Proper 27 – Nov. 7, 2010 (Part 2: Luke)

Luke 20:27-38

            By this point in Luke’s story, Jesus has arrived in Jerusalem, having been headed in that direction since 9:51 (the chapter and verse, not the time of day).  This explains why he would encounter Sadducees, who were a religious faction concerned with Temple life.  This also makes the topic of the resurrection a timely one, since the events of Jesus’ passion are soon to take place.  As Luke tells us, Sadducees didn’t believe in the resurrection (as opposed to Pharisees), so their “question” about it is really just an attempt to show how ridiculous the whole notion is to them.  They present Jesus with this scenario which is based on a Torah provision whereby, if a man died childless, his brother was supposed to marry his widow in order to bear children on his behalf (see Deut. 25:5-6).  In other words, life after death meant procreation.  Their scenario is that these seven brothers, one after the other, all married the same woman and died childless– so isn’t that going to create some chaos in the afterlife when they all meet up around the punchbowl?  The Sadducees’ method is familiar to those of us who live in the age of "infotainment," because they’re not really attacking the idea of the resurrection – rather, they’re attacking their own flimsy cutout version of the resurrection.  It’s like when it snows one day and someone says, “So much for global warming.”

So Jesus’ response to the Sadducees is essentially dismissive: “Yes, it would be ridiculous, if that’s what the resurrection was.”  They’ve assumed resurrection is like walking from one room into another, continuing the life we had with all its trappings and traditions, just in a new location.  But Jesus tells them (verses 34-36) that it’s a wholly new and different existence.  There’s no need for the family structures of this life with all their “hatching, matching and dispatching,” because there’s only one family where we’re all God’s children.  Then (verses 37-38) Jesus goes on to do a little Torah interpretation of his own, observing that when God spoke to Moses he said “I am the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob,” therefore they must all have been alive to God, since God is not the God of the dead but of the living.  (Cue Keanu Reeves: “Whoa.”)  I don’t know if Jesus convinced the Sadducees at all – presumably not, given the way things turned out – but they surely got a lot more than they bargained for with that conversation.