Pentecost 22C (Luke 20:27-38)

​What the Sadducees lack is spiritual imagination. According to the Gospel account, they deny the resurrection—which, for them, likely means there is nothing after death: no continuation, no hope beyond the grave, simply annihilation. Their focus, therefore, is entirely on life here and now. This worldview, or grand narrative, has certain merits: it compels attention to the present, directs energy toward immediate concerns, and prioritizes the tangible realities of daily existence.

Philosophically, their stance is materialist: who we are now is all there is. The logical conclusion is to make the most of this one life, since it is the only one they believe we have. From that perspective, resurrection appears absurd. Hence their question to Jesus—whom they regard as one who believes in resurrection: “In the resurrection, whose wife will a woman be if she married seven brothers in succession?”

Their question reveals much about their conception of resurrection. It is not the resurrection Jesus proclaims, but rather a world that simply mirrors this one—same laws, same social structures, same concerns—only without death. In this imagined afterlife, everyone who has ever lived still exists, forming an overpopulated, immortal humanity. There would be no need for doctors, nurses, or medicines, though perhaps priests would remain to keep order and enforce the laws.

We could extrapolate endlessly about such a Sadducean “resurrection,” but its flaw is clear: it is a speculative construct built entirely on this-world assumptions. For it to function, each imagined condition requires yet another imagined solution. It is neither inspiring nor transformative—it offers no new hope, no radical change.

From this standpoint, their skepticism makes sense. Why embrace a “resurrection” that is merely an eternal extension of earthly life? Jesus, however, points to something entirely different—something not bound by the mechanics or assumptions of this world. “Now he is God not of the dead, but of the living,” Jesus says, “for to him all of them are alive.”

What I take from Jesus’ words is that our world is composed of two kinds of reality: physical and social. Physical reality is what nature builds—the spinning of the earth around the sun, the pull of gravity, the biological processes that sustain life. Social reality, however, is what we construct—how we name, organize, and make sense of the world. Even the term gravity is not part of physical reality itself but our linguistic construct to describe why an apple falls from a tree. Gender identity, too, belongs to this realm of social reality—it is not physical but sociological.

The world of the resurrection, however, seems to transcend both. It does not operate within the categories of physical or social reality. Its central truth is this: to God, all are alive. The presence of God is life itself—the animating breath that makes all being alive.

The good news is that this presence of God is not reserved for life after death. It is available to us here and now, through the very breath we draw. Our breath is the path to that divine presence—the Breath of God—that connects us to all who live and all who are to be raised.
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So let us ask ourselves: how do we touch this resurrection life now, in this moment? Through each breath, the Breath of God makes us alive and binds us to the living God, in whom all are alive.