In these last few weeks of the liturgical year, we journey through Luke’s Gospel and seek the face of Jesus.
This week’s reading may be familiar as a group of religious leaders come to Jesus with a question about resurrection. They come with their own beliefs (or in this case non-beliefs) about resurrection, and we might imagine the difficulty of how to appropriately respond. This feels like an adversarial conversation; at least from one side of it. But perhaps one side’s adversarial approach doesn’t require an adversarial response.
Luke 20:27-38 (CEB)
27 Some Sadducees, who deny that there’s a resurrection, came to Jesus and asked, 28 “Teacher, Moses wrote for us that if a man’s brother dies leaving a widow but no children, the brother must marry the widow and raise up children for his brother. 29 Now there were seven brothers. The first man married a woman and then died childless. 30 The second 31 and then the third brother married her. Eventually all seven married her, and they all died without leaving any children. 32 Finally, the woman died too. 33 In the resurrection, whose wife will she be? All seven were married to her.”
34 Jesus said to them, “People who belong to this age marry and are given in marriage. 35 But those who are considered worthy to participate in that age, that is, in the age of the resurrection from the dead, won’t marry nor will they be given in marriage. 36 They can no longer die, because they are like angels and are God’s children since they share in the resurrection. 37 Even Moses demonstrated that the dead are raised—in the passage about the burning bush, when he speaks of the Lord as the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. 38 He isn’t the God of the dead but of the living. To him they are all alive.”
Consider these questions:
- What do you already know about the Sadducees? Why is the Sadducees’ question to Jesus a trick question?
- How would you summarize Jesus’ answer to the Sadducees’ trick question?
- Why would it be important for Jesus to quote from Moses to the Sadducees?
- What might we learn from Jesus when it comes to dealing with those who seem to be on opposite sides of an issue?
- How might you respond the next time someone is hostile? How might you respond to someone who is open to hearing about your faith?