Today’s gospel is no easy text for the hearer, reader or preacher. However, going through a small amount of learning we can discover the underlying message Jesus is offering the Sadducees.
Let’s begin with understanding who these men, the Sadducees are and how they differ from their well-known opponents, the Pharisees and scribes. As a group, the Sadducees were recognized for their denial of a resurrection. Now it is not the Resurrection of Jesus as he is still alive and preaching at this point in his life. It is their rejection of life after death.
What we have in the gospel is an attempt by the Sadducees to confound Jesus because of his teaching of a life after death. These men us the story of the woman whose many husbands had died. The fact that the Sadducees pose a question about the doctrine of resurrection as it is related to the widow betrays their intention. Who will be her husband in your notion of resurrection? Clearly they are attempting to trip Jesus in his response.
Also know that from early Old Testament times there was the levirate marriage law. By that law a brother was obligated to marry his brother’s widow if there had not been an offspring from the deceased brother’s marriage.
For the Sadducees a person died and that was it. Nothing afterward. However, they did believe in the levirate law because this was how the deceased person lived on ... to have offspring “from the grave.”
Jesus proceeds to challenge back with a description of a paradigm shift that occurs between this age and the coming age of the Kingdom of God. In short, Jesus attempts to demonstrate “the profound contrast between an existence focused solely on one’s current life and one that is shaped by the future life of the resurrection”(Parish Publishing, Proclaim, November 7, 2010).
What we should understand from all of this is that Jesus is raising a very simple yet profound question for the Sadducees as well as ourselves. He wants to know what it is that makes a person worthy of life in God’s coming future resurrection?
There are several themes that we see are repeated in Jesus’ teachings help us understand this shift. He makes distinctions between “this generation” and those children of the light, the Kingdom of God. He tries on many occasions to teach his disciples to lead others to know his message that there is for all the need to achieve the Kingdom of God. Why? Because, as we all know, his message is that the resurrection is real and we need to make ourselves ready to enter that kingdom when we complete this earthly life.
So we have to ask ourselves if we do not spend more of our time involved in the things of the world we live in. Jesus’ message today is something of a game-changer for the Sadducees as well as for ourselves. His coming to this earth and living and dying as he did was his way of changing the game.
Let me close with this life changing story, not my own but offered by others (Parish Publishing, Proclaim, November 7, 2010). It offers a simple yet very clear example of what a game-changer truly is. There is a major fishing tournament. One of the entrants arrives quite late. Contrary to the advice of judges to withdraw, he sets his canoe in the water and sets out. The crowd on the shoreline are in laughter. He didn’t even bring his fishing pole. Even worse, he paddles to a place in the large lake where not one other contestant is fishing. Finally settled, as the time clock on the tournament was ticking down, he opens a small bag that he brought with him. It’s content: a small stick of dynamite. He lights the stick and tosses it out in front of his canoe. Of course there is a large geyser that springs up from the lake. He proceeds to row to that spot and starts netting in the many fish floating on the surface. When the closing bell was sounded, he rowed back with many, many more fish than his competitors. A new tournament record was set. Of course there were protests but the officials read the rules could not find anyway to proclaim this as illegal. He simply changed the game!
So, Jesus was not different in this parable. He came to our earth to change the game through his life, death and resurrection. The contest we are in involves sin and grace. Do we truly want to
realign our lives to fit the game-changing life offered to us by God if we follow Jesus Christ?
Let’s begin with understanding who these men, the Sadducees are and how they differ from their well-known opponents, the Pharisees and scribes. As a group, the Sadducees were recognized for their denial of a resurrection. Now it is not the Resurrection of Jesus as he is still alive and preaching at this point in his life. It is their rejection of life after death.
What we have in the gospel is an attempt by the Sadducees to confound Jesus because of his teaching of a life after death. These men us the story of the woman whose many husbands had died. The fact that the Sadducees pose a question about the doctrine of resurrection as it is related to the widow betrays their intention. Who will be her husband in your notion of resurrection? Clearly they are attempting to trip Jesus in his response.
Also know that from early Old Testament times there was the levirate marriage law. By that law a brother was obligated to marry his brother’s widow if there had not been an offspring from the deceased brother’s marriage.
For the Sadducees a person died and that was it. Nothing afterward. However, they did believe in the levirate law because this was how the deceased person lived on ... to have offspring “from the grave.”
Jesus proceeds to challenge back with a description of a paradigm shift that occurs between this age and the coming age of the Kingdom of God. In short, Jesus attempts to demonstrate “the profound contrast between an existence focused solely on one’s current life and one that is shaped by the future life of the resurrection”(Parish Publishing, Proclaim, November 7, 2010).
What we should understand from all of this is that Jesus is raising a very simple yet profound question for the Sadducees as well as ourselves. He wants to know what it is that makes a person worthy of life in God’s coming future resurrection?
There are several themes that we see are repeated in Jesus’ teachings help us understand this shift. He makes distinctions between “this generation” and those children of the light, the Kingdom of God. He tries on many occasions to teach his disciples to lead others to know his message that there is for all the need to achieve the Kingdom of God. Why? Because, as we all know, his message is that the resurrection is real and we need to make ourselves ready to enter that kingdom when we complete this earthly life.
So we have to ask ourselves if we do not spend more of our time involved in the things of the world we live in. Jesus’ message today is something of a game-changer for the Sadducees as well as for ourselves. His coming to this earth and living and dying as he did was his way of changing the game.
Let me close with this life changing story, not my own but offered by others (Parish Publishing, Proclaim, November 7, 2010). It offers a simple yet very clear example of what a game-changer truly is. There is a major fishing tournament. One of the entrants arrives quite late. Contrary to the advice of judges to withdraw, he sets his canoe in the water and sets out. The crowd on the shoreline are in laughter. He didn’t even bring his fishing pole. Even worse, he paddles to a place in the large lake where not one other contestant is fishing. Finally settled, as the time clock on the tournament was ticking down, he opens a small bag that he brought with him. It’s content: a small stick of dynamite. He lights the stick and tosses it out in front of his canoe. Of course there is a large geyser that springs up from the lake. He proceeds to row to that spot and starts netting in the many fish floating on the surface. When the closing bell was sounded, he rowed back with many, many more fish than his competitors. A new tournament record was set. Of course there were protests but the officials read the rules could not find anyway to proclaim this as illegal. He simply changed the game!
So, Jesus was not different in this parable. He came to our earth to change the game through his life, death and resurrection. The contest we are in involves sin and grace. Do we truly want to
realign our lives to fit the game-changing life offered to us by God if we follow Jesus Christ?
