November 9, 2025
Revised Common Lectionary
Haggai 1:15b-2:9 or Job 19:23-27a
Psalm 145:1-5 17-21 or Psalm 98 or Psalm 17:1-9
2 Thessalonians 2:1-5, 13-17
Luke 20:27-38
Lectionary for Mass (RC)
Ezekiel 47:1-2, 8-9, 12
Psalm 46:3, 4, 5-6, 8, 11 (5)
1 Corinthians 3:9c-11, 16-17
John 2:13-22
In the Roman Catholic liturgical calendar, November 9 is observed as a feast day that celebrates the dedication of Rome’s cathedral church, the Basilica of St. John Lateran. That celebration takes precedence over the ordinary Sunday and has its own set of scripture readings. The following reflection is based on the readings from the Revised Common Lectionary for the Twenty-second Sunday after Pentecost, Proper 27, Year C.
The changes in nature at this time of year in North America remind us of the cycle of dying and rising. And so, it seems quite natural that at the beginning of November, many Christians take time to remember those who have died. Today’s Gospel reading meets us in exactly this space—with Jesus teaching about the resurrection that is meant to encourage us and give us hope as we keep the memory of those who have gone before us and face the prospect of our own death.
I remember the day that my mother told me that she had been diagnosed with an untreatable terminal cancer. She said that she wasn’t afraid to die; she had lived a rich and full life and was grateful for the blessings that she had enjoyed. I marveled to witness her equanimity—her spirit of trust and gratitude—as she made that final journey. Her attitude was shaped over the course of her lifetime by confidence in the resurrection.
But what exactly is this resurrection in which she placed her trust? Today’s Gospel gives us Jesus’s own teaching on the subject—though it comes in the form of a confrontation.
The incident about which we hear today took place after Jesus had entered Jerusalem and driven out those who were engaging in commerce in the Temple precincts. His actions seem to have united opposing religious factions—the Pharisees and Sadducees, who had fundamental differences in their interpretation of the Torah—in seeking ways to eliminate him.
Some representatives of the Pharisees first tested him, challenging his authority and posing a trick question about taxes to the emperor. When they failed to gain the upper hand in their dialogue with Jesus, some Sadducees then stepped in to question him about the resurrection of the dead, which they, unlike the Pharisees, regarded as ridiculous. That’s where today’s story begins.
The question posed by the Sadducees was meant to mock Jesus. After a woman had married seven brothers in succession, they asked, whose wife would she be in the resurrection? What do you have to say about that, they challenged.
Jesus begins his response by rejecting their premise, asserting that there is no marriage in the resurrection. Then he answers on their own terms. Just as they based their challenge on a Torah text, Jesus shows how Moses had affirmed the resurrection in that same Torah: “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” (Lk 20:37). These ancestors are not merely distant memories, but alive to God.
Just as he has done throughout Luke’s Gospel, Jesus then takes the opportunity to teach about the compassion and love of God, who cares for us even in death. Those who are raised up will never die again, “because they are like angels and are children of God, being children of the resurrection” (Lk 20:36). Indeed, the God of Jesus is “God not of the dead, but of the living; for to him all of them are alive” (Lk 20:38). This is the God my mother trusted. This is the God who held her as she made that final journey.
None of us knows exactly how God will receive us when we breathe our last, but today Jesus invites us to put our confidence in God as he himself did, trusting that God would raise him up. We believe that the resurrection of Christ points to the future that God has in store for us as well. We put our faith in the “God not of the dead, but of the living” (Lk 20:38). So when we remember those who have died in these November days, we remember them not as the dead, but as those who are alive to God.
A Hymn for Today: “We’re Marching to Zion”
The great British hymnwriter Isaac Watts used Revelation’s image of the heavenly Jerusalem (Rev 21:2) in this hymn that celebrates the future that God has promised for those who will rise with Christ to glory. American hymnwriter Robert Lowry’s joyful, hopeful tune and added refrain have been particularly popular in African American churches in the U.S.
Click here to hear this powerful hymn directed by the late Dr. W. James Abbington, FHS, during the closing hymn festival of the 2024 Annual Conference of The Hymn Society in Atlanta, Georgia. The festival was held at historic Friendship Baptist Church.
Come, we that love the Lord,
And let our joys be known,
Join in a song with sweet accord,
Join in a song with sweet accord,
And thus surround the throne,
And thus surround the throne. Refrain
Refrain:
We’re marching to Zion,
Beautiful, beautiful Zion;
We’re marching to Zion,
The beautiful city of God.
Let those refuse to sing
Who never knew our God;
But children of the heav’nly King,
But children of the heav’nly King,
May speak their joys abroad,
May speak their joys abroad. Refrain
The hill of Zion yields
A thousand sacred sweets
Before we reach the heav’nly fields,
Before we reach the heav’nly fields,
Or walk the golden streets,
Or walk the golden streets. Refrain
Then let our songs abound,
And ev’ry tear be dry;
We’re marching through Immanuel’s ground,
We’re marching through Immanuel’s ground,
To fairer worlds on high,
To fairer worlds on high. Refrain
Text: Isaac Watts, 1674-1748
Tune: MARCHING TO ZION, Robert Lowry, 1826-1899
Image Credit: The Resurrection of the Dead, German woodcut, 15th century, National Gallery of Art, via Creative Commons
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