Every time I read
the gospels’ account where the Sadducees confront Jesus with this hypothetical
situation of this woman who has husband after husband after husband die, I
can’t help but think this woman must be putting something in the Jello. I mean, to have seven husbands die – all
within her childbearing years. You gotta
wonder!
This is the only
time in Luke’s gospel that we meet this Sadducee faction within Judaism. We should remember that there appear to be
five major factions, or denominations, within Judaism at that time. Four of them show up in the Bible.
The Sadducees were closely aligned
with the aristocratic and priestly classes.
They left no writings and little is known about them. Let’s call them a conservative movement in Judaism. The only writings they recognized as
scripture was the Torah: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and
Deuteronomy.
They held that the only proper place
for worship was the temple in Jerusalem.
Thus, not surprisingly they were centered there.
Another group we often hear about are
the Pharisees. For lack of a better
word, let’s call them a more liberal branch of Judaism. They accepted the whole of what we would call
the Old Testament as scripture. While
they maintained that the central place of worship was the temple in Jerusalem
they also had lots of other houses of worship called synagogues. Jesus was almost certainly one of the
Pharisee faction.
When the Romans destroyed Jerusalem in
the year 70 the Pharisees survived.
Jerusalem wasn’t essential to them like the Sadducees. I would argue that all modern day Jews come
from the Pharisee sect.
Another group we may not be as
familiar with, but do show up in the Bible is the Herodians. As their name suggests, they supported the
rulership of the Herod family. You’ll
remember that the Herods were not actually Jewish. They had cooked up some creative genealogy to
make themselves look Jewish. It was good
enough for the Romans, but most Jews didn’t buy it. For all their incredible corruption the
Herods were capable of bringing about good for some Jews from the Romans. So, despite their faked family tree and
incredible abuses of power, some Jews supported them.
When the Romans finally had had enough
of the Herod family, roughly the same time they destroyed Jerusalem, the
Herodians also died out.
The least mentioned faction of Jews
mentioned in the Bible are the Zealots.
These often militaristic people wanted to kick the Romans out by
force. Obviously the Romans weren’t fans
of the Zealots. When the Romans destroyed
Jerusalem they took out the Zealots as well.
And finally there were the
Essenes. Little is known of this
reclusive group although the Dead Sea Scrolls are probably one of their
libraries. They rejected Jerusalem as
the center of worship. They felt the
religious leaders were corrupt. They
didn’t spread out like the Pharisees but stayed in reclusive communities;
perhaps like many religious communes.
Some people suggest John the Baptist was an Essene. Some scholars see Essene influence in Jesus’
teachings as well. Whatever the case,
the Essenes ceased to exist as well.
In Jesus’ last week before the
crucifixion the gospels record him having run ins with the Pharisees, the
Herodians, and the Sadducees. Regardless
of their religious and political views, no one wanted Jesus! We see the Sadducees turn today.
With only the books of Moses and
scripture the Sadducees did not have any belief in eternal life or the
resurrection. Luke tells us as
much. For them the only way for a person
to live on was through one’s offspring.
And so, their question about marriage.
According to Deuteronomy 25, the way to assure offspring in case a man
died was for his brother to “marry” his widow.
The woman herself had no say in the
matter. So I suppose if you’re dating a
guy you’d better check out his brother too, just in case something went
wrong. And as for the brother, well, if
he’s already married, his wife doesn’t get a whole lot of say in the new woman
who moves into the house!
Actually the guy could reject his brother’s
wife. According to Deuteronomy if this
happens the widow is to summon the elders, pull a sandal off the guy’s foot,
and spit in his face, thereby showing she is free from any further obligation
to her husband’s family. That’s
certainly different from the way people break up today! Thereafter the house would be known as “the
house of him who sandal was pulled off.”
So, it was really expected that the guy would take his brother’s wife.
The Sadducees intend to trap Jesus
with his Pharisaic view of resurrection, for the Pharisees did believe in
eternal life. Jesus teaches that eternal
life is not bound by the limits and expectations of this life. Especially, if the whole point of marriage
was to have children so as to continue after one dies, then if there is eternal
life the necessity of having children is removed. And thus, marriage in eternal life is no
longer relevant. He’s showing the
failings of their arguments.
And Jesus does something subtle, but
very important. Jesus is not going to
quote from the scripture the Pharisees recognized. He does that elsewhere when talking to
Pharisees. No, here he will quote from
the scripture of the Sadducees. If Moses
is all they accept then he’ll quote from there.
I think it is very much worth noting how well Jesus knows his
opponents. He doesn’t just spout things
at them that he thinks are worthwhile.
He engages them with things they think are worthwhile. He calls their attention to the familiar
story of the burning bush. There Moses
speaks of the Lord as the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of
Jacob.
The logic of this argument hinges on
the idea that God is not of the dead but of the living. Therefore, the patriarchs – Abraham, Isaac,
and Jacob – must be in some sense alive to God or in God.
What does that actually mean? What does is resurrection, or what is ‘life
after death’? We make a mistake if we
try to glean too much about eternal life from Jesus’ words to the Sadducees,
but there are things that come from it.
First, I think we do well to
understand “life” as not so much the biological activity between the moment of
birth – or conception – and when the chemical processes we call being alive
cease at death.
Life is something more. Life is God’s creation – God’s gift. Life is dynamic, growing, and changing. Don’t mistake me here. I’m not trying to make a statement about
existence before birth or life after death, I’m just saying that life is God’s
and it is not confined to the limits of time and space.
We do well to remember the mystery of
the unknown that we face, much as we want to know. There are very serious limits to our
understanding. A child cannot grasp the
complexities or the pleasures of adulthood.
What child finds a quiet evening on the back porch talking and watching
the sun set more enjoyable that running to catch fireflies or playing hide and
seek in the dark? St. Paul wrote, “When
I became an adult I put an end to childing ways. For now we see in a mirror, dimly.” (1
Corinthians 13:11-12)
We are all but children when it comes
to understanding resurrection and eternal life.
The God who created life sustains it beyond the bounds of what we
understand. Life is God’s gift. Our understanding of it has serious limits,
but those are not God’s limits.
As R. Alan Culpepper says in the New
Interpreter’s Bible Commentary (Volume 9, pg. 390), “There is nothing in or of
the human being that is naturally or inherently immortal. If there is life beyond death, it is God’s
gift to those who have accepted God’s love and entered into relationship with
God in this life.”
The core of Jesus teaching is not to reveal
what it will be like after you die, but to draw you into a life-giving
relationship with God now. Live that day
to day and moment to moment. Do not do
it as a strategy to get to heaven and stay out of hell. Do it as a way of being connected to the
source of all life. And let that guide
you. Let that remove your fears of
failure. While I will not go so far as
to say it will completely remove your fears of death, it will take the edge off
such fear. It will give you strength in
the face of hardships and confidence in the face of anxiety.
Life is God’s gift to you. It is God’s promise to you. It is God’s will for you. So whether it be short or long, simple or
complex, easy or hard, it is the gift of relationship that will take you into
forever.
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