Scripture reading: Matthew 22:23-33.

Sermon text: Matthew 22:34-46.

We’ve all found ourselves in situations where, in a conversation, someone tries to move the discussion into their own familiar territory. These people try with all their hearts to revolve the conversation around their own favorite topic.

Last week, we read about how Jesus silenced the Pharisees and Herodians. These groups thought they could trip Jesus into enraging the crowds if they could trip Him into supporting the Roman occupation of Judea and Galilee. St. Matthew tells us that when Jesus wisely met their challenge, these groups never again questioned Him. In the passage today, the Sadducees thought they could guide Jesus into dangerous theological waters. If the Pharisees couldn’t surprise Jesus into giving the wrong answer, could the Sadducees possibly have a hope of succeeding?

Sermon

Although the passage for the Scripture reading doesn’t appear in today’s Lectionary passages, the sermon text relies heavily on Jesus’ encounter with the Sadducees.

The Sadducees and Pharisees had opposed each other since the latter’s origins in the Hasmonean period. The Sadducees consisted of the priestly class of Judaism and controlled the Temple and its revenues. They cooperated with the Romans only because the Romans allowed them to control the Temple and the surrounding areas. The Sadducees accepted only the Pentateuch, the 5 books of Moses, as authoritative Scripture.

The Pharisees originated from Jews who opposed Hellenism, the Greek culture introduced into the area by Alexander the Great. The Pharisees also opposed the Hasmonean dynasty when Simon Maccabaeus, son of the Jewish hero Mattathias, assumed the offices of high priest and king. The resulting conflicts led to violence and bloodshed that stopped only with the imposition of Roman rule by Pompey in 63 B.C.

As far as Scripture, the Pharisees accepted not only the writings of Moses but also the rest of the books we consider the Old Testament. These books include both the prophet Isaiah and Daniel, the Jewish advisor and prophet of ancient Babylon.

Not only did the Sadducees and Pharisees disagree in their politics. Their antagonism spilled over into theology as well. The subject of the resurrection of the dead also bitterly divided the groups. The Pharisees believed in the resurrection at “The Day of the LORD,” or the day when God would judge the world and reward the righteous while punishing the wicked. However, the passages supporting the resurrection occur in Isaiah (chapter 26) and Daniel (chapter 12). The Sadducees never accepted the authority of these books and therefore never agreed with the Pharisees about a phyical life after death.

The debates over the resurrection had raged for over a century before the Sadducees asked Jesus about it. The story the Sadducees proposed to Jesus had silenced the Pharisees for decades. Now, they decided to use it against Jesus.

The Mosaic Law placed great emphasis on the continuation of the family line. The Law contained provisions to insure inheritance of the land within a family. According to the Law, if a man died childless, his brother was to marry his wife and raise the firstborn son in the name of the dead. This son would inherit the dead brother’s land.

The Sadducees thought they had a great way to stonewall the Pharisees. If the dead lived again, and if a woman had married 7 brothers, to whom would she be married in the life to come? The Pharisees had never found a satisfactory answer to this question.

On the face of it, this story seems strange to us. However, Jewish rabbis and priests had engaged in such hypothetical discussions throughout their history. Anyone considered a decent rabbi would have faced questions like this on a regular basis.

Jesus, however, did not qualify as merely a “decent rabbi;” St. John called Him “the Word,” a recognition of His authorship of the Scriptures over which the Sadducees and Pharisees had argued their entire existence.

When presented with the standard Sadducee question, Jesus refused to answer as a rabbi; He answered as God Himself. The Sadducees had asked the ultimate stump question; they received the ultimate answer.

Jesus pointed out the main problem: “You are wrong, because you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God.” Imagine the shock! The priests didn’t know the Scriptures? The priests didn’t recognize the power of God in their midst? What a horrible situation for worshippers in the Temple! Their religious leaders had fallen so far spiritually that they could neither interpret the Scriptures correctly nor guide the people in spiritual matters.

First, Jesus told the Sadducees what they didn’t expect to hear: there is a resurrection; the life after death, when the dead will live again in a bodily existence, will occur. Jesus, speaking as the Authority on the subject, told them, “In the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven.” In the resurrection, the relationships so important to us in this life will not exist. Instead, we will live “like angels in heaven.” We will enjoy relationships that transcend anything we will ever experience in this life.

Then, Jesus told the Sadducees what they didn’t want to hear: Moses spoke of the resurrection. “As for the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was said to you by God: ‘I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not God of the dead, but of the living.”

This stunned the Sadducees! Jesus used their favorite Scriptures against them. Jesus proved the resurrection using Moses’ own words, a feat considered impossible by the Sadducees.

This story changed everything. Now, the story about the “greatest commandment” makes more sense. If the resurrection is a reality, participating in it became extremely important to the people overhearing the conversation.

We shouldn’t find ourselves surprised when someone present then asked the ultimate question when confronted with the reality of the resurrection: “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” If you know you’ll face a resurrection and a judgment, you want to know what you must do to please the Judge. To the questioner, nothing else mattered at this time in his life.

Jesus had already used Moses’ Scriptures to prove the resurrection; He now used Moses to answer this question as well. Quoting the “Shema” from Deuteronomy 6:4-5, Jesus told the questioner, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” Moses had closed the Shema (from the Hebrew word “to hear”) with “might;” Jesus closed it with “mind.” The lesson still clearly appears, however: We are to love God with everything we have and above everything in life. Everything in our lives must revolve around our love for God. The Shema summarized the first 3 of the famous 10 Commandments.

Jesus then continued by giving another commandment that summarized the rest of the 10 Commandments: “a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” If we love our neighbor as ourselves, we will keep the last 6 Commandments and transcend them by working to uplift our neighbor above ourselves. We will not merely wait for our neighbor to ask for help; we will offer anything in our power to help him in life and before God.

Now, Jesus decided to close the questions. Again using Scripture, Jesus proved His preexistence through 2 questions to the audience (“What do you think about the Christ? Whose son is he?”) and through Psalm 110, written by King David, Israel’s most famous king. David was also Jesus’ human ancestor (cf. Matthew 1 and Luke 2) and a king who loved God so wholly that he served as a model of faithfulness for every king who succeeded him. Writing in Psalm 110, David said, “The LORD says to my Lord: ‘Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool.’” Jesus made a direct claim to divinity in this passage by referring to Himself as the LORD, the YHWH of Israel.

Sure enough, this closed the questioning. St. Matthew recorded, “from that day did anyone dare to ask him any more questions.”

This event in Jesus’ life continues to speak to the Church today.

First, although many would like to deny it, humanity faces a resurrection and a judgment. Every major religion speaks of a life after this one. Somehow, instinctively, every human civilization recognized the reality of a continuation of our existence. Christianity, building on its Jewish heritage, teaches that we will live again and face judgment for our acts in this life.

Unfortunately, this judgment includes a reckoning for every action we’ve committed in this life, with perfection as the standard. Any mistake, any slight against another, any act of pride in our lives — anything the Bible calls “sin” — will condemn us to eternal punishment.

Fortunately, Jesus tells us how to survive the judgment. Jesus tells us today, as He told the crowd of the first century, that we must love God with all our heart. When we love God with all our heart, we will accept His payment for our sins through Jesus’ crucifixion. Jesus has paid for our sins; He has paid the penalty to spare us from eternal punishment.

Jesus then went beyond payment for our sins through His death; He became, as St. Paul put it, “the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep” (1 Corinthians 15:20). Jesus rose from the dead as the example of what we will experience one day. Jesus bodily rose from the dead, never to die again; never to age, never to suffer, never to experience sickness. Jesus’ resurrection body presages our own.

Second, Jesus tells us the importance to God of our relationships with one another. We must love others as we love ourselves. This means we must work together to care for one another. Jesus established the Church on the Day of Pentecost to accomplish this. Like it or not, we cannot exist by ourselves; we must join in fellowship with other believers to love them (in spite of their faults) and actively work for their benefit.

Lastly, Jesus told the crowd that day how He can accomplish our payment for sins, how He could rise again, how He could redeem us from sin and restore our relationship with God: He is God Himself. If you ever wondered if anyone loved you and cared about you, remember that God Himself left heaven for you to free you from judgment and give you the privilege of participating in the resurrection to eternal life.

Jesus told us the greatest commandments. Those who live by them through confessing Jesus as Lord, believing in His resurrection, will receive the benefits of living by the greatest commandment of them all.