“Since no one
really knows anything about God,
those who think
they do are just troublemakers.”*
The eighth-century Sufi female mystic Rabia best captures
the scene in Luke 20:27-38. Some Sadducees approach Jesus in Jerusalem. He is
nearing the end of his journey to the cross and resurrection, to return to
whence he came. Up until now Jesus has been sparring most often with Pharisees
who, like himself, believed in the resurrection from the dead. Sparring, or
debating, Torah is what the Pharisees loved most! It was their way of trying to
be closer to God, the living God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. It was their love
of debating Torah that sustained their hope in resurrection because they
imagined that the eternity of the next age would offer them endless time to debate
the meanings of Torah for ever and ever, all of the time! What could be better?
The Sadducees, on the other hand, were a more conservative
group, largely located in Jerusalem – they were aristocrats and priestly
families, maintaining the sacred life of sacrifices in the Temple. They felt
they were responsible for the continued life of the people Israel. And they
felt that there was little else to debate, discuss or learn about God and God’s
ways. The Sadducees renounced fate, the concept that God commits evil (all evil
emerges from humanity’s free will), the immortality of the soul (Plato et al),
an afterlife, and postmortem rewards or punishments.
Their plan to trick Jesus and demonstrate how impossible and
absurd hope in resurrection was, admittedly, a good one. They based it on the
practice of Levirate Marriage. Levirate marriage is a type of marriage in which
the brother of a deceased man who is childless is obliged to marry his
brother's widow. Although its primary concern was to keep common family property
in the family and continue the family line lest a widow marry outside the clan;
it was also a way of protecting the widow and keeping her within the care of
her deceased husband’s family.
So, some Sadducees, “those who say there is no resurrection,”
come up with a fantastic version of Levirate marriage in which a poor widow
remains childless through her marriage to seven brothers, each of whom dies
childless. Which of the seven brothers, then, will be her husband in the
resurrection? Ha! Let this country bumpkin from Galilee answer that one if he
can. Surely this will demonstrate how absurd it is to believe in the resurrection
of the dead.
Now surely Jesus can see just how absurd their puzzle is
since it assumes the very thing the Sadducees deny: the resurrection of the
dead! What do they care? Of course, it is just a trap. But not so fast.
Although outside the canon of Torah and the Tanakh, the whole of Hebrew Scriptures,
he might have sited the story of the mother and her seven sons who were
tortured and killed by Antiochus IV for refusing to deny the God of Israel and
eat some pork to prove their denial. One by one they all refused to disobey the
commandments of their God. Their mother bore the anguish of watching her sons
die with good courage “because of her hope in the Lord…Filled with a noble spirit,
she reinforced her woman’s reasoning with a man’s courage, and said to them, ‘I
do not know how you came into being in my womb. It was not I who gave you life
and breath, nor I who set in order the elements within each of you. Therefore,
the Creator of the world, who shaped the beginning of humankind and devised the
origin of all things, will in his mercy give life and breath back to you again,
since you now forget yourselves for the sake of his laws.’” [2 Maccabees
7:20-23] That is belief in the resurrection of the dead!
Jesus might have replied with this story. But Jesus showing
infinite patience and wisdom has another answer. "Those who belong to
this age marry and are given in marriage; but those who are considered worthy
of a place in that age and in the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor
are given in marriage. Indeed, they cannot die anymore, because they are like
angels and are children of God, being children of the resurrection. 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. Now he is God not of the dead, but of the living; for to him
all of them are alive."
We might note the not so subtle dig at the Sadducees when he
says, “…but those who are considered worthy of a place in that
age!” Ouch! The argument, of course, is that resurrection life will not be a
replica of this life, and the commandments for living in this life have no
relevance in the age to come. We say, at the time of our mortal death life is
changed, not ended. Levirate marriage was necessary for preserving family lines
in this world, but then we shall all be children of one father, one God,
children of the resurrection! We are made one with all creation from the very
beginning. Like Jesus, we shall all return to from whence we came.
Jesus shows patience and mercy with his opponents, a quality
of character we would all do well to make our own. We live in a world in which
troublemakers like the Sadducees in this story try to undermine all that is
good and wonderful and true in this life with trick questions, false narratives
and patent untruths. As Rabia learned 13 centuries ago in Basra, those who
think they know it all and are unwilling to open themselves to that which is
true are the real troublemakers – and they are often the saddest among us all. As
the old quip puts it, “The Sadducees did not believe in the resurrection – that
is why they are sad, you see!” And after the destruction of the Temple, the Sadducees
disappeared from history altogether along with all parties and movements that
refuse to align themselves with the truth. Thomas Aquinas, the
thirteenth-century theologian, reminds us: All are having a
relationship with God.
A pear taken from a
limb and
set in a bowl,
surely it is talking
to its Lord,
and happy that it is
being honored for its life,
and somehow knowing
that soon it will be
returning to
Him.
We use words like “returning.”
Think about that.
Inherent in that word is
separation,
and separation from
God is never
really possible.
What can you be that
He is not? “You
cannot be what I am
not,”
my Lord once said
to me.*
*[Quotations from Rabia and Thomas Aquinas are from Love
Poems From God, Daniel Ladinsky, translator, Penguin Compass, 2002, pp 27 &
147]
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