees, who did not believe in the resurrection and therefore they tried to provoke Jesus with an insidious question: in resurrection, whose wife would a woman belong to who was married to seven men successively.  Is she married to all seven?  Is there polygamy in Heaven?  The implication is “look how silly this belief in the Resurrection is!”

            The Sadducees, like today’s New Atheists, are trying to reduce some religious beliefs to the realm of superstitions.  An example of this was a film, Religulous, produced by HBO comedian Bill Maher, a former Catholic,  where he conflates the words ‘religious’ and ‘ridiculous.’  Maher and other New Atheists reduce religion to the realm of the absurd by making the non-empirical claim that the only realities are those that happen in Space and Time.  What they don’t entertain is that there are some realities that are unseen; as such, they’re too much for reason to take in.  That was Hamlet’s insight that human knowledge is limited, where we hear that “There are more things in heaven and Earth, Horatio,/Than are dreampt of in your philosophy” (science) (Hamlet, Act 1, Scene 5). That is why we need the Light of Revelation.

            Jesus’ strategy is to show that the Resurrection of the Dead is a reality that transcends reason.  Notice how he sets aside the glib assumptions of the Sadducees: “The children of this age marry and remarry; but those who are deemed worthy to attain to the coming age and to the resurrection of the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage” (Lk 20:34-35). 

            With this response, Jesus invites his interlocutors—and us too—to consider that this earthly dimension in which we live and move about is not the only dimension; that there is another realm that’s beyond our ordinary one—beyond our familiar world.  Therefore, it’s something that can’t be directly known without the access of Revelation.  But who better can we trust than our Lord, the Word of God made Flesh, who promises eternal resurrected life.

            As we age and get older, and for some of us, to enter into our twilight years, Jesus’ promise is of great comfort and hope to listen to this simple and clear word of Jesus that there is life beyond death; we need to hear this especially in our time, so rich in knowledge of the Mind, but so lacking in the Wisdom of the Eye of the Soul.

            Jesus’s clear certainty about resurrection is based on his  participation in Trinitarian Love as the 2^nd Person of the Holy Trinity.  That’s the key:  resurrection is based entirely on fidelity to God.  In fact, behind the question of the Sadducees is hidden a more profound question: not only whose wife will be the widow of the seven husbands, but to whom will her life belong?  This is the question that touches each one of us: to whom do I belong?  Where or whom does my ultimate allegiance reside?  After my earthy sojourn is over, what happens next?  What will become of my life?  Will it belong to nothing, to oblivion, to death? 

            Jesus responds that life belongs to God, who loves and cares very deeply about us, to the point where he links His name to ours.  Listen: He is “the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.  Now He is not God of the dead, but of the living, for all live to him” (vs. 37-38).  The fullness of life exists where there is a bond, a communion, a brotherhood/sisterhood; and it is a life that is stronger than death, when it is built on true relationships and bonds that are grounded in faith.  On the contrary, there is no life where one presupposes of belonging only to oneself and of living a life of acquisition by pursuing  the goods of the world.  Selfishness cannot lead to genuine relationships here and now.  If I live just for myself, I am sowing death in my heart. 

            Yes, brothers and sisters, after death, we will be with God without our human limitations.  But, even now, we can link ourselves to God by our desire to be at-one with him.  We can move through our earthly life, immersing ourselves in His love, recognizing the divine life in our experience, and to share His love with others through service and ministry.  There is no need to wait!—we can live here and in the eternal realm, albeit  imperfectly and incompletely.  Each day we can begin anew to ground ourselves in the wonder of God’s incredible love and trust the He walks with us no matter what happens.  In a certain way, especially as we celebrate Eucharist, the source and summit of our worship, we are in the eternal presence.  Amen.