PROPERS: PROPER 27, YEAR C
TEXT: LUKE 20:27-38
PREACHED AT HOLY TRINITY, PENSACOLA, ON SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 10, 2019.
ONE SENTENCE: The best guidepost for making important ethical decisions is to rely on the principles and grace, mercy, and concern for the other.
The gospel lesson today tells us about Jesus’ conversation with the Sadducees. I suspect there was not a whole lot of good will in their approach to the young rabbi.
The Sadducees were one of the main parties among the Jews of that day. There were the Sadducees, the Pharisees, the Zealots, and the Essenes.
I refer to the Pharisees as the lawyers of that day, and much like Episcopalians. They were middle-class and comprised much of the mainline leadership of Judaism of that day. They embraced many of the sacred writings, including the prophets.
The Zealots were the ones who sought the overthrow – violent or otherwise – of the Roman oppressors. They were the ones which lit the fires of rebellion against Rome some 40 years after Jesus’ crucifixion, leading to the disastrous conquest of Judea, the destruction of the Temple and city of Jerusalem. They were the ones which held out against the Romans in the desert fortress of Masada, until they all committed suicide before they could be captured by the Romans.
The Essenes lived a solitary life away from other Jews. They considered Jerusalem – some 30 miles to the west – a profaned city. They had a small community in which they lived, in the Dead Sea Valley, named Qumran. There, the studied and wrote apocalyptic literature. It was the Essenes who wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls.
But the Sadducees were a whole different kettle of fish. They were largely wealthy and well-connected. They were connected to the Roman authorities. They were very conservative – accepting only the Torah, the first five books of the Bible, as legitimate. And they did not believe in the resurrection from the dead. (One way to remember that little tidbit is the saying, “They were sad-you-see because they did not believe in the resurrection.”)
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So, that was the setting of the conversation between Jesus and the Sadducees. The group concocted a complex scenario – what they believed to be a Gordian Knot – to challenge Jesus’ understanding of the resurrection.
The challenge they posed was this: A woman marries a man, but he dies. According to the Law, she is to marry his brother. This continues as all seven brothers die – leaving no heir. The woman marries each brother. Whose wife will she be in the days after the resurrection?
Jesus recognizes the trap and shares a different vision of the Kingdom to come – one that is not limited by the Law and the Sadducees’ limited understanding.
The question is so indicative of life. Jesus’ response is indicative of his approach.
Where does that leave us?
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My ethics professor in seminary was a brilliant, fiery, former Roman Catholic priest. He taught us that we would face many complexities in the ordained ministry. Many of those complexities would resist easy answers. We could not give some simple, rote answer to such ambiguous challenges.
Those ambiguities call us to go deep, to analyze possible responses and to examine motivations behind those possible responses. He helped us build our own critical reasoning for dealing with such complexities.
What is the good we are seeking to do? What are the overriding or even competing virtues behind our responses. How do we arrive at the best possible solution, or maybe the least bad solution? Sometimes there will not be a good solution, but one with what we may call a tragic remainder. Those situations come when we analyze and reflect on our choices, and choose the one which perhaps damages, but maybe does the least damage of the available options.
Let me be clear: I am not talking about situational ethics.
I am not talking about, for example, the decision process in the movie MASH. In it, Major Frank Burns finds an attraction to Major Margaret Houlihan – and they find they are mutually attracted. Even though they are both married, in the field they see that mutual attraction as God’s will. Just before they consummate their relationship, they utter “God’s will be done!”
To say they had not reflected on the course of action and had not analyzed their choices according to virtues and goods is a monumental understatement.
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As you go through life, you will likely face complex situations. You are forced to make a choice.
There are those people who, like the Sadducees, who think they have the answer for all circumstances. Such answers, in very complex situations, have a one size fits all approach. You will know those situations when they arise, or you may already have known some. You are torn between possible responses, and the facile solution does not account for all the considerations.
We face those situations in matters of life and death, issues of family relations, and choices about vocation or location. You can name you own.
But in those moments of what I call raging ambivalence, you are called not to respond superficially or impulsively. You are called to go into the deep – analyze your motivations, name what is the best course, and give your choice over to God.
Thankfully, in some cases the course is readily apparent. But in others you are to be guided by those God-given instincts which reflect holy love, giving of self, grace, and mercy.
As the liturgy says, on these hang all the Law and the prophets.
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