Widows & Sadducees - Resurrection and the day after an election
Luke 20:27 – 40 * Widows & Sadducees
(Nov 2016)
How would I feel, if I were this woman. A young wife, childless, now a widow.
My heart would constrict with pain each time a well-meaning mourner said: “You’ll marry again. And perhaps, this time, he’ll give you children.”
But I don’t think I would want to marry again. I would long for the embrace of the one just laid to rest. Long for his familiar smell, his calm presence, his diligent labor for our tiny household, his inviting laugh and the love in his eyes. All of this, now locked in the tomb of my husband.
As I long for and continue to love him, the leaders of my community knock at my lonely door:
“Your husband is dead, and you have no children.”
Don’t I know it? Why must they speak aloud my suffering so matter-of-fact. As if I am not a person but mere demographics. And perhaps, to them, that’s all I am - they are the ones who run things, to them I’m just a tragic story that happened to someone else.
My thoughts nearly drown out their next words: “We’re sorry for your loss, and we know that perhaps you still grieve. But your time of mourning has ended, and you know that the law says you must marry your husband’s brother.”
Apprehensive, I allow my gaze to meet that of the almost-familiar man in front of me, the eldest in my husband’s family. He even looks a little bit like my beloved: the brother is a bit shorter, a bit softer around the middle, but undoubtedly the brother of the man laid in the tomb. I ache at the familiarity.
I can’t do this. Why won’t they leave me to my grief?
Why this stupid, antiquated law? Don’t they understand how this effects me? Have they never considered how it feels to be the one who must follow the law, and not just the one who interprets and enforces it? Have they never considered how I feel –powerless, hopeless, with no choice.
What good is a law that results simply in heartache?
What do they think they are accomplishing?
Do they consider me at all?
Do they, those powerful ones, whose lives seem so comfortable, easy, simple… do they know what it’s like to feel that you are completely at the mercy of laws that are hundreds of years old?
How could they? They’re heartless. They’re infatuated with the law, with our heritage, their own idea of justice, and as they consider justice they see only rules and obligations! They have no imagination, they can’t consider that maybe, maybe God has a bigger idea about what justice means, something beyond the law.
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Oh this young woman. The leader of the Sadducees watches as her face fails to hide her emotions. Is she really so surprised that they have arrived with her new husband? She knows the law. Maybe she’s been in denial. Maybe she hoped they’d forget, overlook her circumstance – but they could never do such a thing! For her sake. For the community’s sake.
For me, as a leader of the Sadducees, the law is everything: the perfect expression of a gracious and just God’s perfect love and wisdom. It’s my best way of understanding who God is and what God desires from me and my community. The law protects and nurtures us, and each individual must do their part. This is the covenant: God has promised to love and protect, and we must simply obey in faithfulness and love.
I allow my mind to wander as the young widow gazes suspiciously at her husband’s oldest brother…. I have heard that there are some who are forsaking maintenance of the law for a hope in Resurrection.
What an uncertainty! To hope in some fantastical future, where the dead are raised by the power of God? Who has ever seen such a thing! Who could believe such nonsense? It’s a nice idea, but it’s not real. Not like the law that we’ve had for centuries, tried and true. /// Obviously I believe in the power of God to do anything, and I believe that God could raise the dead if God so desired, but why would God ever want to do that?
I won’t be swayed by the talk of those Resurrection-believers who say the law is important, but since there’s a Resurrection God is up to something else, something beyond the law.
As I consider the work of my life, I confess I feel a bit of pride. Which is dangerous, I know, but I am proud of what I do for our community, reminding people of the law to remind them of our heritage, to remind them of God’s great love for us. God chose us! God blesses us!
I offer guidance through life’s difficulties, guidance from the law, and my community finds such peace and joy knowing we are doing the will of God. Things that once seemed mysterious become quite simple when the law is applied. Things that once seemed impossible have possibility and promise breathed back into them when the law sheds light on what should be done.
Like, now. With this young woman. Oh, my heart does go out to her. She really loved her husband, and rumor is that she never wanted to re-marry, but I know she has the chance for joy in this new marriage! Perhaps even the joy of motherhood. It is her only option, true peace and joy can only be found in obedience to the law, and there is no question what must be done here. Deuteronomy is explicit, chapter 25, verses 5 and 6:
5 When a brother dies and has no son, the wife of the deceased shall not be married outside the family to a stranger. Her husband’s brother shall take her in marriage… 6 and the firstborn whom she bears shall succeed to the name of the deceased brother, so that his name may not be blotted out of Israel.”
I know that deep down, she does not want her husband’s good name to be blotted out. I know that though she may be in turmoil because of her pain and grief, one day she will look back on this moment and see that it was right, the best thing that we are making her – encouraging her to do.
I know that there are some who would call me heartless, to stand here rigid in my convictions in the face of her unhappiness. But they simply do not understand... maybe others have the luxury of being swayed by emotions, but I do not. My responsibility is to keep us on track, no matter what.
There are some who would say that the law is antiquated, but how could that be? God and God’s law are outside of time, it was good when it was given and it is good today. I wish they could see that my devotion to our heritage, to tradition, to carefully keeping the law, and not simply updating it each time someone’s feelings are hurt… I wish they could see these things as my love for God, my understanding of faithfulness, and my love for my neighbors. I confess, at times I long for the good old days when it seemed that my community was more eager to follow our tradition, when every sacred thing wasn’t questioned, when things were comfortable, simple, great.
I must tell you, though, I could not have been more surprised when this scene replays itself over and over and over again. I do confess to you, that I began to wonder about our law. Maybe it was the fourth husband – or was it the fifth? I began to wonder if maybe my commitment to this law, that forced her to walk this road of sorrow again and again and again - wasn’t just as ridiculous as a belief in Resurrection… maybe the Resurrection offers some hope that seems ….beyond the law.
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I see this leader of the Sadducees coming to me again, and I can’t help but think his face looks different this time. He has one of those faces that is etched with certainty. There are lines on his face but they are there from squinting at words on a page, not from gazing up at the stars and wondering if there is some kind of heaven, some kind of life beyond all this, some kind of something else beyond these rules… I think that’s where the lines on my face come from, from wondering, from trying to see beyond what’s right here – hm, probably in seeking to look beyond I miss what’s right in front me, that which he never misses – but that’s what etches the lines on my face, that, and rivers of tears that carved away the smoothness of my face. I am no longer the young widow, now I am an old one, and here stands the leader of my community again, and his etched face seems to be a little open, a little questioning. I wonder why he is here. To my knowledge, my last husband was the last brother of the family – seven in all.
Ah, he has come to express his deepest condolences. I wish I could hear them differently but my heart is scarred.
This is certainly not how I imagined my life: each time I married, I dug deep into my soul and dared to hope: for children, for a family, for a husband who would remain by my side, for a hand to hold against the loneliness of this world. My hope did not fade over the many years, but was doused, extinguished seven sudden times. I found courage each time to strike the match of hope and faith and to dare to believe that a future remained for me on this earth, and each time it was as though God laughed at my pain and reached out a mighty hand to extinguish the flame of hope as it grew.
I am faithful enough to know that I should not imagine that is God’s own hand that reaches into this world and takes my dear ones away, with one mighty swoop, I know I should not imagine that of a God that I have been told again and again and again is good – and yet. Knowing I should not imagine those things of God does not prevent my imagination from summoning up the hazy face and distinct hand of a God whose goodness is obscured by grief.
I wish my heart were a little softer to this law-man’s condolences. Truly, I wish he were here to tell me something else, something new. Not to say he’s “sorry for my loss,” my losses, but sorry… for doing this to me? I mean, I guess it’s not really his fault..
But haven’t I blamed him, over these years? I did try to hope and be faithful and all that they said I should be. But I have endured much, and can you blame me for thinking of how different my life would be had they not insisted that there’s no other way, no exception. I am bitter.
I wish he were here to say those many hours of studying the law have brought him to a new conclusion. I have heard that there are those who believe in Resurrection. And my aching heart is hungry for that to be true.
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The story of the widow and the Sadducee plays out at the edge or Resurrection. Could it be true? Might it be true?
And what if it is?
Today, as you remember your loved ones who have died in this past year – what does Resurrection mean?
It doesn’t mean there’s no pain, no sorrow.
We could never understand the beauty and mystery of Resurrection without suffering the pain of grief, without enduring the sorrow of death.
What joy is there in life after death, in the life of a Savior who destroys death if there is no death to be destroyed? Can we cry out: “Death, where is your sting?” if we have not felt that sting?
We know that the reality of the Resurrection means there is certainly something more, beyond what we can see and feel and touch, a mysterious hope when the world says there should be none.
Honestly, sometimes I think it’s easier to dwell on how Resurrection changes our interaction with the sorrow of death, and much, much harder to consider how a belief in Resurrection must also transform our interaction with the law: God’s law and cultural custom, which are just as intermingled for us as they were for the Sadducees and widow, seeking to apply the law of Moses centuries later.
Resurrection does not just change the way we encounter death. It changes the way we live, the way we encounter one another – the way we consider the face of another whose life experience and opinions on how to live right could not be further from ours.
If I’m the widow from this story, the one who lost so much and felt so powerless - I wonder if Tuesday, I vote with a heart and mind full of compassion and understanding and a desire to protect those who cannot protect themselves.
I wonder if I would feel that the choice is easy, with a mind and heart full of the needs of the widow, the orphan, the sojourner, the refugee, the minority, the poor, the downtrodden, the sufferers of injustice, the hungry.
If I’m the Sadducee, the one who is passionate for the heritage and perpetuation of the community, the one who recognizes the importance of the law – I wonder if, on Tuesday, I vote with a heart and mind full of compassion and understanding and a desire to protect those who cannot protect themselves. I wonder if I’ll feel that my choices are easy, with a mind and heart full of the needs of the widow, the orphan, the sojourner, the refugee, the minority, the poor, the downtrodden, the sufferers of injustice, the hungry….
After all, aren’t we all just doing our best to be faithful, and longing to be convinced anew of the reality of Resurrection?
May we remember, on Wednesday, when all the results are in, that the reality of Resurrection necessarily changes the way we live and encounter one another, no matter how other another may be.
No matter the outcome, the media will assure us that our nation is desperately divided.
How does the reality of Resurrection inform the way we respond to that narrative, the one from the media, that division is the end of this story?
The fault lines of our brokenness manifest in unhelpfully divisive labels like left, right, liberal, conservative… The labels simplify the human story for the media, for social media, for facebook feeds, and suggest that there is an unsurpassable gulf between us and the one we experience as “other.”
Maybe our communion table is the reality of Resurrection: that those same fault lines became the place our fingers meet as we offer the broken body to one another.
