Impossible Choices ...

There are times in our lives when we seem to face impossible choices.  This situation is represented when either choice is bad, and perhaps all we are left with is a choice of bad or worse.  The movie ‘Sophie’s Choice’ is another example of an impossible choice.  For an independent Islamic Mexican American citizen, the upcoming election may also be another impossible choice.  The “impossibility” represents our resistance to making the choice, and our belief that some options cannot be reconciled.  But the thread that runs through our choices, the impossible scenarios, is always an element of evil.  Stealing in order to keep my family from starving, is still stealing.  A mother choosing which one of her children will die, leaves one of them still murdered.  Pulling the election lever for President still elects a very flawed human being, who may do many things that increase the burden on our poor, as few candidates seem to genuinely care about the poor from either party.  In all our examples, an element of evil, or evil’s potential exists.

The other common thread in all our impossible choices is our inability to see past our self-imposed human constraints.  Were we to introduce an all-powerful God into our scenarios, our outcomes become expanded beyond what our human eyes can see.  As I pray to feed my family, my God provides for our needs when I could not, and we are fed without theft.  Were Sophie to have introduced the true power of Christ into her impossible situation, guardian angels may have been dispatched in mass, or hearts and minds may have been melted by love, or eyes of persistent evil may have been temporarily blinded.  When God enters her scenario possibilities begin to emerge that are not there without Him.  When we make our vote for our President, a very flawed human being, with the support of a nation’s collective prayers, may have his/her weakness turned into strength, their minds opened to wisdom, their hearts opened to love in the extreme, and our nation prosper as never before.  For with God all things are possible.

But to attempt to use scripture, to define an impossible situation, for our God … is the height of all arrogance.  To try to use the Bible, to “tell” our God what He can and cannot do, presumes that we know His scriptures better than He does, and that our interpretation is absolute, and essentially that He must defer to our wisdom.  This sounds crazy.  And it is crazy.  But our Pharisee forefathers did exactly that, rather our Sadducee forefathers in this instance.  We will review the encounter Peter recalls to John Mark in chapter 12 of his gospel.  And for many of us, we will focus on the arrogance of the Sadducees, and mock them in our minds, thinking how stupid they must have been to try something like this.  While never imagining how often we do it ourselves.  As we take a second look at this encounter, let us keep an open mind about how we may be equally guilty in what the Sadducees attempted.

John Mark records the incident picking up in verse 18 saying … “Then come unto him the Sadducees, which say there is no resurrection; and they asked him, saying,”  First, context is everything.  The Pharisees had just attacked Christ on His refusal to speak out against, or end Roman taxation, the number one job of the Messiah as the nation believed.  Let that sink in a minute folks, the entire nation believed that the Messiah would end Roman rule when He came.  The entire nation for generations came to believe this truth from studying their scriptures.  They were reading the right texts, from the right prophets, while worshipping the right God, and this is what they collectively came to believe.  There was no sect of Israelites who disputed this view, it was a unanimous one.  They were right, Jesus was wrong.  Yet still, Jesus was able to dispute them without losing the favor of the people.

While the Pharisees had failed, the Sadducees had prepared yet a different attack.  The Sadducees made up the other half (or third if you count scribes independently) of the Sanhedrin ruling body in Israel.  They did not rule over political matters, the Romans, and Herod did that.  They ruled over religious matters, which to a believing Jew were far more important.  The Sadducees however, did not share the view of the rest of the Sanhedrin where it came to a resurrection.  They believed life was a one and done proposition.  This was the key distinction that kept them apart from the rest of the Sanhedrin.  If they had abandoned this belief they might as well had been part of the Pharisaical order.  But the Sadducees were devout (translate stubborn) on this point, and would not give up their interpretation for any argument the Pharisees, scribes, or Jesus could present.  They knew they were right about this interpretation.  Sound familiar?  How many of us are certain about our doctrines?  Completely certain.

The entire nation was certain about the role of the Messiah ending Roman rule.  And Jesus did not end it.  What is more, He never spoke a word against it.  He advocated giving money to it.  He forgave Roman soldiers for killing Him at the cross.  And He healed Romans and Roman children anytime they asked throughout His entire ministry.  During His trial He convinced Pilot of His innocence, but did not demand His freedom.  Despite Rome being the pinnacle for wickedness and sins against the people of Israel, Jesus did not make one move to end or diminish their rule.  He did not speak one word against them.  He advocated service and love, not resistance in any form.  This is how evil is ended, it is driven out, driven away, by love.  A message for us, in our vain quest to legislate it away, or fight it away, or kill it as we defend ourselves.  And our entire nation is just as certain about our beliefs in this matter.  All of us wrong as well.

Nevertheless, as the Sadducees had reached the point of absolute certainty that the scriptures, held up their beliefs about the lack of a resurrection, they had devised a trap of their own for Jesus.  Mark continues in verse 19 … “Master, Moses wrote unto us, If a man's brother die, and leave his wife behind him, and leave no children, that his brother should take his wife, and raise up seed unto his brother.”  Before we let ourselves be taken into an impossible choice, perhaps we should examine the premise a bit more carefully.  First, taking care of widows and orphans, or rather, taking care of the most helpless, and poor who surround us, is an extremely high priority with our God.  Refusing to do so, reveals the extent of our own selfishness, and the lack of a transformation in our hearts.  So because the traditions of men in the times of Moses, did not allow for a woman to own property, or care for herself … when her husband died, she risked becoming impoverished.  If she had children (particularly a male child), her son could inherit the land, and care for his mother.  But without a male heir, in a male dominated society, not dictated so by God, the rules of society in the time of Moses created the situation of poverty a woman would face.

To account for this situation, Moses offers, that the brother of the widow, now take her in, and care for her.  But from the brother in law perspective, if he could impregnate her with a male child the problem takes care of itself.  And so for laziness on the part of the in-law he would rather impregnate her with a son, than have to care and feed her for the rest of his own life.  All of this complexity, because men had created a male dominated society, instead of an independent one in the first place.  Now lesser sins were to be committed to avoid greater ones, in order to resolve a situation men created.  What if the brother in law was already married?  Is he to take 2 wives now to fix this?  The complexities of a recommendation like this derive from a mis-reading of the intent of Moses, to care for a widow who is already related to a family, who should already have been caring for her, for life.

The premise is steeped in selfishness, not charity as Moses had intended.  They continue picking up in verse 20 … “Now there were seven brethren: and the first took a wife, and dying left no seed. [verse 21] And the second took her, and died, neither left he any seed: and the third likewise. [verse 22] And the seven had her, and left no seed: last of all the woman died also. [verse 23] In the resurrection therefore, when they shall rise, whose wife shall she be of them? for the seven had her to wife.”  The Sadducees who did not believe this situation could ever materialize anyway, now used it to trap Jesus.  If Jesus did not believe in marriage or the resurrection, they would not have picked this topic to trap Him.  But Jesus believed in both.

Jesus responds in verse 24 saying … “And Jesus answering said unto them, Do ye not therefore err, because ye know not the scriptures, neither the power of God?”  Jesus tells them their interpretation of scriptures, the one they are so certain about, the one that distinguishes them as different … is wrong.  Not only are they wrong about the resurrection, they are wrong about marriage.  This situation they bring up is not an unrealistic one.  There are certain to be widows in heaven who remarried after their spouse died.  The dead spouse is unaware of this until the resurrection.  When the dead spouse awakens their hearts are still in love with a spouse who has moved on with someone else.  What will God do?  God can and will heal the hearts of the hurting, taking from them any pain.  There will be no jealousy as only our God can accomplish.  And He will resolve these situations as they were intended to be, introducing the partner we were intended for, allowing the servant to remain single, or preserving the marriage of folks who do not have this complication.  The point of Jesus, is that the power of God can un-complicate what sin has complicated.  Jesus declares they do not understand marriage, Moses, or the resurrection.

Jesus continues in verse 25 saying … “For when they shall rise from the dead, they neither marry, nor are given in marriage; but are as the angels which are in heaven.”  It is from this text we modern Christians believe there is no marriage in heaven anymore.  It is the context we miss again.  “For when they rise” is a future tense statement, it is intended to declare to the Sadducees, that there will be a resurrection.  This is to declare to the Sadducees that their only distinctive belief is wrong.  Certainty is arrogance.  Next, consider the back half of this analogy … do you know how the angels in heaven live?  Do you know if there are female and male angels?  Do you know if they have partners like the spouses we have on earth?  Or is it possible for your finite mind, to grasp the idea of loving literally everyone in heaven so much that the distinction between spouse, child, parent, and friend cannot be determined.  The point is not to apply our ideas of interpretation of scriptures on God, the point is to let God work His power, and trust whatever He does with your heart is OK for him to do.  God has to undo 6,000 years of the impacts of sin.  We need that baseline before we start worrying about social constructs, or the lack of them.

But one thing we should remember … marriage was created before sin, and meant to endure forever.  If sin had never come Adam and Eve would still be married, their offspring would still be married, as would theirs, as would theirs, and so on, and so on.  All of these marriages eternal in nature.  While we have damaged the institution of marriage badly, we have not killed it yet.  God can undo what we have done through the hardness of our hearts.  And if or when He does, our only job is to trust Him, not to dictate to Him what it should look like.

Jesus continues in verse 26 saying … “And as touching the dead, that they rise: have ye not read in the book of Moses, how in the bush God spake unto him, saying, I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob? [verse 27] He is not the God of the dead, but the God of the living: ye therefore do greatly err.”  The most important point Jesus makes in this passage is at the outset of the verse … as touching the dead, that they rise.  This is not a statement about immediate life after death.  This is not about disembodied ghosts running around heaven in spirit form.  This is about real people, who really died, were really buried, and will one day REALLY rise again in a resurrection.  The God of the living statement is a proof Jesus offers to insure the resurrection will one day occur (and that these three men will be in it).  Lastly, even though these Sadducees were religious men, leaders in the church, they were wrong, according to Christ very wrong.

Now let us skip forward to our age.  How many of us hold to doctrines with absolute certainty the scriptures back our positions with an affirmative “thus saith the Lord”.  Yet there are many different Christian churches, all with differing positions on doctrines.  Beyond the generalities of our differences, how many times do you attempt to create an impossible situation in your own prayer life to dictate to God what the outcome must be.  You pray, God give me this, or give me that.  You do not introduce alternatives, or ask God to fix the situation.  Instead, you outline only few choices and expect Him to pick from the ones you give Him.  How many times does your certainty about doctrine and scriptural interpretation constrict what you pray for, or how you pray, or how you expect God to answer? 

We pray for a sinner engaged in sin to be saved, because our version of scriptural understanding declares his behavior to be wrong.  Samples of such sins include: wearing shorts or jeans to church, a woman wearing her hair up, or having it cut.  We condemn eating unclean meats, clean meats, meat by-products, canned fruits or vegetables, or anything GMO.  We condemn social behaviors like sex before marriage, the wrong kind of sex in marriage, no sex in marriage, self-service sex anytime, and lust as a general rule.  We condemn electric instruments in church, the organ in church, modern ditties instead of arias in church, chants of any kind.  When you look for sins to condemn, you will find many through history, in everyone but yourself.  While we waste our time praying for less jeans or shorts in church, we are effectively asking God to change the heart of ones who already love Him passionately, but do not dress according to our standards.  While we dress right, and love Him not at all.  We would do better to pray for more love, and let God fix the sin problem in all of us, our neighbor included.  We need not focus on sin in our prayer, we need to focus on the cure to sin in our prayers, of His transforming love to reach us.

How can there be an impossible choice, if our God makes all things possible.  When Satan asks us to choose between the lesser of two evils, we should ask our God to choose another way altogether for us.  Where it comes to our doctrines, we should abandon certainty, and ask Christ to lead us with humility in our hearts, realizing we may well be wrong.  The entire nation of Israel was wrong.  The nation of our America could be wrong as well.  The right church, established by Christ, was wrong on doctrine.  Perhaps your church or mine, established by Christ, could still be wrong as well.  It is the certainty, that keeps us from learning.  It is the certainty, that keeps us from being truly humble.  It is our humility, that brings out the child in us, and sets us free to finally grasp His truth, in His time, and in His manner.