Word to the Wise
Wednesday, June 7, 2017 - Wednesday in the 9th Week in Ordinary Time
[Tob 3:1-11a, 16-17a and Mark 12:18-27]"Are you not misled because you do not know the scriptures or the power of God?" [Mark]
Yesterday, the Pharisees and Herodians tried a trick question. Today it is the turn of the Sadducees. These were people of aristocratic status, mostly in Jerusalem, and included many of the temple priests. They had adopted a "live and let live" attitude about the Roman authorities, so their question is not directed at politics as much as at theology. The Pharisees believed in angels and in a resurrection of the dead and accepted parts of the Old Testament beyond the Pentateuch (the "torah"). The Sadducees accepted only the Torah and claimed they could find nothing there that supported a final resurrection. So they posed the question about the women who married seven brothers one after another. At a final resurrection, whose wife would she be? The question was hypocritical since they did not believe in such a resurrection to begin with. Jesus confronts them bluntly with the line quoted above and points to the Burning Bush episode in Exodus as proof of life beyond death. The power of God is not subject to trick questions and "what if's!"
I think Jesus' response to the Sadducees has an important lesson for us all. There are more than enough things in scripture that could give rise to strange "What if?" questions. After all, the scriptures are the product of multiple inspired writers from different cultures and eras. It is very important that we be familiar with scripture because God's self and God's plan of salvation are revealed to us in them. All that we know of Jesus, with few exceptions, comes from scripture. It is there that the power of God is revealed to us most directly, even if nature and our own experience can bear witness to that power as well. Our faith directs us to the witness of those who knew and preached about Jesus from the beginning. If we know the scriptures, we will know and can proclaim the power of God. AMEN
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