Some Sadducees, those who say there is no resurrection, came to Jesus and asked him a question, “Teacher, Moses wrote for us that if a man’s brother dies, leaving a wife but no children, the man shall marry the widow and raise up children for his brother. Now there were seven brothers; the first married, and died childless; then the second and the third married her, and so in the same way all seven died childless. Finally the woman also died. In the resurrection, therefore, whose wife will the woman be? For the seven had married her.”

Jesus said to them, “Those who belong to this age marry and are given in marriage; but those who are considered worthy of a place in that age and in the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage. Indeed they cannot die anymore, because they are like angels and are children of God, being children of the resurrection. And the fact that the dead are raised Moses himself showed, in the story about the bush, where he speaks of the Lord as 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 of them are alive.” 

Then some of the scribes answered, “Teacher, you have spoken well.” For they no longer dared to ask him another question.

New Revised Standard Version, copyright 1989, by the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved. USCCB approved.

We’re often so focused on following “the rules” of our faith that we become bogged down by details. Sunday Mass, check. Reconciliation, check. Giving to the church, check. But our faith doesn’t simply equal a series of compliance tasks. It requires more than bean-counting.

Today’s Gospel notes that some Sadducees didn’t believe in resurrection. They were of the world, following the laws of earth alone. The question to Jesus was insincere. Their rules were the secret to their success, but the math in their scenario couldn’t add up post-earthly life.

Jesus’s answer to the Sadducees’ query rejected their premise. God can’t be confined only to our rigid regulations. A belief in the expansive glory of the resurrection requires us to look beyond our worldly constructs.

How can I think bigger? When I’m stuck following only what’s required, how can I look beyond what man mandates and open my heart to God?

—Laura Asplund is the Business Manager at Queen of All Saints School, the Roman Catholic elementary school of Queen of All Saints Basilica in Chicago. She earned her bachelor’s degree in English from Augustana College, Rock Island, Ill., where she was blessed to know Fr. Albert Bischoff, SJ, who ministered to the Catholic students on campus and called everyone “saint.”

Dear God, when I feel stuck because I can only see what’s in front of me, open my vision to a wider view. Lift my head to gaze at heaven instead of fixing my eyes on earth. Help me to look to the saints as examples of their faith in you and your will for me. Amen.

—Laura Asplund