Thirthy second Sunday in Ordinary time – Year C
BETWEEN FEAR AND ILLUSIONS, ONLY ONE HOPE
Introduction
People of all ages have been confronted with the distressing enigma of death and have tried in every wayto overcome or at least to exorcise it. The Egyptians resorted to mummification to preserve the body from decomposition. They have made rituals, ceremonies, and complicated and detailed funeral practices to ensurethe deceased lived in the world of Osiris. The people of Mesopotamia spoke of death as a descent to ‘the country of no return,’ and they admitted: ‘When the gods formed humanity, they attributed death to people andheld life back in their hands.’ Others have thought about the possibility of a return to the life of this world through a succession of countless reincarnations.
How many things happen in our lives: we are born, we grow, we fall in love, we form a family, we educate our children, we experience joys and sorrows, and we cultivate hopes and dreams. Then one day, everything seems to conclude in the void of death. All end, everything disappears! The dialogue of love, affections, and relationships with loved ones is broken. Do we go back into the nothingness from which we drew a gesture of love of our parents? Has God truly created a person for a fate so cruel? What is left of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, only their first names?
God answered these questions: ‘The Christian hope—said Tertullian, the famous father of the Church of the second century—is the resurrection of the dead; all that we are, we are because we believe in the resurrection.’
- To internalize the message, we repeat:
“In my waking, O Lord, I will enjoy contemplating your face.”
First Reading: 2 Maccabees 7:1-2,9-14
It happened that seven brothers with their mother were arrested and tortured with whips and scourges by the king, to force them to eat pork in violation of God’s law.One of the brothers, speaking for the others, said: “What do you expect to achieve by questioning us? We are ready to die rather than transgress the laws of our ancestors.”
At the point of death the second brother said: “You accursed fiend, you are depriving us of this present life, but the King of the world will raise us up to live again forever. It is for his laws that we are dying.”
After him the third brother suffered their cruel sport. He put out his tongue at once when told to do so, and bravely held out his hands, as he spoke these noble words: “It was from Heaven that I received these; for the sake of his laws I disdain them; from him I hope to receive them again.” Even the king and his attendants marveled at the young man’s courage, because he regarded his sufferings as nothing.
After he had died, they tortured and maltreated the fourth brother in the same way. When he was near death, he said, “It is my choice to die at the hands of men with the hope God gives of being raised up by him; but for you, there will be no resurrection to life.” —The Word of the Lord.
The first books of the Bible clearly show that, in ancient times, the Israelites did not believe in another life. If we had asked them if there was a resurrection of the dead, they would have answered: ‘We do not know! What interests us is living in this world. We want a life full of joys and satisfaction.’ If we had asked the same question to a pious Jew of Isaiah’s time, he could be even more explicit: “The dead will no longer live, the shadows will not rise ... God has wiped out all remembrance of them” (Is 26:14).
The answer of Job is identical: “Man, born of a woman … like a flower that blooms and withers. There is hope for a tree: if cut down, it will sprout again, its new shoots will still appear. Though its roots grow old in the ground and its stump withers in the soil, at the scent of water it will bud and put forth shoots like a young plant.But when man is cut down, he becomes lifeless; he breathes his last … where will he be? The waters of the sea may disappear, rivers drain away, but the one who lies down will not rise again, the heavens will vanish before he wakes, before he rises from his sleep” (Job 14:1,7-13).
Only much later, in the second century BC in Israel, a talk started about an awakening of those who sleep in the dust of the earth (cf. Dn 12:2). The episode narrated in today’s reading is placed at this time.
The wicked Antiochus Epiphanes wanted to force the Israelites to abandon their fathers' faith and religious practice. To achieve his objectives, he did not hesitate to resort to persecution and torture. One day he wanted to compel a mother and her seven children to violate the law by eating pork (vv. 1-2).
Today's passage refers to the courageous answers given to the king by the first four brothers: a profession of faith in the resurrection of the dead. Never before in the Old Testament, a clear affirmation of this truth wasmade. The seven brothers declare themselves ready to give up this life because they are sure that God will give them another (vv. 9.11.14).
However, it should be noted that their faith in the existence of another life is not equal to our faith in the resurrection. They were convinced that the righteous would have received from God a life similar to the one taken from them because of their allegiance to the law. They did not expect to be introduced to death in a completely new condition.
Second Reading: 2 Thessalonians 2:16–3:5
Brothers and sisters: May our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God our Father, who has loved us and given us everlasting encouragement and good hope through hisgrace, encourage your hearts and strengthen them in every good deed and word.
Finally, brothers and sisters, pray for us, so that the word of the Lord may speed forward and be glorified, as it did among you, and that we may be delivered fromperverse and wicked people, for not all have faith. But the Lord is faithful; he will strengthen you and guard you from the evil one. We are confident of you in the Lord that what we instruct you, you are doing and will continue to do. May the Lord direct your hearts to the love of God and to the endurance of Christ. —The Word of the Lord.
There were some tensions among the Christians of Thessalonica, some theologically not so correct, and even extreme positions. However, the overall life of that community was quite satisfactory.
In the first part of the reading (2 Thes 2:16-17), Paul asks the Lord to confirm the hearts of everyone in good disposition. In the second part (2 Thes 3:1-5), he urges the Thessalonians to pray that the Word of God that already has produced many changes in their midst be spread and be known to all people. He asked them to pray for him because there are many difficulties that he must confront; there are many people who hate and seek to destroy that which he constructs.
Gospel: Luke 20:27-38
Some Sadducees, those who deny that there is a resurrection, came forward and put this question to Jesus, saying, “Teacher, Moses wrote for us, If someone’s brotherdies leaving a wife but no child, his brother must take the wife and raise up descendants for his brother. Now there were seven brothers; the first married a woman but died childless. Then the second and the third married her, and likewise all the seven died childless. Finally the woman also died. Now at the resurrection whose wife will that woman be? For all seven had been married to her.” Jesus said to them,“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. They can no longer die, for they are like angels; and they are the children of God because they are the ones who will rise. That the dead will rise even Moses made known in the passage about the bush, when Moses called the Lord, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob; and he is not God of the dead, but of the living, for to him all are alive.” —The Gospel of the Lord.
The first reading spoke of the seven brothers. They still had a very flawed concept of the resurrection. They imagined it as an extension of the life of this world, nothing more. On this issue, even in the time of Jesus, the ideas were not much different. The Pharisees who firmly professed faith in the resurrection of the dead continued to interpret it in a rather crude way. In future life—they said—the joys of this life will be increased dramatically. In heaven, there will be no hunger, disease, suffering, and misfortunes. People will enjoy every pleasure; they will have bread, meat, and wine in abundance.
Today's Gospel introduces a new political-religious group, so far not yet spoken of in the Gospel of Luke, the Sadducees. We know they constituted the class of the rich, who were collaborators of the Roman government. They were not held in good esteem by the people, and from the religious point of view, they were conservatives. All chief priests (who were primarily responsible for the death of Jesus) belonged to this sect.
One of the theological issues that placed them at odds with the Pharisees concerned the belief in the resurrection of the dead. While the Pharisees claimed it, the Sadducees argued that in the Torah (the only books of the Bible they recognized as sacred), there is no mention of this topic; accordingly, they declared themselves skeptics. Moreover, with the money at their disposal, they could enjoy paradise in this world, and no one felt any need to dream of the afterlife.
Pharisees and Sadducees fiercely defended their positions on the Bible and sought reasons to oppose each other. There were sympathizers of the Pharisees among the people who shared their belief in the resurrection. Listening to Jesus, the Sadducees one day realize that on this point, he agrees in part with the Pharisees: he believes in eternal life, even though he gives the impression to interpret it in a very authentic way. To convince him to change his opinion, they resort to a text of the Torah. They outline a curious story (vv. 28-33), telling it to him.
The Law of Moses—they say—states that if a man dies without any child, his brother marries the widow. Children born of this new marriage are considered children of the deceased (Dt 25:5-10). Now there was among us a woman who was able to "exhaust" seven husbands, one after the other. Then she died. Now, if we admit the resurrection of the dead, the situation becomes intricate: which of the brothers will be her husband in the future life?
It's not the first time that the Sadducees have used this strange story to embarrass their opponents. For the Pharisees, the objection is extremely serious. They are convinced that eternal life is the perfection of this life. They, therefore, can only lower their eyes, muttering some explanation and moving away quickly among the funny comments of those present.
Jesus understands resurrection so radically different from the Pharisees. He is not at all touched by the objection of the Sadducees. He took the floor and articulated his answer in two parts. The first: “The sons and daughters of this age marry and are given into marriage, but those of the other world ... they are like angels ... they are the sons/daughters of God” (vv. 34-36).
The objection of the Sadducees is based on a false assumption that the future life is the continuation (improved and enhanced) of this life and is not accepted by Jesus. He does not preach an awakening from the tomb to resume life as before. Such a thing would be ridiculous, absurd, and cruel of God. It would make no sense to die and then return to the same body, the same life. Life with God is an entirely new condition: when introduced into it, a person, while maintaining their own identity, becomes a different being, immortal, equal to the angels of God
How will this life with God be? Here is a question we must answer with great caution: because there is an ever-looming danger of projecting the afterlife—as the Pharisees did; whatever positive thing we experience here, infinitely multiplied: joys, pleasures, satisfaction and – as the rabbis supported – also the return to married life.
Behind certain statements, certain prayers, certain questions of many Christians today, there still lurk, unfortunately, an image of the “resurrection of the dead” similar to that of the Pharisees. The resurrection mentioned by Jesus—the one that puts man in common with the angels of God—is entirely different. For Jesus, a person lives on earth as a gestation. They prepare for new birth, after which there will be no otherbecause the world they will enter will be final. In it, there will not be any form of death.
As the fetus in the mother’s womb cannot imagine the world that awaits them, a person cannot imagine how life will be with God. It’s a mystery that is not revealed, not because the Lord wishes to increase the suspense and surprise, but simply because our mind cannot understand it. “A perishable body is a burden for the soul and our tent of clay weighs down the active mind. We are barely able to know the things of earth … who then may hope to understand heavenly things?” (Wis 9:15-16)
We can approach this sublime and ineffable reality only through faith, believing that those things that no eye has seen, no ear has heard, nor any mind fathomed, God has prepared for those who love him (1 Cor 2:9). Instead of inquiring about what we cannot understand, it is better to dwell on the certainties that the resurrection of Christ offers: in particular, the fact that no two lives exist—the present and the future—but one life that continues under two completely different forms.
Death understood as the annihilation of the person does not exist. It was defeated, destroyed by the death and resurrection of Christ. We call death simply the abandonment of the form of life—weak, fragile, and fleeting—we lead in this world to be welcomed into God's world. The mortal body gets sick, withers, ages, undergoes dissolution, and is not introduced into the eternal world. It remains in this world: the person is invested with another body “incorruptible, glorious, full of strength, spiritual” (1 Cor 15:42-43).
The second certainty is that the resurrection of Christ demolished all barriers that separated the living from the dead. An intimate and deep bond unites all. When we, the living, gather around the Eucharistic banquet, we are in communion with the brothers/sisters in heaven. We are confident that our memory makes them happy, increases our love and theirs, and rekindles our desire and hope to be united one day with Christ and with them.
With our prayers, we tell the deceased that we are happy that they are with God, despite the pain of their loss, alive in us. We tell them that we remember only the good they have done; their help, gestures of love, and generosity. Their flaws, mistakes, and weaknesses have been purified by encountering the ‘fire’ of God’s love. In them, no form of evil or death remains.
The second part of Jesus’ answer (vv. 37-38) is made up of a clear statement of the truth of the resurrection. We cannot imagine how life will be with God, but faith gives us the certainty that, after death, the person continues to live. The evidence Jesus brings to convince the Sadducees is the following: “The Lord, the God of Abraham, God of Isaac and the God of Jacob is not God of the dead, but of the living: because all live for him.” What does he mean to say?
He refers to the authority of Holy Scripture. He says that Moses, who lived many centuries after the death of the patriarchs, calls the Lord: “the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.” This means that they were still alive. Otherwise, Moses and all the Israelites would have invoked a God of the dead after him.
How can one imagine a God who creates people, establishes a covenant with them, makes a lot of promises, defends them from their opponents, considers himself their friend, and then one day abandons them, makes them disappear in the dust, and return to nothing? If he behaves in this way, he would be the author of the projects of death. However, Jesus says he is not the God of the dead but the living, for he has compassion on all because all is his, and He is "a lover of life" (Wis 11:26). He “did not make death nor does he rejoice in the destruction of the living" (Wis 1:13). Nothing that has any connection with death can approach him.