(Enter two schoolgirls.)
Padre: Right, do you four boys take these two girls to be your seven brides?
Boys: Yes, sir.
-From Monty Python's Flying Circus, 27 Oct 1970
So the Sadducees think they can trap Jesus with a trick question? You remember the story they spin, how the same poor woman keeps being remarried to brothers who keep dying off, and the Sadducees, "those who say there is no resurrection" (Luke 20:27), ask Jesus whose wife she will be in heaven.
But he turns it all around on them, telling them that in heaven they neither marry nor are given in marriage, "because they are like angels and are children of God, being children of the resurrection." Jesus goes on to say that God "is God not of the dead but of the living, for to him all of them are alive" (Luke 20:36-38).
The Sadducees' questions are too small; their scope too narrow. With a word, Jesus turns their gaze, and ours, from the mean concerns of life here on earth toward a glorious vision of life in the presence of God.
The question is, how should we act today, knowing we are meant for life with God? This is a question not about legality but about generosity, not about regulations but about welcome.
"You have spoken well," some of the scribes reply to Jesus (Luke 20:39-40), because they see they have no more questions big enough to ask him. Their eyes have been on the ground too long.
"You will save a lowly people," the Psalmist says in this evening's portion, "but you will humble the haughty eyes" (Psalm 18:28).
Padre: Right, go and do your prep.
(The curtain comes across quickly.)
1 comment:
I love how often Jesus ignores, rebuffs, redirects or ponders questions asked of him; often answering a question with a question (my English teacher said that's bad)! It's not as much from his trying to be sly (wise as a serpent?), but more from the fact that the questions usually asked not because people want them answered, but because they're often trying to be the sly one!
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