Br. Randall James Greve, n/OHC
BCP - Proper 27 C - Sunday 11 November 2007
Job 19:23-27a
Thessalonians 2:13-3:5
Luke 20:27-38
Our Lord comes into our world to save us; to preach Good News to the poor, heal the sick, cast out demons, proclaim the Kingdom, and, apparently, answer stupid theological questions!
While no group today calls itself Sadducees, the attitude of fear, defensiveness, and suspicion they represent in the New Testament remains a part of our human experience in community. Wherever institutions exist, the tension of tradition versus change, the comfortable and known versus the stretching and new will always exist. Modern day Sadducees are all around. We have all encountered them, will continue to encounter them, some of us perhaps ARE them. We can’t make the Sadducees of our day go away, we can’t escape them. We have to face them and model in our frustration and exasperation the patience and compassion and mercy of Christ.
The original Sadducees were a Jewish sect made up of mostly priests who were influential in the Sanhedrin, the ruling legal body of the community. Not much is known about their early formation, probably in the third century B.C. Unlike the Pharisees, who accepted the commentaries and tradition around the Mosaic Law as equally authoritative as the Law itself, the Sadducees sought to take the text of those first five books as literally as possible, living out what they believed was the Covenant in its purest, undiluted, and uncompromised form. Because so much of their identity and focus was around the Jerusalem Temple with its rites and sacrifices, the Sadducees as a group ceased to exist after its destruction in 70 A.D.
Luke sets the context for his largely Gentile audience by including the comment about Sadducees not believing in the resurrection of the dead. The Sadducees did not find an explicit reference to resurrection in the Pentateuch, so they did not accept it as doctrine. As you can imagine, Jesus would rightly have been seen as a disturber of their system of belief and power and thus a dangerous threat to the integrity of their understanding of themselves as God’s select and holy people. Like the modern day version, their identity was based as much in who and what they were against as in who they were. Their approach here with the Lord is adversarial, their tone sarcastic, and their intent to trap Him and thus have evidence to publicly shame him as a false teacher who is no follower of the Law and therefore susceptible to severe punishment. It was the opposition of the Sadducees, Pharisees, and Sanhedrin along with the Romans working together that ultimately leads to the Lord’s crucifixion.
The Sadducee represents the person or group of opposition, persecution, gossip, and slander to the young church and to us. Yet knowing their intent, knowing that they were planning how to have him crucified, Jesus listens and answers. He is not threatened or ruffled, fearful or resentful. He doesn’t resist or ignore the very people at work against him but with gentleness and respect attempts to expand and enlarge their understanding of God’s ways to which in their zeal they had become blind. For Jesus there was no “them”, there was just “us” - broken and fragile humanity.
Who is your Sadducee? Think of a person who you know doesn’t like you, opposes your ideas, gossips about you, undermines your ministry, criticizes you unjustly. How do you respond to this person? Would you want to spend time talking with them, counseling them? Would you die for your Sadducee? In the very act of listening and thoughtfully responding, Jesus is giving us a model for how to treat the other with dignity and respect, no matter how wrong we believe or know them to be, how offensive and antagonistic their point of view. Gentleness and respect are part of our call to all as baptized Christians. We discover in Christ a person who is able to respond to the moment and the people who are before him without jumping to conclusions or stereotyping or generalizing them as a group. With some the Lord is angry and direct and graphic. With others he is tender and forgiving and merciful. As a person who knew and accepted himself and trusted God fully, he moved through the world with complete control and awareness of Himself.
As an American, I love competition because it holds out the promise of that very American of virtues - winning. Pick a side, fight for your side against the other side, and accept the outcome. One team wins, the other loses. We often approach faith in the same way. We’re obviously and comfortably on the right side so our purpose is to win the argument and achieve institutional victory for our viewpoint. The other team is always the other, the opponent, the ones to be defeated and cast out in the crusade of truth and justice. While we hold beliefs that may be opposed, we are never free to act hatefully in order to make our case. Jesus sees that these men are Sadducees, but that’s not all he sees. He sees them as persons, beneath the outer label and bluster, he sees persons made in the image and likeness of God in need of a compassionate enlarging and expanding of their understanding of God and neighbor.
The same Christ who said to look at a woman lustfully was to commit adultery with her in the heart also said to the woman caught in the act “neither do I condemn you, go and sin no more.” The Christ who asked the Pharisees how they would escape the fires of hell asked the Father for forgiveness for them as he was dying on the cross. If we make our conflict - whether personal or institutional - about choosing compassion or purity, right practice or inclusion of the other, we must recognize that the Gospels demand both. When we settle and close our minds and hearts and then only pay attention to the parts of the tradition that support our conclusions, then we are in danger of becoming like the Sadducees and must accept again the compassionate and corrective touch of Jesus who reminds us that God is bigger than our agendas and our dogmas.
The church today is in desperate need of people who will take the side of people and not play the game of us versus them, who will give up being victims, taking offense, and attempting to sanctify our judgment and resentment toward the other behind pious labels and finger-pointing. The church is in need of people who believe that even Sadducees may be worth listening to, may have been sent to us to keep us humble and discerning - reminding us of our constant need especially in our disagreement to see the other as beloved of Christ, our sister or brother. Sadducees, by getting under our skin, reveal what that skin is made of and expose our hearts and can, if we are open to it, form us and give us opportunity to check our attitudes and test whether we are living out the peace of Christ. Do you see the Sadducees in your life as people in need of a forgiveness and freedom and respect that God is waiting for you to give?
Although he is not the author of the original commandments, Kent Keith, in his book Anyway; The Paradoxical Commandments, reminds us that while we often cannot control what will happen to us, we can always control how we will respond:
The Paradoxical Commandments:
• People are illogical, unreasonable, and self-centered. Love them anyway.
• If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish ulterior motives. Do good anyway.
• If you are successful, you will win false friends and true enemies. Succeed anyway.
• The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow. Do good anyway.
• Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable. Be honest and frank anyway.
• The biggest men and women with the biggest ideas can be shot down by the smallest men and women with the smallest minds. Think big anyway.
• People favor underdogs but follow only top dogs. Fight for a few underdogs anyway.
• What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight. Build anyway.
• People really need help but may attack you if you do help them. Help people anyway.
• Give the world the best you have and you’ll get kicked in the teeth. Give the world the best you have anyway.
Amen.
Rev. Elizabeth and Me
Originally uploaded by Randy n/OHC The Rev. Elizbeth Broyles and Br. Randy enjoying a quiet moment at the coffee shop.
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