Resurrection Certainty [Proper 27C - Luke 20:27-38]

 The Rt. Rev. Jeremiah Williamson

Luke 20:27-38

 

Resurrection Certainty

St. Christopher’s, Cobleskill

 

They could have come to Jesus to be touched well.  They could have sat at his feet and drank from the well of his wisdom.  They could have simply breathed in the same breath that, in the beginning, separated the water from the dry land.  Or just stood still in his loving gaze.  But instead, they came to embarrass Jesus in front of this crowd.  Because of course they did.

 

These Sadducees, we are told, did not believe in the resurrection.  And so this was not an earnest or honest question.  Their question was devised to prove to Jesus, and anyone who would listen, that they were right: more well-read, more devoted, more righteous.  And that Jesus was wrong.  Because of their carefully crafted question everyone would see that they knew the Bible better.  And unlike Jesus, they actually respected its authority.  They were good theologians, purveyors of sound doctrine.  And Jesus was a false teacher.  He needed to be exposed.  And they were just the men to do it.

 

And so, some Sadducees, those who say there is no resurrection, came to Jesus and asked him a question…about resurrection.  A question that they already knew the answer to.  A question that, they were certain, would expose Jesus as the biblical light-weight he truly was.

 

It is no surprise that the Sadducees chose levirate marriage.  Levirate marriage, the practice of passing a woman down through a series of surviving brothers for the purpose of bearing offspring, is established in the Torah.  Yes, it is a strange practice.  Yes, it does assume that women are property designed to produce heirs.  And yes, it is in the Bible: Deuteronomy chapter 25 – immediately after the law that forbids one from muzzling an ox while it is treading out the grain.

 

Even in Jesus’ day, 2000 years ago, the practice was likely no longer common, if practiced at all.  But the Sadducees chose this particular example because, unlike the doctrine of resurrection, levirate marriage is explicitly mentioned in the Torah, in the first five books of the Bible: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy.  While Jesus, and the Pharisees, also drew from the prophets, the wisdom literature, oral traditions, and even the late apocalyptic books, like Daniel, the Sadducees limited their understanding of biblical authority to the law of Moses. 

 

They were purists.  And they were afraid that Jesus’ “new” ideas were a corrupting influence on their religion.  And that is why they had to embarrass him in front of the crowds.  They needed to discredit him.  They needed to get people to stop following him.  And proving that he did not really know or believe the Bible was a great way to do that.  And so they came with a question, an absurd question meant to mock the very idea of resurrection, a question which was actually a trap.

 

A question which Jesus did not answer – at least not on their terms.  Because he did not accept their basic premise.  Resurrection was the truth – whether or not the Sadducees believed in it, despite their biblical certainty.   

 

The Sadducees were probably not bad people.  I mean, they don’t look great in this passage, but they were likely motivated, not by cruelty, but by fear.  They were worried that Jesus and his teachings were changing things, changing hearts, challenging the interpretations and doctrines that had long served them well.  It was scary.  And so they tried to stop it.

 

The Sadducees were socially elite and politically connected.  The doctrine of the resurrection, in the Hebrew Scriptures most explicitly articulated in the book of Daniel, a book written long after the Torah, a book that the Sadducees did recognize as true Scripture, anticipated the vindication of those whose experience of the world was very unlike that of the Sadducees.  The doctrine of resurrection imagines a time in which tears are wiped away and the hungry are filled with good things and the lowly are lifted up.  It was good news for the poor, the persecuted, and the oppressed.  But to the Sadducees it did not sound good; it sounded dangerous - as did the topsy-turvy Kingdom of God which Jesus preached incessantly.

 

To discredit Jesus, the Sadducees came armed with a powerful weapon: their knowledge of the Bible.  Their understanding of levirate marriage, a small, and antiquated, portion of the Torah, demonstrated their biblical acuity.  Jesus probably could have done a better job proving his own biblical chops here.  Saying “in the story about the bush” is not the best way to prove one’s exacting biblical knowledge.  Jesus could have at least cited the exact book (Exodus) or said “burning bush” or even described the story as the revelation of the sacred name of “I AM” – something that sounded more pious, something that proved just how seriously Jesus took the authority of scripture.  But he didn’t.  He didn’t show off his chops.  He said “in the story about the bush.”  

 

But maybe he chose his words intentionally.  Maybe he was just being gentle with some Sadducees who needed to be disappointed tenderly. 

 

I wonder if the Sadducees walked away from the episode feeling like they had won the argument, as smug as when they arrived.  Or if they left open to the possibility of a fuller future – one in which life with God was longer and the love of God was expansive in ways they never even considered.  It is hard to tell.  Once our theologies and interpretations turn to stone, they protect us well from the things we fear, but often also from our ability to dream and dance and move with the Spirit of God.

 

Theology is important.  We should wonder about God; we should seek to know Jesus.  But sound doctrine is not the source of our salvation.  God is.  Precise biblical interpretation does not get us into Heaven.  That is the work of the living Jesus.  We should read our Bibles and study our theology.  Of course.  And then hold it all with every bit of humility we can muster.  Because God knows that we will never get it all right.  God knows and God still loves us.

 

Despite their flawed biblical interpretations and their inadequate theologies, those pompous Sadducees were still known and alive to God.  They didn’t have to believe in the resurrection for it to be true.  It’s just true.  God doesn’t need us to always be right.  And that is a good thing.  Because probably mostly we are asking the wrong questions and coming to the wrong conclusions.  But no amount of unbelief, or even wrong belief, can ever separate us from the love God or slow the swiftness of the Spirit.  Soon after this episode, these Sadducees, and the world, saw that no amount of unbelief, or even wrong belief, could ever stop Easter from coming.