27 Some of the Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection, came to Jesus with a question. 28 “Teacher,” they said, “Moses wrote for us that if a man’s brother dies and leaves a wife but no children, the man must marry the widow and raise up offspring for his brother. 29 Now there were seven brothers. The first one married a woman and died childless.30 The second 31 and then the third married her, and in the same way the seven died, leaving no children. 32 Finally, the woman died too. 33 Now then, at the resurrection whose wife will she be, since the seven were married to her?”This gospel is somewhat difficult for folks to understand. The confusion is amplified because as soon as we read it we start asking questions about marriage and husbands and the like. We don't realize that in doing so we're jumping on the train with the Sadducees who posed the question to Jesus instead of listening to Jesus himself. Once headed in the wrong direction, we never find our way to the right.
34 Jesus replied, “The people of this age marry and are given in marriage. 35 But those who are considered worthy of taking part in the age to come and in the resurrection from the dead will neither marry nor be given in marriage, 36 and they can no longer die; for they are like the angels. They are God’s children, since they are children of the resurrection.37 But in the account of the burning bush, even Moses showed that the dead rise, for he calls the Lord ‘the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.' 38 He is not the God of the dead, but of the living, for to him all are alive.”
The Sadducees were a clever bunch. They did not believe in the resurrection of the body after death. Holding this core conviction they came to Jesus looking to prove it. In order to do so they created a logical problem out of the sacred texts of Moses...the Law that held together the fabric of their society. That law said that if a man died childless his brother would have to marry and conceive a child with his widow. That child would then be raised as the dead brother's heir. So the Sadducees invented a scenario in which this happened seven times, then all seven brothers and the wife were resurrected in heaven. She had married all seven brothers. Whose wife would she be?
Having the brothers not marry the woman would have been against the law. Having seven men married to the same woman in the afterlife would have been against the law. The Sadducees thought this proved that there could be no resurrection. Jesus was wrong, they were right. End of story.
In his response to the Sadducees, Jesus pointed out their basic mistake. It wasn't really a mistake about marriage. That was just the cover topic they created to disguise it. Instead their failure ran deeper, and it's a failure we all carry with us.
The error of the Sadducees was coming to Jesus thinking they already knew the truth instead of coming to Jesus listening and seeking to understand the truth. They had their logic, their core beliefs, and their earthly experience. They thought that this was enough to let them understand everything. They expected the universe would conform to whatever they thought...up to and including the Son of God. If he didn't conform to their beliefs, then obviously he wasn't the Son of God.
The world tells us many things are "real". Money is real. Jobs are real. Weather is real. Our worth is defined by numbers in a bank account or signatures on pieces of paper. If we don't get ahead in life other people will trample over us. The path to safety involves insulating ourselves from everything beyond our control, building shelters (house, family, church) in which we can hide when the storm rages. Worry about how you look. Worry about how many people think well of you. Worry about retirement, keeping up with the Joneses, grades, winning, fashion, fame, and so on. That stuff is REAL. Faith? That's a nice idea, helpful when it works...maybe something you get to when all that other stuff goes right.
In order to understand the Sadducees all you have to do is think, even for an instant, that church is nice enough but "real" life happens during the rest of the week. All you have to do is hear something in church, think it's a good idea, then leave the building and not really do it. Who among us has not done that?
The Sadducees assumed that what they knew of the world was real and nothing beyond existed (thus no resurrection). Jesus explained that not only was this life not all of reality, it wasn't even the best part of reality. We will be resurrected. We will live a life of peace, love, and joy that does not end. That is as certain as if it had already happened. Indeed, if you pick apart the concept of time a little and pay close attention to what "eternity" means, it may already have happened. That we are heavenly people is not in doubt. The problem is, we spend our whole lives pretending we're not...pretending that something else matters (and defines us) more.
Instead of assuming that their current state, current knowledge, and current belief defined all of reality, the Sadducees should have known that they were something more than they could currently see. That's what Jesus reminded them of. We need to hear that reminder too. Our job isn't to figure everything out and then make God conform to our beliefs. Instead we need to trust in that heavenly life, understand that we're growing towards it, and change this life to conform as much as possible to that one: breaking bonds and abandoning beliefs that would deny God's reality and make us less than we were meant to be.
This is what the Law of Moses was doing when it talked about marriage. If a brother, whom you love and to whom you are obligated, dies without anybody to carry on his name, memory, and inheritance you divert your life from where you thought it should go and give both him and his widow the gift of a son. That may not be your human desire but in that culture it was a heavenly gift, brought to earth through your sacrifice. To follow another way would put your selfish desire above the good of your brother and his family...following something unreal and abandoning the real and life-giving.
In church we are called to sacrifice, love, make peace, uplift, heal, and live a Godly life. Some of these things call us to change our ways in our Monday through Saturday life too. When we fail to do so we, too, put our selfish desires above the good of our neighbors, following the unreal and abandoning that which is solid and life-giving.
The world will tell you, "Faith is nice, but this is real life." As people of God, we know the opposite is true. Faith is the enduring truth. Everything else is an illusion, temporary sand which will be blown away by the winds of time.
Without this understanding we approach Jesus the same way the Sadducees did: sure of our convictions, ready to follow God as long as he supports them. We will never find God that way. Headed in the wrong direction, we never find our way to light.
Instead we should be asking ourselves, "What is real? Who defines reality? Who am I really following?" The answers to those questions will probably turn out disturbing to most of us, but they'll also set our feet back on the way of truth.
God is not the God of the dead, but the living, for to him all are alive. Do we embrace that vision, living by its assurance, spending our days alive? Or are we too busy worrying about something else, brushing aside God when he gets in the way of our "reality"?
--Pastor Dave (pastordave@geneseelutheranparish.org)
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