Allegiance, Resurrection, and Love
AM Psalm 25 • PM Psalm 9, 15
Amos 7:1-9 • Rev. 1:1-8 • Matt. 22:23-33
In chapter 22 of the gospel of Matthew, as Jesus is teaching the crowds about the kingdom of heaven, he is torn away from his sermon by one group after another hoping to trap him with trick questions. First, the Pharisees, who want to “entangle him in his talk,” enlist the Herodians to test him about the lawfulness of the occupied Jews paying taxes to Caesar. Jesus turns the question around and gives them a simple answer: give Caesar what’s due to him; give God what’s due to God.
No sooner has Jesus countered this argument than the Sadducees whip him around with a frivolous reductio ad absurdum argument against life after our mortal life: if a woman marries seven brothers, all of whom predecease her, whose wife will she be in the resurrection of the dead? It would be unfair, they imply, for one man to have marital rights in heaven and the other six men denied them. But for polyandry to be allowed in Heaven would be absurd; therefore, the resurrection of the dead is an absurd notion. Jesus explains the absurdity of their argument by explaining that in Heaven there are no marriages and that by implication, sex is no longer an issue, and he follows by quoting God speaking in the present tense in the Scriptures: “Have you not read what was said to you by God, ‘I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob?’ He is not God of the dead, but of the living.” Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are alive in Heaven, you frivolous Sadducees. But at the same time, Jesus is also bringing his listeners back to his main message about the kingdom of heaven. All of you, live within the present kingdom that I’m preaching about!
Immediately, the Pharisees, hearing Jesus has silenced the Sadducees, choose a lawyer to put another test forward: “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?” What do they expect him to say, when they have been taught from birth that they must love the Lord their God with all their heart, soul, and mind? Jesus adds to that commandment one which they may find even harder to obey than loving their God, that they should love their neighbors as much as they love themselves.
Pharisees, Herodians, Sadducees, back to the Pharisees, each group trying to seduce Jesus into lengthy arguments, partly to trick him, and partly because it is their way—to spend their time arguing small points of the scripture rather than in living out the kingdom of heaven right there on earth, right then.
Written by Kay DuVal
Kay wishes everyone a blessed St. Nicholas’ Day, on this her own birthday.