You are mistaken, not knowing the Scriptures nor the power of God

 

 The same day the Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection, came to Him and asked Him, saying:  "Teacher, Moses said that if a man dies, having no children, his brother shall marry his wife and raise up offspring for his brother.  Now there were with us seven brothers.  The first died after he had married, and having no offspring, left his wife to his brother.  Likewise the second also, and the third, even to the seventh.  Last of all the woman died also.  Therefore, in the resurrection, whose wife of the seven will she be?  For they all had her."  Jesus answered and said to them, "You are mistaken, not knowing the Scriptures nor the power of God.  For in the resurrection they nether marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels of God in heaven.  But concerning the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was spoken to you by God, saying, 'I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob'?  God is not the God of the dead, but of the living."  And when the multitudes heard this, they were astonished at His teaching. 

 

- Matthew 22:23–33 

 

In our current readings, it is Holy Week in Jerusalem, the final week of Christ's earthly life.  On Saturday we read that the Pharisees went and plotted how they might entangle Jesus in His talk.  And they sent to Him their disciples with the Herodians, saying, "Teacher, we know that You are true, and teach the way of God in truth; nor do You care about anyone, for You do not regard the person of men.  Tell us, therefore, what do You think?  Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, or not?"  But Jesus perceived their wickedness, and said, "Why do you test Me, you hypocrites?  Show Me the tax money."  so they brought Him a denarius.  And He said to them, "Whose image and inscription is this?"  They said to Him, "Caesar's."  And He said to them, "Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's."  When they had heard these words, they marveled, and left Him and went their way.

 

  The same day the Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection, came to Him and asked Him, saying:  "Teacher, Moses said that if a man dies, having no children, his brother shall marry his wife and raise up offspring for his brother.  Now there were with us seven brothers.  The first died after he had married, and having no offspring, left his wife to his brother.  Likewise the second also, and the third, even to the seventh.  Last of all the woman died also.  Therefore, in the resurrection, whose wife of the seven will she be?  For they all had her."  Jesus answered and said to them, "You are mistaken, not knowing the Scriptures nor the power of God.  For in the resurrection they nether marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels of God in heaven.  But concerning the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was spoken to you by God, saying, 'I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob'?  God is not the God of the dead, but of the living."  And when the multitudes heard this, they were astonished at His teaching.   My study Bible explains that, in telling the Sadducees, "You are mistaken," Jesus confirms that there will be a resurrection -- but it will be nothing like what they are imagining.  These Sadducees consider the concept of resurrection to mean a simple continuation of earthly life (including earthly marriage) and so they mock the doctrine they imagine with an absurd scenario.  However, as Jesus asserts, they are ignorant of the Scriptures, for in them is a revelation of complete transformation of resurrectional life.  Thus, with an understanding of the Scriptures, their question becomes irrelevant.  Moreover, my study Bible says, they fail to understand how Abraham and his sons can be alive in God, even when they are physically dead.  My study Bible tells us, "It is the clear teaching of Christ that the souls of the faithful who have departed this life are sustained before the face of God in anticipation of the final joy of the resurrection."

It's important to understand that the perspective and religious outlook of the Sadducees is itself rather earthly in emphasis, in the sense that they accepted only the first five books of the Old Testament (that is, the Pentateuch, or Torah), and were quite literal in their interpretation of the Law.  They were major landowners around the city of Jerusalem, and so were a type of aristocratic class.  They were also from the priestly class and controlled many functions in temple.  In terms of the Council they were the party that formed the chief rivals to the Pharisees, and rejected many of the Pharisees interpretations of the Law.  They neither believed in the existence of angels or the resurrection of the dead (both of which were accepted by the Pharisees).  So, in terms of their very "earthly" orientation -- which we might say contrasts to a more spiritual or mystical outlook of Judaism -- their question essentially makes sense.  Given their orientation, it is little wonder they form a question that must be answered in terms of property and even inheritance.  Their very anti-mystical orientation perhaps forms the framework for this question, as well as Jesus' response that they do not know the Scriptures nor the power of God.  In fact, Christ's answer affirms for us the essential importance of the understanding of the work of the Holy Spirit, and the role the Holy Spirit plays in our faith.  For without the "power of God" how would we have Scriptures?  How would we have the work of the prophets?  (For the Creed confesses that the Holy Spirit spoke through the prophets.)  How would we truly have proper interpretation or understanding of the Scriptures?  And clearly, we would not understand the power of God to transform life in the Resurrection --  and like the Sadducees, we could not understand the salvific role of angels in the entire economy of the cosmos and as part of Creation.  So, as far as Christ's response is concerned, because the Sadducees' perspective is so "earthly" in this sense, their understanding and respect for Scripture is lacking, and therefore their knowledge of spiritual truth is also lacking.  They do not understand the nature of the Resurrection for this reason.  It brings us back to the important mystical component of our faith.  Without it we cannot understand the meaning and power of sacrament, nor that Scripture is a kind of literature that is not just "literal," but must be understood with a prayerful perspective, and one hopefully guided by the holy prayerful figures who came before us, especially the holy Fathers and Mothers who guided the Church in her early centuries and those who followed in their footsteps.  We have an incredible treasury of beauty, knowledge, wisdom, and truth -- but none of it is properly understood except with this spiritual, mystical perspective to set us in the right place for our own receptivity to it.  Let us consider the beauty and mystery especially of this Nativity season as we enter into it, and the roles played by angels, holy men and women, people of wisdom who seek the Child they know will be born, and all the roles played by those wise and aged to the young shepherds, to the angels who proclaim to them the glory of God.  For without all of that our faith would be much poorer indeed.

 

You are mistaken, not knowing the Scriptures nor the power of God

 

 The same day the Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection, came to Him and asked Him, saying:  "Teacher, Moses said that if a man dies, having no children, his brother shall marry his wife and raise up offspring for his brother.  Now there were with us seven brothers.  The first died after he had married, and having no offspring, left his wife to his brother.  Likewise the second also, and the third, even to the seventh.  Last of all the woman died also.  Therefore, in the resurrection, whose wife of the seven will she be?  For they all had her."  Jesus answered and said to them, "You are mistaken, not knowing the Scriptures nor the power of God.  For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels of God in heaven.  But concerning the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was spoken to you by God, saying, 'I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob'?  God is not the God of the dead, but of the living."  And when the multitude heard this, they were astonished at His teaching.

 

- Matthew 22:23-33 

 

Yesterday we read that, after their confrontation with Jesus in the Temple, the Pharisees went and plotted how they might entangle Him in His talk.  And they sent to Him their disciples with the Herodians, saying, "Teacher, we know that You are true, and teach the way of God in truth; nor do You care about anyone, for You do not regard the person of men.  Tell us, therefore, what do You think?  Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, or not?"  But Jesus perceived their wickedness, and said, "Why do you test Me, you hypocrites?  Show Me the tax money."  So they brought Him a denarius.  And He said to them, "Whose image and inscription is this?"  They said to Him, "Caesar's."  And He said to them, "Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's."  When they had heard these words, they marveled, and left Him and went their way.

 

  The same day the Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection, came to Him and asked Him, saying:  "Teacher, Moses said that if a man dies, having no children, his brother shall marry his wife and raise up offspring for his brother.  Now there were with us seven brothers.  The first died after he had married, and having no offspring, left his wife to his brother.  Likewise the second also, and the third, even to the seventh.  Last of all the woman died also.  Therefore, in the resurrection, whose wife of the seven will she be?  For they all had her."  Jesus answered and said to them, "You are mistaken, not knowing the Scriptures nor the power of God.  For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels of God in heaven.  But concerning the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was spoken to you by God, saying, 'I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob'?  God is not the God of the dead, but of the living."  And when the multitude heard this, they were astonished at His teaching.  My study Bible comments that Christ confirms there will be a resurrection, but not the sort the Sadducees imagine.  The Sadducees were a landowning aristocratic class, who did not hold with a doctrine of resurrection.  They followed strictly the written law in the first five books of the Bible (that is, the Torah), and not the oral teaching and interpretations followed by the Pharisees.  They imagine the resurrection to be a continuation of earthly life, including earthly marriage -- and thereby mock the doctrine with an absurd scenario.  But they are ignorant of the Scriptures, as Christ says, which reveal a complete transfiguration of life in the resurrection, and make such earthly questions irrelevant.  Additionally, they fail to understand how Abraham and his sons can be alive in God even if they are physically dead.  My study Bible states that it is the clear teaching of Christ that the souls of the faithful who have departed this life are sustained before the face of God in anticipation of the final joy of the resurrection.

The Sadducees as a class would disappear after the Siege of Jerusalem.  As they were a property owning class, also holding many high offices in the society and the priesthood, this is perhaps not very surprising.  But one can't help but wonder if it is also connected to their failure to grasp the notion of resurrection, an insight into the Scriptures which Jesus reveals here.  They were exceptionally prudent and adapted to Roman rule.  But the failure of imagination, a steadfast literal interpretation of the Books of the Law, seem to imply a strong focus on earthly life, and this is evidenced in their question which is focused on concepts of inheritance -- a topic which was very important to the Sadducees as a class and even historically in religious disputes over the Law.  Jesus seems to teach us in today's reading that it is essential to understand Scripture not as a kind of textbook, but as a type of literature with its own kind of language, conveying more than the absolute literal forms on the page, and asking us for insight, grasping our comprehension in ways that do not necessarily seem obvious.  Jesus tells them that they don't understand resurrection, because they neither know the Scriptures nor the power of God.  These are things that are not simply earthly concepts, but require us to use a spiritual imagination and insight to grasp.  Moreover, Christ gives us a taste of what it means to perceive the Scriptures with such insight and spiritual imagination or understanding, when He tells them, "But concerning the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was spoken to you by God, saying, 'I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob'?  God is not the God of the dead, but of the living."  That is, in the very language of the Scripture, the words of God reportedly said to Moses (Exodus 3:6, 15) imply a timelessness that is a part of the resurrection, where those who have died in the world yet live to God.  Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob belonged to different generations, yet all live in the presence and reality of God.  And this is an example from Christ Himself as to how we need to read and understand Scripture.  The experience of earthly life alone cannot supply us with the necessary insight for things we need to understand in our capacity for spiritual life and the nurturing of the soul, the turning to the higher things that take us forward and guide us into God's will for us.  God calls us not just to earthly concepts of justice but beyond that to mercy, to a right-relatedness that is not necessarily deserved, and to a life beyond this world.  Jesus teaches us to pray not that we impose our worldly understanding on God, but that God's will be done on earth as it is in heaven (Matthew 6:10).  Contrary to the Sadducees, who did not believe in the resurrection, nor by most reports even the existence of angels, Christ points us to the saints who live and by whom we are surrounded (the "great cloud of witnesses" to which St. Paul refers in Hebrews 12:1), and from the beginning, the Church has understood that we also invoke the prayers of the saints as intercession, and we pray and worship together with the angels who worship in heaven, revealed in the vision of Isaiah (Isaiah 6:3) and also in the Revelation.  Christ taught us that "where two or three are gathered together in My name, I am there in the midst of them" (Matthew 18:20).  Therefore we are to understand that the worldly life we live is permeated also with the spiritual, with the reality of heaven even in our midst, invoked in our prayers, witnessed by our faith, even revealed in worship.  A nominally successful worldly material life is not enough to teach us how to be successful faithful Christians nor to prepare us for the fullness of our faith.  For that we need more, we need the capacity to grasp the things that are given to us that are not simply material, but are necessary components for a deeper, richer life that fills the soul and can translate into a kind of order for the world in which our relatedness to all of creation, including to one another and to the blessings we have, is formed and shaped into something more than what is merely dictated by expedience or abstraction, but a substance of love that is present to us in the things that turn our minds and hearts to God.   There is an insight, and a fullness to life, that just isn't found elsewhere, a more full dimension to who we are and what we can be to which we are called.  Let us remember the disappearance of the Sadducees and consider how this might be related to a failure to hear and grasp the things that call us to a deeper life, which are not merely worldly or material, but which magnify our souls.  The material circumstances of the world and temporal life shift and change; there is one thing that anchors us midst the changes and helps us to transcend through them (Matthew 24:35).

 

 

God is not the God of the dead, but of the living

 The same day the Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection, came to Him and asked Him, saying:  "Teacher, Moses said that if a man dies, having no children, his brother shall marry his wife and raise up offspring for his brother.  Now there were with us seven brothers.  The first died after he had married, and having no offspring, left his wife to his brother.  Likewise the second also, and the third, even to the seventh.  Last of all the woman died also.  Therefore, in the resurrection, whose wife of the seven will she be?  For they all had her."  Jesus answered and said to them, "You are mistaken, not knowing the Scriptures nor the power of God.  For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels of God in heaven.  But concerning the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was spoken to you by God, saying, 'I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob'?  God is not the God of the dead, but of the living."  And when the multitudes heard this, they were astonished at His teaching. 

- Matthew 22:23-33

It is Holy Week in our current readings, the Passover week of Jesus' final days of His life as Incarnate human being.  He is in Jerusalem, He has cleansed the temple, and has been questioned by the leadership as to His authority to do so.  On Saturday we read that the Pharisees went and plotted how they might entangle Him in His talk.  And they sent to Him their disciples with the Herodians, saying, "Teacher, we know that You are true, and teach the way of God in truth; nor do You care about anyone, for You do not regard the person of men.  Tell us, therefore, what do You think?  Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, or not?"  But Jesus perceived their wickedness, and said, "Why do you test Me, you hypocrites?  Show Me the tax money."  So they brought Him a denarius.  And He said to them, "Whose image and inscription is this?"  They said to Him, "Caesar's."  And He said to them, "Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar's and to God the things that are God's."  When they had heard these words, they marveled, and left Him and went their way.

 The same day the Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection, came to Him and asked Him, saying:  "Teacher, Moses said that if a man dies, having no children, his brother shall marry his wife and raise up offspring for his brother.  Now there were with us seven brothers.  The first died after he had married, and having no offspring, left his wife to his brother.  Likewise the second also, and the third, even to the seventh.  Last of all the woman died also.  Therefore, in the resurrection, whose wife of the seven will she be?  For they all had her."  Jesus answered and said to them, "You are mistaken, not knowing the Scriptures nor the power of God.  For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels of God in heaven.  But concerning the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was spoken to you by God, saying, 'I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob'?  God is not the God of the dead, but of the living."  And when the multitudes heard this, they were astonished at His teaching.  My study bible tells us that here Christ confirms for us in His teaching that there will be a resurrection.  But it is not the sort of resurrection that the Sadducees are imagining.  The Sadducees were a wealthy landowning class of the area around Jerusalem.  They were active as part of the Council.  But unlike the Pharisees they followed only in the first five books of the Scriptures (the Pentateuch or Torah) and did not believe in resurrection.  They imagine the concept of resurrection to be a continuation to be a continuation of earthly life, including earthly marriage, and thereby mock the doctrine with an absurd scenario.  However, Jesus says they are ignorant of the Scriptures, which reveal that there is a complete transfiguration of life in the resurrection, which makes earthly questions like their irrelevant.  Moreover, they fail to understand how Abraham and his sons can be alive in God even if they are physically dead.  It is the clear teaching of Christ that the souls of the faithful who have departed this life are sustained before the face of God in anticipation of the final joy of the resurrection.

What is life?  How do we characterize life?  Jesus speaks of the Resurrection as a transformed reality.  Life as we know it shifts.  We're in a new mode.  We get a few hints about this in the experiences of Jesus' own Resurrection.  Mary Magdalene doesn't recognize Him until He calls her name (John 20:11-16).  Neither do the disciples who walk with Him on the road to Emmaus, until "He was known to them in the breaking of bread" (Luke 24:13-35).  Life is transformed.   But Jesus characterizes life itself when He replies to the Sadducees asking them, "But concerning the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was spoken to you by God, saying, 'I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob'?  God is not the God of the dead, but of the living."   Life itself may not look like what we expect it to be.  It may not take on familiar characteristics of appearance, nor even of nature.  But life is life, and life exists even beyond death and its power in this world.  Jesus is known to His disciples in the breaking of bread.  He's known to Mary when He calls her name.  The disciples on the road to Emmaus reflect on their experience, and ask one another, "Did not our heart burn within us while He talked with us on the road, and while He opened the Scriptures to us?"  In this familiar experience of person-to-person communication, they recognize the Jesus they knew intimately as their Master.  Jesus names definite persons in His expression of life from the Scriptures, as God speaks by saying, "I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob?"  God names distinct persons in revealing God's own identity, identifying life with each person.  Jesus further expresses the sense of the Scripture, opening its meanings, by giving to us the gift of recognition of persons as well -- in a place of life that is without barrier to that life, not by time, not by space, and not by death.  We are transformed to expand with life itself, to be taken to the "next level," if we can put it that way, so that we are more filled with life than we could previously accommodate.  We are transformed in order to accommodate more fully the life offered by God.  In The Great Divorce, C. S. Lewis writes of a place where everything becomes more, color has more depth, people are more substantial, and the worldly seems ethereal, pale, abstract, and muted by contrast.  This is the fuller life for which we are transformed, the place Jesus teaches us about, the life that God characterizes in self-revelation as "the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob."  Perhaps it is we who are far too diminished and little in our own understanding of life, and who need to expand to accommodate God.  Let us consider all the ways that God fills life, and the essential unknown that is filled with that life we cannot conceive, but awaits in His life for us.  Jesus says that God is the God of the living.  It is we who must find the way to learn what that means, in a fullness and depth we have to find through faith.