As we continue to make our way through the 20th chapter of Luke’s Gospel, Jesus is now in Jerusalem.  It won’t be long until he undergoes His passion.  The Pharisees, scribes, and Sadducees are all agitated with Him, especially after He upset the establishment by cleansing the temple.  

This reading features the Sadducees, a religious/political group probably smaller in size than the Pharisees, but having more political influence. They were the “conservative” party of the time.  They thought Jesus might have the power by the size of his following to lead a rebellion against the Romans that the Sadducees doubted the Jews could win.  They did not believe in the resurrection of the dead.  They thought that after a person dies, that’s it, that’s the end.  

We see them try to mock the idea of the resurrection by creating an absurd scenario that is based on the so-called levirate marriage, which is found in the Old Testament book of Deuteronomy.  According to Deuteronomy 25:5, if a man marries and dies childless, his brother is to marry his widow.  The idea was that the first son whom the woman bears shall pass on the name of his dead brother in order that his name may not be blotted out of Israel.  Because the Sadducees only believed the first five books of the Old Testament were valid, Jesus refutes their error by going back to a scripture they would accept.  He takes them to the book of Exodus, chapter 3 verses 2-6 when God told Moses that He was the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and God of Jacob, all whom had died long before Moses.  “For God is not God of the dead, but of the living, for to him all are alive”.   Let us rejoice that from the moment of our conception, we were given an eternal soul equal in dignity with all who have ever lived!

By Deacon Dave Arms (Reflection on the 32nd Sunday in Ordinary Time)