Saturday of the Thirty-third Week in Ordinary Time
Today’s Gospel tells of an encounter between Jesus and the Sadducees. The Sadducees were an aristocratic class of priests who only accepted the first five books of Hebrew Scriptures called the Torah, refuted oral legal tradition, and denied teachings not found in the Torah including the resurrection of the dead. Therefore, in this exchange, the Sadducees try to trap and challenge Jesus on the teaching of the resurrection by bringing up a seemingly ridiculous example of seven men who married the same woman. Jesus dodges the trap by quoting from the Torah, “That the dead will rise even Moses made known in the passage about the bush, when he called ‘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,” (Luke 20:37-38). Thus, today’s Gospel is really about eternal life.
What does this mean for us today? With resurrection comes hope—hope for things to come. When we experience suffering, pain, sorrow, and struggles, we look to Jesus for hope. Through his suffering and death and subsequent resurrection, he shows us that joy can come after tumultuous times in our lives.
The danger in focusing too much in the afterlife is that we do not strive to make our world a better place to live in. At the same time, the opposite is also true. If we are too caught up in life on earth, like the Sadducees, then we will become too focused on ourselves and live a more self-centered life. Jesus provides a balance in Luke 17:21, “For behold, the Kingdom of God is among you.” Throughout the Gospels, Jesus demonstrates that the Reign of God is, in many ways, a reversal of life on earth—the sick are cured, the storm becomes calm, God’s kingdom is like a tiny mustard seed, love your enemies, etc. His mother Mary foreshadows this in the Magnificat (Luke 1:46-55)—the lowly are lifted up, the mighty are thrown down, the hungry are fed, the rich are empty, etc. If the Kingdom of God is among us, then we are to help God build this Kingdom on earth through the mercy, love, and peace that Jesus shows us—a snapshot of eternal life with God.
—Sr. Emily Sandoval, FMI