Thirty-second Sunday In Ordinary Time
LUKE 20:27-38
A long section of Luke’s gospel, called “The Journey to Jerusalem,” begins in chapter nine, verse 51. The journey ended in chapter 21:28-45, at the royal and triumphal entry of Jesus into the city and the temple. After his arrival, he faced homicidal opposition from part of the religious establishment, especially the high priestly families who governed the temple. They confront Jesus with challenges. In all of them he is clearly the winner. The last of these challenges is a confrontation between Jesus and the Sadducees. The Saddu-cees were the upper echelon of the priestly families along with other wealthy, prominent members of the moneyed aristocracy.
The challenge to Jesus by the Sadducees is a mockery of the teaching of the Pharisees (and of Jesus) that there is a resurrection of the dead. Luke describes the Sadducees, “…those who say there is no resurrection.” Their approach is as follows. Referring to Deuteronomy 25:5-10, they say, “Teacher, Moses wrote for us that if a man’s brother dies, leaving a wife but no children, the man’s brother must take the wife and raise up children for his (deceased) brother.” This law is called “The Law of Levirate.” A Levir is a husband’s brother. The term “levirate” is said to be derived from the Latin for brother-in-law, laevus vir, or “man on the left.” (Historical sidebar: Deuteronomy 25:5, along with Leviticus 18:16 and 20:21, which forbade such marriages, became an important issue in Henry VIII’s appeal for divorce from his lawful wife, Catherine of Aragon.)
The Sadducees give an example of seven brothers. The first married a woman but he died childless. The other six, one after the other, took to wife the widow of the first brother, but all died after attempting to co-create an heir to the deceased brother. Then comes the mocking question from those who deny there is a resurrection of the dead, “Now at the resurrection, since all seven had been married to her, whose wife will she be?” They thought they had him. The Sadducees accepted as Scripture only the first five books of the Bible, the Torah (Pentateuch). From the Torah, by referring to Deuteronomy 25:5, they attempted to prove that there was no resurrection. Jesus’ answer must therefore also come from the Torah.
Before he demolishes their argument, the Lucan Jesus speaks about marriage or the ab-sence of it in “the coming age,” that is, eternal life. In this world, he says, people marry and remarry. In the coming age, after the resurrection of the dead, they “neither marry nor are given in marriage.” There will be no need for them to generate offspring, since they can no longer die. No replacements needed to whom they would pass on life. They are compared to angels, because they will be immortal. These immortal ones are the ones who will be reunited to their bodies at the resurrection of the dead. Here we must call on Paul in 1 Corinthians 15:42-44, that the risen bodies will be “spiritual bodies,” taking their immortality, we may assume, from their immortal soul. When Jesus speaks of angels, he is teasingly prodding the Sadducees, because they not only denied a resurrection, but also rejected the existence of angels.
Jesus proceeds to demolish their argument, and he does it from the Torah. “That the dead will rise even Moses, (the Torah, Exodus 3:1-6), made known in the passage about the (burning) shrub, when he called out ‘Lord,’ (speaking of) the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. But God is not the God of the dead, but of the living, for to him all are alive.” The argument seems to be that only living people can have a God.
Therefore the Lord’s promise to the patriarchs that he will be their God requires that in some way he maintain them in life, even after their death. These arguments in favor of a resurrection of the dead may not be as convincing to modern readers as they were in Luke’s time. To a discussion of the resurrection of the dead, the words of Paul settling another matter may apply, “Learn from us not to go beyond what is written,” 1 Cor 4:6.
2 MACCABEES 7:1-2, 9-14
This reading is part of a story about the martyrdom of a Jewish mother and her seven sons. Between 168-165 B.C, faithful Jews in the vicinity of Jerusalem were persecuted by order of King Antiochus IV of Syria. The Torah forbade eating pork, because pigs were included in a list of “unclean,” that is, taboo animals. One class of these “unclean” consi-sted of those with a split hoof “that cheweth not the cud. Of their flesh you shall not eat, and their carcasses you shall not touch.” (Woe therefore to those who handle pigskin in certain sport!) The persecutors tortured this family with scourges to force them to violate their conscience by eating pork. They refused. All were martyred. One of them rebuked their persecutors, “The King of the World will raise us up again forever.”
2 THESSALONIANS 2:16 – 3:5
This letter has some rough parts rebuking those who idled away the time waiting for the return of Jesus. Today’s reading is all blessing, love, hope, comfort. The author is confi-dent that “you will do the things that we command.” What things? Get back to work or accept the Workfare Rule, “If anyone does not work, neither let him eat.”
