Ordinary 30
October 25, 2020
The same day some Sadducees came to him, saying there is no resurrection; and they asked him a question, saying, “Teacher, Moses said, ‘If a man dies childless, his brother shall marry the widow, and raise up children for his brother.’ Now there were seven brothers among us; the first married, and died childless, leaving the widow to his brother. The second did the same, so also the third, down to the seventh. Last of all, the woman herself died. In the resurrection, then, whose wife of the seven will she be? For all of them had married her.” Jesus answered them, “You are wrong, because you know neither the scriptures nor the power of God. For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven. And as for the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was said to you by God, ‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is God not of the dead, but of the living.” And when the crowd heard it, they were astounded at his teaching.
The Bible has its stories. I’ve discovered that one of the best ways to understand begins by deciding what to call them. That might the interpretative key that can unlocks the meaning.
Take the well-known “Parable of the Prodigal Son,” for instance. Remember how that boy claims an advance on his inheritance, packs his bags, and runs off to blow it all in a far country, only to come home with his tail between his legs and beg for a place to stay? He’s the Prodigal Son. But that’s only half the story. He has a do-gooder older brother who never strayed, always did what right, and resents the grace that welcomed home the prodigal. There are two boys, not one, and the Father who loves them both. So let’s call it “The Man Who Loved Two Sons.”
Or the tale of the “Good Samaritan.” Jesus spins that one when asked by a self-righteous Bible scholar about defining the neighbor. Unlike the indifferent priest or the overly cautious Levite, the despised Samaritan stops his mule to climb down and care for somebody he doesn’t know who has been beaten and robbed. When Jesus asks the smug scholar which of the three acted humanely, the scholar cannot say the word, “Samaritan.” So let’s call that one, “The Neighbor You Don’t Want to Recognize.”
It's a fun little game. It’s also helpful, especially with the Bible stories we have tackled for the past couple of months. A father sends two sons to work in the vineyard; one says yes and doesn’t go, the other says no and finally gets there. Both are disobedient, so it’s the “Man with Two Disobedient Sons.”
Or there’s the one popularly called the “Workers in the Vineyard.” All those workers were hired at different times, so they each expect different amounts in their pay envelopes. When the one-hour workers get a full day’s wage, the long-timers have multiplied that amount by the hours they’ve put in. Alas, all they get is a full day’s wage. Don’t call it the “Workers in the Vineyard.” Call it “The Boss Who Pays Everybody the Same.”
So what about the story we hear today? It’s a story from the Sadducees, not from Jesus. Sounds like a tale they’ve told many times, or at least a tale they’ve been polishing to toss at Jesus.
Who were the Sadducees? Matthew says they are the one who didn’t believe in the Resurrection, but they are more to them than that. They came from aristocratic families and were extremely wealthy. They ended up in high positions of authority in the Jerusalem Temple; the high priest Caiaphas was a Sadducee. And they were very conservative. That’s the truth of many wealthy people; the economic system tilts in their favor, so why should they mess with it?
Their conservativism supplied their religious views. Back in the day when the Bible was not yet a book but a collection of sacred scrolls, the Sadducees believed the only scrolls that counted were the Five Scrolls of Moses: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. They dismissed the Writings, like Psalm 9, which says, “The needy shall not always be forgotten, nor the hope of the poor perish forever (9:18).” And they had little time for Prophets like Amos, who thundered against those “who trample the head of the poor into the dust of the earth, and push the afflicted out of the way (Amos 2:7).”
Oh, no. The Sadducees declared, “If Moses didn’t write it, we will ignore it.” That’s why they didn’t believe in the Resurrection. It wasn’t in the five scrolls of their Bible. The Pharisees and many of the Jewish people believed in a final Day of the Lord, a final raising of every soul, a final judgment where God sorts through the holy lives of the righteous and the condemnation of those who are evil. The Sadducees said, “No, that’s not in the Book. It’s not in our Book.” They said, “Moses didn’t mention a resurrection. It’s empty speculation.”
This shapes the story they offer to Jesus. They say, “Teacher, Moses taught that if a man died without an heir, it is his brother’s obligation to marry the childless wife and produce a baby.” Now, before you flinch, that one is in the Book, tucked away in the dark corner of Deuteronomy (25:5). It was a law given when there was fear of the family line being cut off. There’s never been any evidence that any brother actually tried this. Marrying your sister-in-law isn’t always a good idea.
But no matter to the Sadducees. They want to make a point. “Teacher,” they say, “suppose a man dies without a son and his brother takes up the manly duty and marries the childless wife. Then he dies without producing a son, so a third brother steps up and marries the childless widow. But he dies without a son, too. So it goes with four more brothers, all of whom are living under the same roof. One at a time, all seven of them marry the same woman, who never produces a child, and all seven die. Finally the woman dies.”
“So, Teacher, in this so-called Resurrection, whose wife is she going to be?”
It’s the kind of story you dream up if you have a lot of time on your hands. The kind of story you cook up while you’re twirling the tassels of your robe and running your fingers through your beard. It’s the kind of question you ask if you have a lot of money, with servants who pour you a cup of Earl Grey from a silver tea pot.
It’s a ridiculous story. I try to imagine the face of Jesus as he hears them spin it. Does he roll his eyes? Or does he cackle with laughter at the absurdity of it? Or does his cheek redden at the overt sexism of it all? I mean, this is a story about a “hypothetical woman.” She doesn’t have a name. She is merely a prop. The Sadducees’ assumption is that the seven-fold widow exists only to give one of the boys a son. Their story reduces her life to that.
I, for one, would like to give her greater dignity. She had to endure being passed around. She had to put up with an old Bible verse that presumed men get to do whatever they want. Yet she is a child of God, equally made in the image of the Almighty. She deserves more dignity than the Sadducees give her. That’s why I would name this tale, “She Wore Out Seven Husbands.” Let’s give her some credit for her robust endurance. Let’s bring her out of the shadows and into the light.
Ever notice that sometimes, or much of the time, people tell stories or ask question or repeat things based on their preconceptions? I did this a few minutes ago by presuming a lot of wealthy people are inherently conservative. The Sadducees have done it in the story by presuming all women are insignificant. The Sadducees also presume that God only works in ways that had been described by the five ancient scrolls of Moses.
So Jesus responds to the story by saying, “You are wrong. You have gone off the tracks.” These Sadducees, who like to dress up in fine robes, who stand up in the Temple and repeat the scripted rituals, have a fixed view of life, religion, and God. If something doesn’t fit their point of view, they dismiss it. If something crosses the lines they maintain, they refuse it. If something exists beyond what they can imagine, they ignore it.
Now, all of us are prone to do this. We reinforce our beliefs by surrounding ourselves with friends who agree with us. We select the cable TV stations that reinforce what we already believe. We diagnose a difficulty based on the assumptions we have already made.
Psychologists have a phrase for this. It’s called “confirmation bias.” In the words of the great philosopher Warren Buffett, “What the human being is best at doing is interpreting all new information so that their prior conclusions remain intact.”[1] In other words, I don’t want to change my mind nor enlarge my point of view; I want to stay the way I am.
This, says Jesus, is where the Sadducees go wrong. “You do not understand the scriptures,” he says. For one thing, you cannot keep telling stories that dismiss women as nameless props for the men. The scriptures declare women and men are equal in the eyes of God. If anything, Adam was the rough draft and Eve was the finished product.
What’s more, says Jesus, “You do not understand about God.” God is not a character in an ancient scroll, but the Living One who is the source of all life. God is free, alive, and eternal, not bound to any of our assumptions or opinions. “Hey Sadducees, what does God say to Moses out of the burning bush? ‘I am the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.’ God speaks in the present tense, the eternally present tense.”
So God came before us – and God is waiting ahead of us. Resurrection is the step into God’s eternity. And in God’s eternity, it is wrong thinking to assume that everything here and now will continue into the full presence of the Holy God. Injustice? It will not continue before God’s righteousness. Corruption and bad behavior? They will evaporate before God’s purity.
There will be no more schools, for there will be no more ignorance. There will be no more hospitals, for all shall be healed. There will be no more temples or churches, for all who live eternally will dwell in the house of the Lord.[2] In the resurrection, says Jesus, we shall be living with the angels. Everything false, superficial, or just plain wrong will have passed away. This is the work of the living God. It shines light on how we are called to live here and now.
In the summer after I graduated from Princeton Seminary, I worked for a couple of weeks at a minister’s conference on campus. I was waiting for my first job to come through and needed the money. My job was to set up microphones and recording equipment for the conference teachers and speakers. That’s how I met a poet named Thomas John Carlisle. He had retired from the parish a few years before, and now he traveled around with books of poetry compiled from years of listening to scripture.
Here's a poem he wrote on our Bible text, entitled “Somebody’s Wife.”
Whose wife would she be in
In the resurrection
(if there should be one)?
Seven husbands
Might claim her
As their property.
What a grim dilemma!
No one thought of asking
Whose husband a man would be
If he outlived
A plethora of spouses –
As men often did.
That did not fit their plot.
Women were not supposed
To be so durable.
Frequency of pregnancy
And the vicissitudes of childbirth
Took a lethal toll.
Perhaps sterility could be a blessing
And barrenness have some benefits.
She who had seven times failed
To bear a child
Was not to be left out
In Jesus’ estimate.
Heaven does not perpetuate
The inequities of earth.
Though treated as a no one here
God provides for her and others
A revised and reasonable
Appraisal.
Worth trying now.[3]
“Heaven
does not perpetuate the inequities of earth.” Thank God for that. Thank the
Living God.
And today, as we remember She Who Wore Out Seven Husbands, let us pledge our lives to create a world as loving, just, and true as the heaven that God is bringing to earth, through Jesus Christ our Lord.
[1] See, for instance, F. Diane Barth,
“How Confirmation Bias Affects You Every Single Day,” Psychology Today,
31 December 2017. Retrieved online at https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-couch/201712/how-confirmation-bias-affects-you-every-single-day
[2] Thanks to Tom Long for this
insight, in his commentary Matthew (Louisville: Westminster John Knox
Press, 1997) p. 253.
[3] Thomas John Carlisle, Beginning
with Mary: Women of the Gospels in Portrait (Grand Rapids: William G. Eerdmans
Publishing Co., 1986) p. 54.
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