FINDINGS II

Proper 27 - C - November 7, 2010

Luke 20: 27-38

Luke 20: 27-38  

Some Sadducees, those who say there is no resurrection, came to Jesus and asked him a question, "Teacher, Moses wrote for us that if a man's brother dies, leaving a wife but no children, the man shall take to wife the widow and raise up issue for his brother.  Now there were seven brothers; the first married, and died childless; then the second and the third married her, and so in the same way all seven died childless. At long last, the woman also died. In the resurrection, therefore, whose wife will the woman be? For the seven had married her." Jesus said to them, "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 or are given in marriage. Indeed, they can die no more since 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 Yahweh 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. (Translated and paraphrased by Harry T. Cook)

RUBRIC

It should not surprise us that at about this time in the narrative of all three canonical gospels the subject of resurrection comes up. That is because we are approaching, in terms of the gospel narrative, the denouement of the story, and, in the liturgical rhythm, Advent. The stakes are getting higher and time is getting shorter. Luke and the other canonical evangelists wrote and edited against the background of 30 years and more of "resurrection speak." It is time for the subject to be addressed, albeit obliquely. To do so, Luke, following Mark and Matthew, portrays the Sadducees -- who were partisans of the Second Temple's sacrificial apparatus -- approaching Jesus on a subject that, at least theologically, distinguished them from other types of Jews: the resurrection. It is a way -- and a strange one it is -- to introduce the subject.

WORKSHOP

The framework of the inquiry stated in more or less the same fashion by all three evangelists concerns the hypothetical woman with seven husbands -- each a brother to the first. In accordance with Jewish custom -- indeed, one that was widespread in the Near Eastern cultures of the time - a man's brother marries his widowed sister-in-law so as to perpetuate his brother's seed. As each brother fulfills that obligation in his turn as the predecessor has died, those who believed in the resurrection of the dead had a problem. Whose spouse would she be finally?

If ever there was a question with yawning trapdoors, this was it. Mark and Matthew's Jesus is made to tell the Sadducees that they are wrong in their assumptions. The point, though, not to be missed here is that Jesus, probably partially formed in Pharisaism, if not an out and out Pharisee himself, seems to embrace the concept of resurrection, viz., "and the fact that dead are raised Moses himself showed . . ." But Jesus is depicted as pushing aside the question of heavenly polygamy and is made to affirm belief in the resurrection. This is a clever way to establish and support the innovative (for the time) belief. It is based on Daniel 12:2, a passage from a document received as holy writ by the Pharisees but not by the Sadducees because it is not in Torah.

It is not difficult to hypothesize as to why the evangelists get around to this indirect but effective introduction of the resurrection theme. It is where Matthew and Luke were clearly heading, and where Mark was heading implicitly -- though you can't get past the ambiguous ending of Mark at 16:8 where he leaves the women at the tomb astonished, trembling and afraid. Yet after 30 and more years of the "sayings gospels" (think here Q and Thomas) carrying the freight for the fledgling Jesus movement, the Jerusalem temple was destroyed, thus creating a watershed in Jewish life of before and after.

After the 70 C.E. cataclysm, the Jesus movement's philosophers turned from sayings and pronouncements to narrative -- and, moreover, a narrative they knew would resonate well in a culture of myth where the dying and rising son of a god was a well-known archetype. They couldn't rebuild the temple, but they could "raise up" Jesus.

The historical context of the late first century for Jesus Jews compelled belief in resurrection, viz. vindication of the martyrs' courage. Was Luke, were the other synoptic evangelists, aware of the Pauline analysis? "How can some of you say there is no resurrection of the dead? If there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ has not been raised . . ." (I Corinthians 15: 12b-13).

If, as is possible, Daniel is to some extent a commentary on the Maccabean revolt, then 12:2 ("Many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake . . .") may be a demand that lives lived in courage and steadfastness both need and deserve vindication if they have ended in what partisans considered a holy war-related death. More to the point, Jesus Jews of the mid-to-late first century C.E. had every need to hope for such vindication of Jesus' ethical wisdom.

HOMILETIC COMMENTARY

The teachable aspect of this passage is located in its last statement: "Now he is God not of the dead, but of the living; for to him all of them are alive." For those liberated from theological necessities and demands, the theistic term "God" can be set aside as well as the masculine pronoun "he."  What's left is the idea of a living as opposed to a dead religion.

The latter is one the energies and resources of which are devoted to the perpetuation of dogma and the rehearsal of ancient rites -- both dogma and ritual being important to the study of religion but not necessarily of its contemporary practice. The former is an entity that can, under the right set of circumstances and with inspired leadership, help its adherents view life from the perspective of the religion's ethical foundations.

The cultivation of passive resistance suggested, e.g. by the teachings of Hillel the Elder and those attributed to the Jesus of the gospels is a proven value. Where the synagogue and the church can find ways to teach and model that ethic, each will represent a living, relevant and contributing religious analysis to a needy world. This is a description of what I call "agnostic secular humanism," viz. the confession of not knowing enough about such matters as gods and afterlives to bother with them, the laser beam focus on the here-and-now and the respectful embrace of the human species and its environment. There is a "living" religion.