Monday, 15th Week of Ordinary Time

Acts 22:30-23:11
Morning Prayer

“It is with respect to the hope and the resurrection of the dead that I am on trial” (Acts 23:6)

To catch us up, The Roman Tribune had had enough of Paul starting a riot every time he opened his mouth, and was about to have him whipped (that is, tortured) to find out what his real agenda. At that point Paul played the trump card of his Roman citizenship. Less than 100 years earlier, Mark Antony had granted Roman citizenship to some Jews who had supported his military campaigns. Thus, not only was Paul a citizen of Rome, but his citizenship was inherited, at least as far back as his father, and maybe his grandfather. Once, informed of this fact, the Roman commander’s treatment of Paul improved dramatically.

Hoping to calm things down, the commander convenes the ruling council of Jewish leaders in Jerusalem, for Paul to address them. Unfortunately, when Paul can’t say one sentence without getting smacked in the face, then civil debate isn’t much of a possibility. So, Paul decides to play two political arties off against each other.

The Sadducees were the party of priests, descending from Moses’s brother, Aaron. The Pharisees were the part of teachers and reformers. The other main difference between them was that the Sadducees only considered the first five books of the Bible to be authoritative, while the Pharisees considered the prophetic books (such as Isaiah and Ezekiel) to also be authoritative. If you looked only to the “Pentateuch,” then there didn’t seem to be much basis on which to conclude that there was any afterlife for human beings. This life alone was God’s gift to us. It is in the later prophetic writings that the Jewish people began to glimpse the possibility of Resurrection, which the Pharisees did. By invoking the Resurrection of the dead, Paul starts an argument between the Sadducees and Pharisees. That’s probably not what the Roman commander wanted, but it kept the Council from condemning Paul.

Just to be clear, Paul means our resurrection, not just Jesus’s. His Resurrection is just the first. Ours is the last to come. Resurrection is not just the escape of our souls from the prison of the body. Our bodies are as much gifts of God as everything else he gives us. When will that happen? Why so long? Well, 2,000 years isn’t really that long if we are people who believe in life for eternity. In the meantime, we are to treat our bodies as the gift that God has given us, and in the words of Jess Jackson, keep hope alive.