Luke 20.27-38 The Question about the Resurrection

How do you read this text? Who is Jesus talking about? The brothers, the man, the woman, the customs of the times, the life ever after?

Theologians have always been accused of “changing the text.” As if they are somehow re-writing ancient scriptures. How many of you are avid Bible readers? How many of you have read the same passage more than once? How many of you have read the same passage on a different day and the words seemed to say something different to you that day? Did the words change? Then what did?

            You did. No matter what we read whether it is a birthday card, a text message, an old letter, a novel, the Bible, a newspaper article, anything we read is influence by the reader. How the reader feels, what the reader has experienced, the context of the day, the context of the times, emotions, mental clarity, level of exhaustion, illness, relationship status, age, everything about the reader influences how they interpret the text.

The more we learn about the Bible, the more we learn about its authors, the more we learn about its early translators, the more we learn they were translating text through their own world lens. The were interpreting idioms, sarcasm, and general facetiousness which occurs more often than you realize in the Bible, either as fact or into words that culturally made sense to them at the time. Then over time, those idioms and axioms stopped being relevant lost their frame of reference or were proved to be untrue. New Biblical Interpretations work from most of the same Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek texts that the original interpreters of things such as the King James Version. English Standard Version, New International Version, pick your version but they work with more information and are more conscious about their own translational biases.

Different theological perspectives don’t change the words, the view the way the text is interpreted differently. It’s kind of like when a five-year-old yells at their sibling they’re going to kill them for taking their toy is very different from someone pointing a gun at your head saying they’re going to kill you. Same words, different interpretations. It is unlikely that the person with the gun pointed at you intends to go tattle to mom and it is just as it is unlikely the 5-year old is actually going to take the life of their sibling. But if you are trying to translate that into a different language, for a different culture, particularly one where young children don’t threaten their siblings with death, you could not translate the text literally. You would have to interpret it for the culture and transliterate it into something that makes sense in their own language.

This is not something new! This has always been done.

This passage begins with talking about how some Sadducees said there is no resurrection. Which means there were other leaders of the Jewish place that did say there was a resurrection. Same faith, different interpretation and application of the same text. During Jesus’ day, there were a lot of Jewish people all worshipping in different ways with differing doctrines and disciplines. There were those who were considered highly orthodox and those who bordered on Paganism. Those who adhered strictly to the Laws of Moses and those who used them more as guidelines. Just as today we have those we consider Orthodox who practice fairly close to the ways that were established in their founding, or so they claim anyway.

In early Christian days, Christianity varied considerably too. There were Gnostics, Nazarenes, Christ-Followers, The Way, just to name a few. The Patriarchate of Antioch for instance claims it has not changed its system of beliefs and doctrine since 34 AD. when it was founded by Peter and Paul. For reference, Roman Catholicism wasn’t founded until 1054 AD after the Great Schism between Eastern and Western Orthodoxy over Papal authority, the true structure of the Trinity, and… national politics. Cultural, historical, political, economic, environmental, and political contexts ALL affect how the Bible in any language is translated and interpreted. The King James Version of the Bible was written to settle disagreements between the Church of England and the Puritans. The biggest problem we have might be that we interpret the word version to mean something other than “Interpretation” when that’s all it is.

If I said “It’s raining cats and dogs,” this statement would likely confuse someone from another culture that thought animals were literally falling from the sky. “Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater” could be interpreted as stop bathing your children, it’s dangerous. Language, like disease, evolves with the times. This means that we have to retranslate and reinterpret into our own language to have any hope of communicating the Gospel to the way people do and don’t speak in our own culture today.

Every faith relies more heavily on different sacred texts and even some that not included in the traditional Orthodox, Catholic, or Protestant canons used today. There are a lot of incongruencies between Biblical books. Just look at the genealogies of Mathe and Luke, who is right? Did Judas hang himself or die by an accident in the field. Did he return the money or not? Did Jesus first appear in Galilee or around Jerusalem? Does God change their mind or not? If no one can see God and live how did Moses and Jacob survive? How can Paul (Or maybe Paul, but possibly not depending on which ancient document you read from) tell women not to speak in church when Jesus Christ told them to “Go and tell what you have witnessed?” Even if they we use the same texts, that does not mean we interpret them same way just like the Sadducee’s in this passage. Sure, you’re going to discover some of my interpretations over time might be questionable, but I assure you, unless it is a slip of them tongue, I have substantial theological reasons for my interpretation. I also have my own life experiences which color my interpretation, as do you. And, we can never discount the possibility that maybe you didn’t hear what you think you heard which takes us down a whole ‘nother road of how these stories were passed along by oral traditions for centuries.

The only thing we can do is try to do better. Pay attention to our own biases. That’s why every time you see a presentation, the presenters are required to introduce themselves and give some background information on themselves. To make clear to you they have biases. I am a woman. I see things through my X-chromosome affected eyes. For a great multitude of reasons, I believe men and women are equal, different but equal. And, I acknowledge that I do not see as all women see. There are scales of what we have arbitrarily decided is masculine and what we have arbitrarily decided is feminine and I am not always hanging out on the side you may think I should. I cannot speak for all women as I cannot know them.

I can only speak to you from my own voice and as much as I try to allow God to speak through me. I am never one hundred percent successful. No one can be. Humans are stubborn and pig-headed. Try translating that into another language in a way people could understand. I am a child of God. I hold firm to that identity stronger than I will ever hold to the one that says I am a woman. I could actually care less about that title. I am a child of God and I will do everything in my power to preach and teach to you as a child of God before anything else is taken into account.

Feminist Theology makes it known that they are generalizing interpretation not as a patriarchal Oxford educated white male would interpret something but as a woman would. What that means is, that in a passage like this, a woman is going to focus more on the plight of the poor widow than of the brothers. Both theologians are going to take into account the culture of the times whereby women were property and served little purpose aside from child-bearing and housekeeping. Both theologians are going to read as many different versions as there might be available of this text in ancient documents. Both are going to analyze and determine the credibility of the different versions as to which one or combination of documents are likely to be the most accurate and closest to the original story which would have been passed along orally.

Women are going to interpret Jesus saying the word “they” as in: Indeed “they” cannot die anymore, because they are like angels and are children of God, being children of the resurrection.” As in both the widow and the brothers while our patriarchal males who deem women a “less than” or “property” will view it as referring to the brothers since no one really cares if women go to heaven or not, they are like dogs.

Feminist theologians are going to interpret this passage as men and women are equal in the eyes of God as they are both children in the eyes of God. EVERYONE in this room is a child of God, but are you putting that identity first? Is it truly the most important one to you or is there another one you are prioritizing and seeing the world, and reading your Bible through before you are reading it as a child of God? Are you someone’s wife, mother, sister, or a career before you are a child of God? Is the first thing you tell someone about yourself before you even mention your own name that you are a child of God. Do you say “Hello, it is nice to meet you, I am a child of God. My name is Jennifer?” Probably not. Society has taught us to view ourselves first as independent, “Hello, my name is Jennifer, I am a child of God.” Then by other things.

If we’re honest with ourselves, if we meet a stranger, there are a whole lot of other things we will identify about ourselves and we may never say we are a child of God. We might identify as a Christian first. We might identify ourselves by our earthly relationships, I’m Doug’s wife, John’s mom, Lisa’s friend, whatever. We might identify ourselves by our position at work, former career, locality etc. All of these identities and titles affect how we interpret scripture. Prioritizing being a child of God is the hardest.

 Which is why, if given the opportunity to ask Jesus any question we could possibly dream of, it will likely be a stupid one. “So Jesus, if a man’s brother dies, leaving a wife but no children (remember wife ha no value without children as you can divorce/discard her if she doesn’t produce any), the man shall marry the widow and raise up children for his brother.” This is what we’re worried about? This is our profound eschatological question of Jesus? Who does a woman belong to? And, even if there is a resurrection, she is still the property of that man. Even after “until death do us part?”

In this world, there are human constructs, which humans have interpreted scripture to support and carry on as if God has said they are okay, because they have chosen to interpret scripture in a way that supports their current ideas. “Those who belong to this age marry and are given in marriage.” What age do you want to belong to? Do you want to belong to this modern age? Do you want to go investigate the Patriarchate of Antioch that I mentioned earlier so you can belong to that Age?

Or do you want to belong to the age to come? The one we’ve been promised. Where no one belongs to anyone else. Where God’s creation behaves as God had so long ago hoped they would behave. Where human beings can live happily having all they need, wanting nothing more, being satisfied just to live in God’s presence. Where human beings accept they are not gods but God’s children and that is enough for them. They need no further identities. They don’t desire the knowledge to be able to judge good and evil. They just exist without death like angels. Exist belonging to God and only God. Whether they are male or female does not matter. The color of their skin does not matter. No nations, not countries, no human institutions matter. Just us and God.

Only then would we be capable of perfectly translating God’s word to ourselves and one another because only then will we be able to hear it with our own ears, speak it with our own lips, feel it in God’s touch, and interpret it with our own souls. Until then, what we call the word of God is going to continually evolve with our incredibly flawed system of language that is subject to personal interpretation and is usually interpreted wrong at least on some level. We will warp it and twist it to suit our personal views based upon our own experiences and desires. That doesn’t make it wrong. That doesn’t mean we give up. It simply means we acknowledge what it happening and we try to do better.

But notice, only some of the scribes understood as only few will understand. And well, he started talking to the Sadducees and now he’s talking to scribes in the same pericope so well, maybe something got interpreted wrong at some point. Our faith tells us that even in all this misinterpretation there is truth. It doesn’t really matter who Jesus was talking to does it? Doesn’t change what he said. It doesn’t matter whether Judas returned the money or not or whether he hung himself or had a horrible accident that spread his guts all over a field, his actions resulted in death. Doesn’t change what he did to arrive at that fate. We’re seeking perfection, not there yet.

We are trying with all our might to move our identity as “children of God” to the top of our identity list in the hopes that when we meet Jesus Christ, we will have a more worthy question to ask and that Jesus will tell us one day “you have spoken well.”

May, the Lord bless you and keep you;
May the Lord make his face to shine upon you
And be gracious to you;
May the Lord lift up his countenance upon you
And give you peace.