Trivial Pursuit

This is actually one of my favourite parts of Matthew’s Gospel.  It reads like a court room drama.

The Story So Far

Jesus arrives at the temple.  There’s a big spectacle when he enters the marketplace and accuses them of gluttony, racketeering, and defrauding the poor.  

Then he delivers two major addresses that form the opening gambit in his final arguments at the end of a years long covenant lawsuit.  The Sanhedrin and everyone else involved knows that He is talking about them.  Then He delivers the killing blow in the opening story in Chapter 22 of Matthew.   The Sanhedrin are speechless as a result.  

First up to bat - The Pharisees

Matthew 22:15–22 (ESV): Then the Pharisees went and plotted how to entangle him in his words. 16 And 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. 17 Tell us, then, what you think. Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, or not?” 18 But Jesus, aware of their malice, said, “Why put me to the test, you hypocrites? 19 Show me the coin for the tax.” And they brought him a denarius. 20 And Jesus said to them, “Whose likeness and inscription is this?” 21 They 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.” 22 When they heard it, they marveled. And they left him and went away. 

Their response consists of trivia.  AId we as modern day people present via time travel, when the Pharisees & Saducees speak, we would probably lean in and say something to each other like, “For the love of God, People, wake up and smell the psychosis.” 

The best the Pharisees can do is ask about Roman taxation which exposes their gluttony, hypocrisy, and their angry quasi-religious bigotry about the Romans.  Well done, Pharisees!  This is day you’ve waiting for, the final showdown between yourselves & Yeshua, & the best you can muster is “ Nuttafinga!” 

Next up - The Sadducees

Matthew 22:23–28 (ESV): The same day Sadducees came to him, who say that there is no resurrection, and they asked him a question, 24 saying, “Teacher, Moses said, ‘If a man dies having no children, his brother must marry the widow and raise up offspring for his brother.’ 25 Now there were seven brothers among us. The first married and died, and having no offspring left his wife to his brother. 26 So too the second and third, down to the seventh. 27 After them all, the woman died. 28 In the resurrection, therefore, of the seven, whose wife will she be? For they all had her.” 

The Sadducees ask a question about serial levirate marriage, drawing attention to their misogyny, their unbelief about the Resurrection, and revealing the fact that if that really happened to that woman they really are truly, truly awful people.  Given the subtext about money in Matthew (he was a tax collector), she was probably loaded, and they all wanted a piece of her fortune, as if they believed that the status quo on Earth in the Resurrection would still obtain & that men would still be able to exert power & control over women & control the money & inheritance that any woman might have. 

Then the Pharisees and Sadducees huddle together like a group of mustache twirling villains trying to figure out how to recover their reputations.  I see them as sophisticated versions of Wile E. Coyote.  Eventually one or two of the stand up and look around for a moment to see who is watching. 

At last! A Question! 

Matthew 22:29–33 (ESV): But Jesus answered them, “You are wrong, because you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God. 30 For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven. 31 And 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.” 33 And when the crowd heard it, they were astonished at his teaching. 

The last speaker asking a question is most likely one of the Lord’s allies.  He knows the Law, and he asks an excellent question.  In so doing, not only does he successfully distance himself from the others, he sounds like a just judge.   Thank God for him! He has shown that there are people among the leadership who aren’t all bad, but he is clearly the voice for the minority.  

This part of the narrative concludes with a question about the identity of the person bringing the lawsuit on God’s behalf.  After this, it’s seven woes that show that sometimes tough love means exposing the villains in the story.

That’s all for now.   God bless us all, every one, & “Go & sin no more.”