“Utterly or obviously senseless, illogical, or untrue; contrary to all reason or common sense; laughably foolish or false.” This is a brief definition of the word absurd. It seems to increasingly define our lives’ social, intellectual and political aspects; the dividing lines get sharper and opposite views are dismissed as invalid, worthless or utterly absurd. Consequently, people get entrenched in their respective positions, unable and unwilling to consider opinions contrary to their own. Instead of the clash of ideas that quite often leads to positive developments, we witness or even take part in pseudo-intellectual brawls which aim at crushing the opponent rather than convincing them of our arguments. The power of argument seems to be being replaced by the argument of power. In other words, it’s not the content that matters but who is louder at the shouting match.
Having described the situation in rather gloomy colours I must say that there’s nothing really new about it. We might be more aware of it thanks to the omnipresent mass media and social media platforms, but as humankind, we have always been divided, tribal and relatively hostile towards other groups. Today’s gospel reading introduces the Sadducees, a Jewish faction contemporary to Jesus and clearly in opposition to Him. The group based its beliefs and religious practices on the Written Torah or the Books of Moses (the first five books of our Old Testament) and rejected any ritual, spiritual or judicial developments not recorded in their sacred scriptures. The written law, in its depiction of the priesthood, corroborated the power and enforced the hegemony of the Sadducees in Judean society. As the upper social and economic echelon of Judean society, they were interested in keeping the status quo and fought hard to get rid of whatever they considered a threat to it. This was their reason for confronting Jesus in today’s gospel and attempting to ruin his reputation as a credible religious teacher. They employed a powerful tool of the rhetoric arsenal: the reductio-ad-absurdum argument. They present a made-up story to show the absurdity of the idea of the afterlife.
Their argument was based on a rule of the Mosaic Law, strange to us but valid and familiar to ancient Jewish society. I think it’s worth recalling it here as it goes: “When brothers reside together, and one of them 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 go in to her, taking her in marriage, and performing the duty of a husband’s brother to her, 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.” (Deuteronomy 25:5-6) It’s necessary to note an important condition that made the rule applicable: “when [a couple of] brothers reside together” and the purpose of this rule: “so the name of the deceased brother may not be blotted out of Israel” – in other words, the purpose of this rule was the preservation of the bloodline. Jesus’ opponents misused that particular rule of the law to reduce to absurd the idea of the afterlife. His response referred to its purpose: “those who are judged worthy of a place in the other world and in the resurrection from the dead do not marry because they can no longer die” meaning there’s no danger of extinguishing their bloodlines. Their relationships are redefined in the afterlife which isn’t a simple continuation or extension of the earthly life but its total transformation: “they are the same as the angels and being children of the resurrection they are sons of God.” Then Jesus followed up with His reinterpretation of the passage beloved by the Sadducees, taken from their sacred scriptures: “Moses himself implies that the dead rise again, in the passage about the bush where he calls the Lord the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. Now he is God, not of the dead, but of the living; for to him all men are in fact alive.” Did Jesus convince His opponents? We don’t know. What we do know is that He silenced them and pleased some Pharisees who had witnessed the exchange and who shared with Jesus the idea of resurrection to eternal life.
Seemingly, this whole biblical episode bears little relevance to our lives. The levirate law isn’t practised and it’s probably even illegal in our country – I haven’t really researched it. Secondly, despite the afterlife being one of the articles of the Creed we are going to say together in a moment, many Christians don’t give it much thought in everyday life. We are rather preoccupied with our daily routines, challenges and problems. I think that this is quite right. The form and shape of the afterlife we can safely leave in the hands of our loving God the Father; we can trust Him to take great care of it and provide something truly spectacular when we eventually get there. You might be surprised by how little the Bible says about the afterlife. Jesus clearly pointed out eternal life as our destiny but His teaching was really focused on how to live our lives here and now. If we compare it with a car journey, we know where we are going; our part is to work out our way to get there. We use Jesus’ instructions to take the right turns; sometimes make U-turns, and sometimes stop in a layby to think or just rest a while. On this journey we call life it’s important to adjust to the conditions and even more importantly, not to drive over other people: “he is God, not of the dead, but of the living.”
Image by Michael Schwarzenberger from Pixabay