Sadducees and Pharisees

Luke 20:27-38
The Rev. Pat Morris-Rader

When I was a little girl, we celebrated November 11 as Armistice Day. In school we learned about the signing of the treaty in Versailles that ended World War I. We honored men who had fought in World War II and thrilled at the variety of their old uniforms as they marched in parades. My mother invited handsome, young soldiers and sailors from nearby bases to our home for Sunday dinner. It seemed as though the big questions of the world had been answered.

Now we celebrate Veterans Day on the 2nd Monday in November. We have veterans from Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, and places we’ve forgotten. We hardly know how to honor or welcome them home. We forget to express our gratitude for their sacrifices. Each of us has been affected in some way; we have relatives, neighbors, classmates who are veterans. Some here are veterans. Let each of us in our own way honor those who have served. The questions of the world have become increasingly complex.

Also when I was a little girl, my sisters and I dressed up each Sunday to go to Sunday School. I learned that God loves me – from always smiling Sunday School teachers. I learned about trusting God as I looked up in awe while sharing a hymnal with my Uncle Dick. I learned the truths of my faith as I memorized Psalms, Bible passages, and verses in King James. We sang “Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so.” This was all the theology I needed.

I was confident that all my questions had answers that I could find, with faith. But as an adult, I’ve encountered events that have made life’s questions increasingly complex. Finding answers has often been a struggle of faith.

The people who gathered around Jesus were also plagued with complex political and religious questions. Though history would describe this period as Pax Romana, it surely was not a time of peace for the people of Roman-ruled Palestine. Political issues disturbed even the disciples – Judas Iscariot was a Zealot, who had high hopes for Jesus as a political ruler. The teachings of Jesus were not the only new ideas challenging fiercely held traditions. Conquerors had tried to stamp out Jewish practices and had offered enticing new Greek philosophies. Questions of all sorts surrounded Jesus throughout his ministry.

In our Gospel today, the Sadducees ask Jesus a question that seems rather silly. It’s hard to imagine a woman being widowed seven times by seven brothers. But the question is not silly to the Sadducees, or to their audience. Jesus is being asked to step into age-old political and religious conflicts between the Sadducees and Pharisees.

Though the Sadducees and the Pharisees are often mentioned together, they were poles apart. The Pharisees were entirely a religious body, content to be allowed to carry out ceremonial law. They accepted Hebrew scripture plus thousands of detailed regulations, rules, and oral laws. And most importantly for today’s gospel question, they believed in resurrection from the dead.

The Sadducees were few but very wealthy, including priests and aristocrats. They were the governing class and generally collaborated with Rome to avoid risk of losing wealth and comfort. They accepted only the law of Moses and set no store on later scripture or the prophetic books. They believed there was no resurrection. The Sadducees regarded their question about the woman who was married to seven different men as the kind of discussion would show that belief in the resurrection of the body was ridiculous.

But Jesus steps outside the boxes created by the questioners and their audience. He will not be caught up in their either-or logic. He steps outside the boundaries of the question, beyond the limitations of the answers that either side might have expected.

In heaven, the laws given to regulate our living with one another here on earth have no more meaning. Jesus affirms the resurrection. We “are like angels and are children of God, being children of the resurrection. … For he is God not of the dead, but of the living; for to him all of them are alive.” The question becomes irrelevant. We enter into the presence of God.

There are many occasions in the Gospels when Jesus steps outside the boundaries of the question to give an answer that goes beyond expectation. In the third chapter of John, the Pharisee Nicodemus comes to Jesus by night because he recognizes the presence of God in Jesus. He asks how an old man can be born again. Their dialog about new birth, about being born of the Spirit, and about heavenly things includes John 3:16 with its reminder that “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.” This is all beyond even the expectations of the scholarly questioner – and it continues to push our imaginations and faith journeys.

In the fourth chapter of John, Jesus asks a Samaritan woman for a drink of water. When he tells the surprised woman about living water, she asks how she can obtain this water. His answer includes “The water that I will give you will become a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.” This water of life is something she had not imagined. She and her neighbors are transformed, and we continue to ponder the scope of Jesus’ answer.

Each of Jesus’ parables, likewise, is a story so rich in meaning that the questions and answers are new each time we encounter their messages – the forgiving Father who shows his Prodigal Son what love is – the Good Samaritan who shows a stranger what it means to be a neighbor.

But let us go back to the Sadducees and the Pharisees. For the Sadducees, tradition stopped with Moses; all that had come during the following 14 centuries of Jewish history and prophecy was of no merit. For the Pharisees, tradition included prophets and scholars who had continued to define laws and celebrations. However, even the Pharisees were not all in agreement, accepting or rejecting various schools along the way. Each within himself had set a point on the continuum, dividing what was essential tradition – from what was blasphemy because it did not fit into that tradition.

Two thousand years of Christian history reflect a similar pattern of setting a limit to what will be accepted as tradition – and what will be rejected because it does not fit into that tradition or seems to be in conflict with tradition. Like the Sadducees, we may set a date in history beyond which tradition cannot be added to. Like the Pharisees, we may be on a continuum that adds laws and ceremonies to tradition – and choose which are valid. For each of us, there are things that must be true and things that simply cannot be true. Along this continuum, we find ourselves separated … Catholics and Protestants, liberals and conservations, Anglicans and Episcopalians, high church and low church.

I do not know the answers to the questions that divide us, but I do know that Jesus may answer our questions by stepping outside the boundaries of what we are prepared to hear. And that apparently is what we are asked to do – we are asked to step outside of our boundaries.

And if you, like me, will be sharing Thanksgiving dinner with loved ones whose theology is very different from your own, please remember that Jesus loved both the Sadducees and the Pharisees – he really did – as impossible as they may have been at times!