Thoughts going in, Sunday Nov 10th

Luke 20:27 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?" 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.

            I've never been a fan of the Soaps, and I don't believe I've ever watched this particular show, but the title "One life to live" comes to mind when I consider this passage about Jesus vs the Sadducees. We don't need to get real hungup on who/what the Sadducees were all about, but for the sake of rounding things out I'll mention a couple of quick details. The Sadducees were the religious/social elite; comprised primarily of well-to-do priestly families. They were entirely focused on the Temple in Jerusalem, and so we only find them in Jerusalem in the biblical stories. Under the watchful eye of Rome, they constituted the ruling class. Not a few people suspected a certain degree of collusion between the Sadducees and Rome. Regardless, they appeared to be the so-called 1% capable of prospering regardless of who was "in charge."

            Religiously they were minimalists. The Jewish historian Jospehus echoes the New Testament in saying that the Sadducees did not believe in a resurrection. For them, this life constituted all the heaven (or hell) a person had coming. And for them, this life wasn't too bad.

            And so we have this encounter with Jesus and the Sadducees. Now, of course the encounter doesn't happen in a vacuum. Jesus has been in the temple area for a day or 2. He has made his 'triumphal entry' into Jerusalem. He has 'cleansed' the temple. From that point onward ALL of the religious authorities have been looking for a way either to entrap him into committing an offense (and thus arrest him) or discredit him in the minds of his followers (and thus nullify him). In chapter 20 of Luke's gospel the jousting match begins in vss 1 & 2: 1 One day as Jesus was teaching the people in the temple courts and proclaiming the good news, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, together with the elders, came up to him. 2 "Tell us by what authority you are doing these things," they said. "Who gave you this authority?" Not long afterward Jesus tells the parable of the tenants, which is obviously directed at the religious leadership. Luke follows that up with vs 19 The teachers of the law and the chief priests looked for a way to arrest him immediately, because they knew he had spoken this parable against them. But they were afraid of the people.  This, then, is the context of the Sadducees question. It is to discredit and nullify Jesus as a bringer of good news.

            As I consider this text, it strikes me that these things persist to this day. There is still no shortage of those who would seek to discredit or nullify Jesus as a bringer of good news. There is still no shortage of those who would say we have one life to life... and that's here and now. And in our more rational moments, that may seem like the most sensible approach. After all, we have no ironclad proof of anything else. After all, it's not as though we've been to the other side and then come back to tell others about it. In a vacuum, the position of the Sadducees seems fairly well reasoned. But then Jesus reminds us that life isn't lived in a vacuum. HE MENTIONS NAMES: Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. All of a sudden there's CONTEXT. These are names that all of his hearers would know. These are names that all of his hearers would consider important ancestors; important family members. We all have names like that. For me, those names are Clinton, Marion, Richard, Gene, Gladys, and Ralph. These are my immediate ancestors. This is the context I'm immediately vested in. And so when Jesus says in vs 38 He is not the God of the dead, but of the living, for to him all are alive... I WANT to believe him. I want to CLING to that idea. I WANT him to be right & the Sadducees to be wrong. I WANT this hope to hold on to. And I rejoice that there is more than one life to live.

Cheers,

TM