Thirty-Second Sunday In Ordinary Time, C--The Sadducees

One of my seminary professors said that it’s easy to remember who the Sadducees were because since they denied that there is a resurrection, they were “so sad you see.” The Sadducees were the ancient version of modern liberal theologians. They were anti-supernaturalistic.

They only accepted the Torah, the “Pentateuch” also known as the Law of Moses or the “Books of Moses” all of which only comprised the first 5 books of the Bible: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. That’s it.

So, in responding to their question, Jesus could not cite in proof of the resurrection other Old Testament books which come after the first five books, like Isaiah 26:19, which says that the dead shall be raised, or Daniel 12:2 which says some will be resurrected to everlasting life, others to shame and everlasting contempt, which is what our First Reading, alludes to when the evil Assyrian king mutilated the Jewish mother and her children because they would not give up the Jewish dietary laws as a matter of conscience and so preferred death.

The Sadducees asked Jesus a stock question from the third book in the bible, called Leviticus about the Woman Who Had Seven Husbands (because all her seven husbands had died), and the question was, “Now at the resurrection whose wife will that woman be?”

I believe the question I would have asked the Sadducees would be, “Was this woman taking out life insurance policies on all these husbands?”

Notice that Jesus met them on their own terms since they only accepted the first five books of the Bible and thus had limited knowledge of God’s revelation.

It’s like the preschool teacher who asked her class to name an animal whose name begins with an “E.” One boy said,

“Elephant.”

Then the teacher asked for an animal whose name begins with a “T”. The same boy said, “Two elephants.”

The teacher wanted to give the boy one more chance, so she asked for an animal whose name begins with “M”

The boy had reached the end of his animal knowledge, but he was willing to give it one more try. He hesitated, then answered, “Maybe elephant?”

Using their limited, truncated Scriptures, Jesus said: “Hear this homily: they cannot die anymore. God is not God of the dead, but of the living, for to him all are alive." Similarly, intercessory prayer when we ask other Christians to pray for us does not usurp Christ’s role as the one mediator because we are not separated from each other in the Body of Christ, which is the church. We are not isolated Christians. E.g. St. Paul says “pray for us” in our Second Reading.

Regarding those Catholics who attend Catholic Bible study who say to us Catholics: Hear this homily:

The fact that the Sadducees were missing out on a lot of Scripture was a problem. The fact that they ignore the Scriptures they have is a bigger problem. When Jesus says to them, “you are in error because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God,” He’s not complaining that they don’t have the Book of Daniel, but that they don’t read the Book of Exodus, which they do have. Likewise, we Catholics, who have been graced with the Greek translation of the Old Testament called the Septuagint, comprised of 46 books, will face a much worse judgment if we ignore them then will Protestants who use the shorter Hebrew canon and thus have 39 books but read and apply them.

[source: adapted from Joe Heschmeyer’s thought].

Meditation on a select verse of Scripture of your choosing is the quiet and sustained application of the mind to the contemplation of a spiritual truth. Its purpose is to deflect our minds from the problems we are experiencing, to raise our thoughts above the grievances and discontent that color our thinking. Keyword search: Lectio Divina, Latin for "Divine Reading"

Lastly, our Gospel today by St. Luke can be seen as a subtle spur to us to live our lives as to be found worthy in Christ by His grace alone for eternal life at the resurrection. Jesus explains to us today in our Gospel that there exists an eternal life that knows no death. For one “cannot die anymore,” which is a unique statement of Luke.

This emphatically tells us that those departed from this life in the Lord live, but that, disembodied spirits do not marry. Nor will there be marriage in heaven after the resurrection, and that, there, all our relationships will be healed and perfected.

Those in heaven live personally – they are still individuals with subjective self-awareness in the life to come.

They are mentioned by their names – they are known and not anonymous.

They are free from all sorrow, never to die and to live as sons and daughters of God.