November 6, 2016
Do you see the link between the first reading from the Old Testament and the gospel? It is evidently the fact that the two readings speak of "seven brothers". But there is a second aspect: the authors of both readings belief in an afterlife. As Christians, we believe in a life beyond this one - and we often presume that all the biblical authors did also. Yes, our Christian authors do – of course they do as they have experienced the risen Jesus. But only a few of the writers of the Hebrew Scriptures, of the Old Testament do believe in an afterlife. Such a concept doesn’t enter Jewish thought until a little over 100 years before Jesus’ birth. For instance, nowhere in the Torah – in the Bible's first five books – does anyone refer to an afterlife as we know it. This led Christian theologians to a somewhat bizarre idea: They said that “the gates of heaven were closed” after Adam and Eve ate from the forbidden tree. These early Christian theologians did not realize that concepts of “heaven” only evolved centuries after the two Genesis creation myths were composed. And these theologians presumed that the sacred Torah writers didn’t mention “heaven” because people couldn’t get into heaven. Then, in the century before Jesus’ birth, Pharisees began to develop a new idea: They said that those who formed a relationship with Yahweh in this life would carry and deepen that relationship into the next life. But in spite of this, a large number of Jews still maintained that this life on earth was the only life we would ever experience. And so, Jesus had little to offer to anyone who was determined to live in the past - like the Sadducees. The question of the Sadducees is logical: "In the resurrection whose wife will she be?" – the widow of seven brothers… Jesus first responds to the question of the Sadducees by assuring them that eternal life won't be an eternal extension of this life. Those who attain that existence, that eternal life, that “afterlife” "neither marry nor are given in marriage." We are dealing with something we have yet to experience in the way we will experience it. For this new experience, I found a good illustration when I prepared this homily: Just as our existence outside of the mother’s womb is dramatically different from our existence as a fetus inside the womb, so heaven will be dramatically different from this earthly existence. So, this was the first answer: eternal life won't be an eternal extension of this life. The second part of the answer: Jesus knew that the Bible of the Sadducees comprises only the Torah – the first five books of the Old Testament (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy). This is the reason Jesus argues from one of these five books. And Jesus refers to Exodus 3 - Moses encounters Yahweh in a burning bush. And he focuses on how God identifies himself as God. God says: "I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob." Jesus uses a tricky, rhetorical argumentation: if those three patriarchs Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are not still alive when Yahweh talks to Moses, then Yahweh would say, "I was the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob" – but God says: "I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob." And the scene with Moses happened 500 years after the death of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. So, this is the argumentation of Jesus: there must be a heaven if, at the time of Moses, these three pillars of Judaism continue to relate to God. Very philosophical? Maybe! But Jesus' key argument comes at the end: "God is not God of the dead, but of the living, for to him all are alive." God's true followers continually grow in their understanding and experience of what it means to be alive in God. Jesus presumes this evolution is an essential part of faith. Jesus adds another dimension to our life in God: our dying and rising makes us one with him not only in heaven, but also now here on this earth. Jesus is "directing our hearts" in both of these experiences – in the afterlife and in the life, here on earth. We sometimes say we are expected to learn new ways to die with Jesus, to commit ourselves to others, to take up hardships. But we are also expected to constantly invent and find new ways to live with Jesus, to live the fullness of life, to live a life in abundance, to enjoy our life here on earth.
Fr. Wolfgang Felber SJ