November 6^th 2016.Thirty Second Sunday of Ordinary Time

GOSPEL: Luke 20:27-38

­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­Translated from a homily by Don Fabio Rosini, broadcast on Vatican Radio

Don Fabio’s reflection follows the Gospel reading ...

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GOSPEL: Luke 20:27-38

Some Sadducees-those who say that there is no resurrection-approached him and they put this question to him, ‘Master, we have it from Moses in writing, that if a man’s married brother dies childless, the man must marry the widow to raise up children for his brother. Well then, there were seven brothers. The first, having married a wife, died childless. The second and then the third married the widow. And the same with all seven, they died leaving no children. Finally the woman herself died.  Now, at the resurrection, to which of them will she be wife since she had been married to all seven?’

Jesus replied, ‘The children of this world take wives and husbands, but those who are judged worthy of a place in the other world do not marry because they can no longer die, for they are the same as the angels, and being children of the resurrection they are sons of God. And Moses himself implies that the dead rise again, in the passage about the bush where he calls the Lord the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. Now he is God, not of the dead, but of the living; for to him all men are in fact alive.’

The Gospel of the Lord: Praise to you Lord Jesus Christ

Kieran’s summary . . . The Sadducees did not believe in the resurrection and considered this hypothetical situation (of the woman with seven husbands) to be a serious challenge to anyone who believed in eternal life. Don Fabio tells us that, in fact, it was the Sadducees’ view of life in general (not just eternal life) that was absurd. The sort of life they believed in was horizontal, earthly, and deprived of all eternal significance. Unless we believe in the resurrection then we cannot grasp the enormous dignity of the human person. No-one would be capable of unconditional love, authentic mercy, or sacrifice for the sake of others, if he did not believe in the eternal dimension of human life and action. A true perspective on life is only possible through the lens of eternity. But why does Jesus tell the Sadducees that the people who are destined for heaven do not marry? In other places, Jesus unambiguously affirms the indissolubility of marriage and that the union of man and woman is part of God’s basic plan for humanity. He wants the Sadducees to know that marriage in an earthly sense has no place in the Kingdom of Heaven. If I get married just for my own earthly purposes, then the union will not last. I will tire of my spouse or run from her when she makes me suffer. But when I live my marriage as part of God’s design for the human race, as a sacrament of encounter with God, then I will continue to embrace her even when she makes me suffer. This is the distinction Jesus wishes to make: Marriage in the earthly sense of the Sadducees has no significance in heaven. But marriage that is focussed on eternity is a different story. In this case, I live my marriage as an angel sent on a mission from God and my marriage becomes something genuine, a place of encounter with God.

The Sadducees did not believe in eternal life. If we do not believe in life in the authentic sense of the world then we can end up being bewildered by some of life’s problems

In the Gospel passage this Sunday, Jesus is presented with a question: According to the Law of Moses, if a childless woman is widowed, then one of the husband’s brothers is obliged to take the woman as his wife. In the scenario presented to Jesus, a woman marries and is widowed on no less than seven occasions, remaining childless each time. So in the end, she marries all of her husband’s brothers, raising the question of who she will have as a husband in the afterlife. The Sadducees put this unlikely situation before Jesus to demonstrate the absurdity – in their eyes – of the belief in the resurrection of the dead. But it is the Sadducees themselves who remain in absurdity. There are many questions in life that we expend great effort in trying to answer; when we fail we feel a sense of sadness or disappointment. But often it is the way that we express our question that is at fault. As humans we have great capacity to use logic but we must also recognize its limits. Many questions do not lead anywhere. Too many of the puzzles that we set ourselves are labyrinths without end. We must learn to direct our questioning to that which brings life, not to that which gets us bogged down. The Sadducees, in fact, were those very people who did not believe in eternal life, in the reality of the resurrection. There is a mentality that does not believe in life, that holds that everything leads to a dead end, that our existence is merely an earthly one. It was the very people who were fixated with life here and now that sent Jesus to his death, the High Priests and the rest of us in this pragmatic culture who act like we do not believe in eternity, like we do not appreciate the reality of the invisible.

Unconditional love and mercy only make sense from the point of view of eternity

In this clash between Jesus and the Sadducees, we see the true colours of those who do not believe in the full value of human life. They occupy themselves in debates about ridiculous situations, failing to appreciate the authentic dignity of themselves and others. Indeed, it is impossible to believe in love itself if we do not believe in the resurrection. The first reading tells of seven brothers who die as martyrs because they believe in the reality of heaven. How can we sacrifice our lives for others if we do not believe in eternity? Today we encounter many good people around us who do not believe in the resurrection. For them the meaning of mercy is, at most, compassion or patience. It cannot become the oblation of pardon because, for them, justice does not go beyond a squaring up of accounts here on this earth. The notion of unconditional love doesn’t make sense for someone who doesn’t believe in eternity. Unconditional love entails that I do not care about the consequences for me here and now. We are weak and we cannot love like that for long if we do not believe in the reality of heaven. As we get older and have lesser reserves of energy, love of that sort becomes more difficult for one who does not believe in the eternal significance of his action. As the first reading demonstrates, in order to live the faith to the end, we must believe in eternal life.

The meaning of this earthly life can only be understood through the lens of eternity. Marriage in an earthly sense has no place in heaven. But marriage as a sacrament, as part of God’s design for me and my spouse, is a different story.

The absurdity of the situation described in the Gospel derives from an erroneous understanding of what life is all about in the first place. We cannot feel ourselves to be genuinely alive without believing in eternity. How can we have children if we think they are being born for nothing? How can we do good, or take care of others, if we do not glimpse the great dignity that is written in man? Without a belief in eternity, we descend into a mere pursuit of justice in the sense of the settling of wrongs in this life. Jesus alludes to all of this with his paradoxical response to the Sadducees: “The children of this world take wives and husbands, but those who are judged worthy of a place in the other world do not marry because they can no longer die, for they are the same as the angels, and being children of the resurrection they are sons of God.” This does not mean that we must refrain from marrying if we wish to enter the Kingdom of God. Jesus elsewhere speaks unambiguously about the indissolubility of marriage and about the union of man and woman as being part of God’s plan from the beginning. The distinction that Jesus wishes to make is between the children of this world (who act for their own purposes and according to their own strategies) and the children of the Kingdom of Heaven. It is one thing to get married for my own purposes, and a completely different thing to take a spouse because I see the union with this other person as being part of God’s plan. Marriage in this sense is a calling, not something that I do on my own initiative. If marriage is done merely on my own initiative, then it is destined for failure. I will get rid of my spouse once I tire of her, or once she makes me suffer. But if I see marriage as being part of God’s plan, then even if my spouse makes me suffer, this is all understood as being part of God’s greater design for the good of all.

Marriage becomes a true place of encounter with God only when it is directed towards heaven. It is only when the spouses live their mission as people sent by God that the union becomes what it ought to be.

The right attitude to marriage requires that I possess a piece of heaven inside of myself. Those who live for this world take husbands and wives for themselves. Those who live for the resurrection are those who have been sent by God; they are children of God, similar to the angels, entrusted with a mission. Marriage is a mission, a sacrament. In these wonderful realities of the sacraments, we live an encounter with God. Many people who are married do not know what a Christian marriage is. Many people are admitted to marriage who do not believe in eternity, but it is only with a focus on eternity that it can function properly. If it is merely you who takes a spouse, then your union will not have any significance in heaven. But if you live as someone sent, if you live according to heaven, then you succeed in living out a matrimony, then you manage to live at whatever it is you do in life, you accomplish your work, build a household. Too often, it seems, we live in a society that exists at a purely human level. It is no wonder then that we get bogged down in paradoxes and incomprehension. No one can truly understand the significance of the sacrament of marriage if he is not profoundly open to the Kingdom of Heaven. It is important that this be said to candidates for marriage. Otherwise we end up sending sheep to the slaughter. People enter marriage thinking it is something of earth, failing to appreciate that it is something directed towards heaven. Matrimony is for heaven; it is for God; it is for the eternal; it is for that which cannot be taken away by death.