By no means am I a political analyst, but my sense is that much of what happens in campaigns and debates between political candidates and their supporters involves at least a fair amount of hyperbole.  In other words, there is a selection of issues, many if not most of which are hot-button ones, and then there is an elaborate description that accompanies the issue, weighted in its telling by the prejudicial position of the speaker.  The way something is posed for consideration is many times far more important and telling that the actual topic or content of the issue.  Embellishment can function as a persuasive tool to manipulate others’ sensibilities.  It’s the hook line and sinker approach – the strategy of figuring out “how can I say this in a way that you will understand that what I am saying is true, and that any rational or sensible person will see that it is true, while at the same time glossing over the fact that it is MY opinion that I think needs to be Yours and everyone else’s opinion as well.”  I think that this is a type of “death.”

I admit that this sounds a bit cynical, but unfortunately, I think that we have only to look at our present political landscape to see that it exists.  In the legal court system, we often refer to this as a “leading the witness.”

In the Gospel today, Mark (MK 12: 18-27) is painting somewhat of the same picture for us…

“Some Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection, came to Jesus and put this question to him, saying, ‘Teacher, Moses wrote for us, If someone’s brother dies, leaving a wife but no child, his brother must take the wife and raise up descendants for his brother. Now there were seven brothers. The first married a woman and died, leaving no descendants. So the second brother married her and died, leaving no descendants, and the third likewise. And the seven left no descendants. Last of all the woman also died. At the resurrection when they arise whose wife will she be? For all seven had been married to her.’ ”

Instead of Seven brides for Seven brothers, we have seven brothers for one bride, who does not have a child.  The Sadducees “quote” the Mosaic law regarding the responsibility of progeny.  Thinly veiled in this almost ludicrous story of how seven brothers married successively to the same woman fail to produce a descendant is the Sadducees’ attempt to point out how the whole idea of “resurrection” seems absurd.  “At the resurrection, whose wife shall she be?”

The divine intuition of Jesus allows him to quickly see through this ruse.  He answers them by pointing out some mis-taken starting points regarding both marriage and resurrection.  It is interesting to note that the scriptural bride/bridegroom imagery as a description of God’s relationship to us individually and communally is present, though perhaps latently, here in this story as well.

Jesus says that “when they rise from the dead, they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but they are like the angels in heaven.”  I wonder if what Jesus could be saying here is about relationships in general, i.e., all relationships rather than exclusively marriage.  It’s as if Jesus is calling into account the Sadducees’ attempt to consolidate, quantify and compartmentalize the whole idea of relationship.  Throughout the Gospels, we constantly see how relationship is Jesus’ “trump” card!  No matter the issue, the situation, the pain, the confusion… in the end, without exception, Jesus’ final answer is “relationship.”  IT is the pure gift that cannot so much be “given” or “taken” so much as “received.”  IT is a freedom “like the angels in heaven.”

Relationship is actually God’s name in a manner of speaking.  The Trinity of Love, the Circle of Self-Giving and Receiving is the central mystery of the Christian Faith.  There is no “outside” to this.  It could be that Jesus is re-directing the question to where he may find its real value and importance.  That is to say, when we rise from the dead, we are present together transformed in relationship – in God.  Death as the seeming separation of us from Life is actually the very pathway to union with God, which means with each other.  We are most perfectly who we are created to be, enhanced fully by every relationship in our lives, and most certainly by the most significant ones.  But this is not a “limit.”  It’s an opening!  It is inclusivity!  Death has no finality because it is simply and beautifully the very possibility for the transformation of Life itself.

“As for the dead being raised, have you not read in the Book of Moses, in the passage about the bush, how God told him, I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob? He is not God of the dead but of the living. You are greatly misled.”

So, why do we create and bolster narratives of death?  Why do we relegate relationship to consignment?  How do we recover from being misled?  These are some of the important questions of our time for sure.  I believe it will take individual and communal dedication to a consciousness of heart that allows for and indeed embraces everyone and everything.  This is not a “blind eye” towards or condoning of destructive or violent behavior, but it is a positive stance in life that entails responsibility towards solidarity and compassion.

As Jesus mentions in today’s Gospel, from the bush that burns but is not consumed, comes a possible answer.  The flames of love that burn in the hearts of every relationship we engage within has the power to “purify” us, inspire us, form us,  so that we can let go of our sometimes exaggerated self-estimations and find ourselves in God – the “I AM” – the Relationship of Life in Love!

Peace

Thomas