David Bahn – Reflections

Sometimes discretion truly is the better part of valor. Sometimes it is better to keep your mouth shut and let people think you a fool rather than opening your mouth and removing all doubt. But sometimes we charge ahead in a quixotic attempt to prove an unprovable point. You don’t tug on Superman’s cape!

When the Pharisees try to entangle Jesus around the issue of paying taxes they fail. The Sadducees, however, rush in where angels fear to tread in an attempt to corner Jesus with a question about the resurrection. Because they didn’t believe in the resurrection they wanted to prove their point by painting a scenario that would be impossible to untangle in the life of the world to come. They failed just as the Pharisees had failed.

Jesus reveals these truths: God deserves his due. So does Caesar. God is the God of the living; there will be a resurrection. But more important even than those truths is the profound impact of Jesus’ teaching. Two groups of people encounter him and leave humiliated and defeated. The crowd is astonished. Will we encounter Jesus’ words in shame and defeat, or in awe and humble faith? Perhaps we ought to seek to understand Jesus rather than assume we know better than he does about anything.

Matthew 22:15-33

Then the Pharisees went and plotted how to entangle him in his words. ¹⁶And they sent their disciples to him, along with the Herodians, saying, “Teacher, we know that you are true and teach the way of God truthfully, and you do not care about anyone’s opinion, for you are not swayed by appearances. ¹⁷Tell us, then, what you think. Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, or not?” ¹⁸But Jesus, aware of their malice, said, “Why put me to the test, you hypocrites? ¹⁹Show me the coin for the tax.” And they brought him a denarius. ²⁰And Jesus said to them, “Whose likeness and inscription is this?” ²¹They said, “Caesar’s.” Then he said to them,  “Therefore render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” ²²When they heard it, they marveled. And they left him and went away.

²³The same day Sadducees came to him, who say that there is no resurrection, and they asked him a question, ²⁴saying, “Teacher, Moses said, ‘If a man dies having no children, his brother must marry the widow and raise up children for his brother.’ ²⁵Now there were seven brothers among us. The first married and died, and having no children left his wife to his brother. ²⁶So too the second and third, down to the seventh. ²⁷After them all, the woman died. ²⁸In the resurrection, therefore, of the seven, whose wife will she be? For they all had her.”

²⁹But Jesus answered them, “You are wrong, because you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God. ³⁰For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven. ³¹And as for the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was said to you by God: ³² ‘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.” ³³And when the crowd heard it, they were astonished at his teaching.