Scripture Debates
Wednesday, August 19, 2009 -- Week of Proper 15, Year One
Today's Readings for the Daily Office (Book of Common Prayer, p. 980)
Psalms 119:145-176 (morning) 128, 129, 130 (evening)
2 Samuel 18:19-33
Acts 23:23-35
Mark 12:13-27
The Sadducees ask Jesus a question that is designed for ridicule. It was part of a long-existing party dispute. You might characterize the Sadducees as the party of the elite and conservative. They cooperated with Rome in a power-sharing arrangement that gave them great control and influence over the politics and economy of Israel. And they were the "strict constrictionist" religious party, regarding the first five books of the scripture, the Torah as traditionally ascribed to Moses, as authoritative for Jewish practice. For the Sadducees, all of the wild pronouncements of the prophets and the varied theologies of the books of wisdom were secondary to the foundational documents of Moses. Since there is nothing about resurrection in the Torah, the Sadducees did not believe in it.
The Pharisees were the party of the common people. They worked more at the grass roots level, teaching in synagogues, and trying to make the observance of the laws and statutes accessible to everyday folk. They had a wider perspective of scripture and a more speculative theology than the Sadducees. Because some of the later prophets introduced notions of angels and of the resurrection of the dead, the Pharisees embraced belief in such things. Though they held less power and influence among the wealthy and powerful, the Pharisees were important among the kind of people that Jesus attracted.
So we have a story where the Sadducees use one of their stock arguments against the Pharisees on Jesus. They take the Biblical commandment about levirate marriage and create an absurd scenario. Levirate marriage: As a protection of family inheritance and continuation, the Torah requires that the brother of any man who dies before fathering an heir marry the widow and father a child to carry on the dead man's name. The Sadducees imagine a woman who marries seven successive brothers without creating an heir. The brothers have followed the law. "In the resurrection, whose wife will she be? For the seven had married her." That's the trick question. It was part of the stock repertoire in the clash of paradigms between the two parties.
Jesus' answer: You don't know the scriptures or the power of God. Interesting answer. They know the scriptures. It's just that they have a particular tradition for interpreting the scriptures. That is always the case. We all read the scriptures with eyes of interpretation that are shaped by the interpretative paradigm we bring to our reading. As long as we stay with our paradigm, we see what we expect to see in the scriptures. We tend to gloss over the things that don't fit our paradigm. The Sadducees know the content of scriptures, but they read from the paradigm that assumes that there is no resurrection, so they see no resurrection in the scriptures. They don't "know" the scriptures.
Jesus quotes from the Torah, the authoritative portion of scripture for Sadducees. At the burning bush God says to Moses, "I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob." The Sadducees have read that for ages. It means nothing to them in reference to resurrection. But Jesus asserts that God "is God not of the dead, but of the living." God IS the God of the patriarchs here and now because in God the patriarchs still live. It's a different twist on the verse. My guess is that it wasn't convincing to the Sadducees. Unless you see it, you still don't see it.
I was brought up in cultural paradigms largely influenced by the theology of the Bible belt -- salvation is about life after death, you've got to believe in Jesus to be saved, to be a Christian is to follow the moral laws, it's mostly about sin, homosexuals are sinners, church should be separate from politics. As each of those paradigms was challenged by faithful Christians who argued from a different perspective, I began to read the scriptures with new eyes. Sometimes they were agnostic eyes -- I'm not sure what I believe, but I'll sustain my inherited opinion for a while and see what I discover. I found the Bible exploded with new meaning formerly hidden from my eyes.
Salvation is about wholeness -- God's work and presence to save us from all that threatens. Jesus is bigger than our little Christian monopoly -- God's Logos is present throughout history and creation. For Paul, Christianity is all about liberation from laws. It's mostly about love. Gay people are children of God. The Bible is full of politics, and we are called to advocate for political principles that reflect the values of Jesus.
"You don't know the scriptures of the power of God." In each of these paradigm shifts, I saw the power of God expand, which opened my eyes to new depths in the scriptures -- the same old word, new meaning.
The Sadducees got stuck in linear thinking. Jesus invited them to new possibilities. God is greater than we can imagine. Life is more than "whose wife is she."
Can infinite love be bounded? Think of the possibilities. Then, every once in a while, think of the impossibilities.
Lowell
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Audio podcast: Listen to an audio podcast of the most recent Morning Reflections from today and the past week. Click the following link: Morning Reflection Podcasts
About Morning Reflections
Morning Reflections is a brief thought about the scripture readings from the Daily Office of Morning and Evening Prayer according to the practice found in the Book of Common Prayer of the Episcopal Church.
Morning Prayer begins on p. 80 of the Book of Common Prayer.
Evening Prayer begins on p. 117
An online resource for praying the Daily Office is found at www.missionstclare.com
Another form of the office from Phyllis Tickle's "Divine Hours" is available on our partner web site www.ExploreFaith.org at this location -- http://explorefaith.org/prayer/fixed/index.html
The Mission of St. Paul's Episcopal Church
is to explore and celebrate
God's infinite grace, acceptance, and love.
Visit our web site at www.stpaulsfay.org
Our Rule of Life
Lowell Grisham, Rector
Audio podcast: Listen to an audio podcast of the most recent Morning Reflections from today and the past week. Click the following link: Morning Reflection Podcasts
About Morning Reflections
Morning Reflections is a brief thought about the scripture readings from the Daily Office of Morning and Evening Prayer according to the practice found in the Book of Common Prayer of the Episcopal Church.
Morning Prayer begins on p. 80 of the Book of Common Prayer.
Evening Prayer begins on p. 117
An online resource for praying the Daily Office is found at www.missionstclare.com
Another form of the office from Phyllis Tickle's "Divine Hours" is available on our partner web site www.ExploreFaith.org at this location -- http://explorefaith.org/prayer/fixed/index.html
The Mission of St. Paul's Episcopal Church
is to explore and celebrate
God's infinite grace, acceptance, and love.
Visit our web site at www.stpaulsfay.org
Our Rule of Life
We aspire to...
worship weekly
pray daily
learn constantly
serve joyfully
live generously.
worship weekly
pray daily
learn constantly
serve joyfully
live generously.
Lowell Grisham, Rector
St. Paul's Episcopal Church
Fayetteville, Arkansas
Fayetteville, Arkansas
posted by Lowell @ 8:04 AM
2 comments
2 Comments:
While the Pharisaic sect decentralized Judaism from the Temple, less than 5% of Jews followed any of the sects of the day (other than the revolutionary zealots & Scarii). Ninety five or more percent of the population were too poor, too busy trying to survive and too unclean to be acceptable observant Jews. There were vast differences between the Pharasaic schools of Hillel and Shammai. Hillel interpreted the Law and codified oral traditions in a way that enabled more Jews to be observant. He taught peace. Some scholars believe that Jesus took the teachings of Hillel as the starting place of his ministry. Jesus was as much of a threat to the Pharasaic School of Shammai as he was to the Sadducean sect. Some scholars believe that whether or not Jesus had lived and died, a prophet would have expanded on Hillel's teachings in much the same way as Jesus did. I think it is important that we as Christians gain a more nuanced understanding of the context out of which Jesus emerged. You make some good points ... but how do we go further?
Very helpful expansions. Thanks for the comments.
Yes. Most people were peasants, and their lives did not afford them the luxury of being observant of the Law.
And Jesus weighed in on the side of Hillel in one contemporary debate between Hillel and Shammai -- Is the Sabbath made for man or man for the Sabbath? Jesus sided with Hillel saying that the Sabbath is made for man, and thus human needs may sometimes trump strict Sabbath observance.
Capernaum, which became Jesus' central location for his ministry, was a town whose synagogue was identified with the school of Hillel. Jesus' teaching seems congenial with the teaching of Hillel.
If I'm not mistaken, during Jesus' life, more synagogues tended to identify with Shammai than with Hillel, but after the destruction of the Temple, the School of Hillel eventually became dominant.
It seems a tragedy to me that the Jesus movement was unable to find common cause with the School of Hillel and find a way to maintain a charitable relationship between Christianity and Judaism.
Lowell
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