If you want to have an interesting conversation at a family gathering ask the question as about what heaven is like. Because there is no specific dogma on the subject, other than that the saints live eternally in the presence of God, everyone seems to have their own romanticized ideas of heaven. Some hope to be wearing wings and whisked around on clouds, while others think of heaven as a great family reunion, where they will be united with every one they ever knew and loved. Of course we all, mistakenly, expect that everyone will be in heaven, when Jesus clearly warns us that this is not the case. It probably goes without saying that many of us have people in our lives who we hope not to have to encounter in the hereafter.

We also believe that at the eschatological denouement there is yet a final judgment culminating in the resurrection of the dead. We pronounce this belief in the profession of the creeds at Mass and when praying the Rosary.

Along with a diminished sense of religious faith in our times comes a lessening sense of eternal life, or the need to pray for the deceased. We see fewer people having funeral Masses celebrated for their loved ones, preferring instead a more sterile service in a funeral home or at the gravesite, and even the more phlegmatic “celebration of life” at the deceased’s favorite watering hole.

Judaism at the time of Jesus was divided on the nature of eternal life as well. Many of the more strict observers of the Law, such as the Sadducees, rejected the belief of a conscious afterlife or resurrection from the dead. They held to the notion of something at the end of time, but they found no evidence in the Scriptures to support a clear belief in eternal life. The Pharisees, on the other hand, believed in eternal life and resurrection from the dead. Jesus, who clearly and frequently preached on the subject of eternal judgment and eternal life, was more aligned to the beliefs of the Pharisees.

As with many who, when objecting to a certain teaching or another, poses an absurd or inane question or proposition, some Sadducees come to Jesus with what they thought was an erudite question that would upset his teaching. To ask such a banal question on the afterlife, such as whose wife will a woman who has had multiple husbands be – was an attempt to ridicule Jesus and his teaching on eternal life.

Our First Reading, from 2 Maccabees is a reminder of the powerful witness of the ancient martyrs, in their self-sacrifice in the hope of the resurrection. The Sadducees who challenged Jesus similarly mocked the memory and the hopes of those martyrs – and the martyrs of their own time and tradition – who gave their lives for the sake of the kingdom.

Jesus reminded the Sadducees as he does us, that those who live their lives in the hope of eternal life are less attached to this life. That sense of detachment is an undercurrent in the dialogue between Jesus and the Sadducees. Why would we be concerned about to whom one is married in eternal life? It is a clear mistake to think that heaven is merely an extension of this life for eternity. Jesus’s response to the Sadducees reduces their argument to the absurdity that it is.

The call to detachment, which clearly expressed in the profession of the Maccabee brothers as they are confronted with the instruments of their martyrdom, is central to the core of discipleship. When the realization that the blessings of eternal life outweigh the sufferings of the present life, we can let go of the things that bind us and tie us down.

Allow the promise of eternal life to become the focal point of our lives.

Father Garry Koch is pastor of St. Benedict Parish, Holmdel.

Readings for the 32nd Sunday in Ordinary Time: 2MC 7:1-2, 9-14; 2THES 2:16-3:5; LK 20:27-38 or 20:27, 34-38

To view a listing of daily Scripture Readings, visit usccb.org/bible then click on the date on the calendar.