Pharisees and Sadducees
Jesus continued his mission, speaking and preaching and offering parables to illustrate his teaching, and Christ wrote down much of what he said, letting the truth beyond time guide his stylus whenever he could. There were some sayings, though, that he could neither leave out nor alter, because they caused such a stir among the disciples and among the crowds that came to listen wherever Jesus went. Everyone knew what he had said, and many people talked about his words; it would be noticed if they were not in the record.
Many of these sayings concerned children and the family, and some of them cut Christ to the quick. Once, on the road to Capernaum, the disciples were arguing. Jesus had heard their raised voices, but was walking apart from them and didn't hear what they were saying.
When they went into the house where they were to stay he said:
'What were you arguing about on the way?'
They fell silent, because they were embarrassed. Finally one of them said:
'We were discussing which of us was the most important, master.'
'Were you, indeed. Come around here, all of you.'
They stood in front of him. Now in that house there was a little child, and Jesus picked him up and showed him to the disciples.
'Whoever wants to be first,' he said, 'must be last of all and servant of all. Unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the Kingdom of heaven. Whoever becomes as humble as this child will be the most important in heaven. And whoever welcomes a child like this in my name welcomes me.'
Another time, Jesus had stopped to sit down, and people brought their little children to him to be blessed.
'Not now!' the disciples said. 'Go away! The master is resting.'
Jesus heard them, and was angry.
'Don't speak to these good people like that,' he said. 'Let them bring their children here. Who else do you think the Kingdom of God is for? It belongs to them.'
The disciples stood aside, and the people carried their children to Jesus, who blessed them, and took them in his arms, and kissed them.
Speaking to his disciples as well as to the parents of the children, he said, 'You should all be like little children when it comes to the Kingdom, otherwise you will never enter it. So be careful. Whoever makes it difficult for one of these little ones to come to me, it would be better for them if a millstone were hung about their neck and they were drowned in the depths of the sea.'
Christ noted down the words, admiring the vigour of the imagery while regretting the thinking behind it; because if it were true that only children could be admitted to the Kingdom, what was the value of such adult qualities as responsibility, forethought, and wisdom? Surely the Kingdom would need those as well.
On another occasion, some Pharisees tried to test Jesus by asking about divorce. Jesus had spoken about that subject in his sermon on the mountain, but they had spotted what they thought was a contradiction in what he had said.
'Is divorce lawful?' they said.
'Haven't you read the scriptures?' was Jesus's reply. 'Don't you remember how the Lord God made Adam and Eve male and female, and declared that a man should leave his father and his mother and join his wife, and the two of them shall become one flesh? Had you forgotten that? So no one should separate what God has joined together.'
'Ah,' they said, 'then why did Moses make his specification about a certificate of divorce? He would not have done that if God had forbidden it.'
'God tolerates it now, but did he institute it in Eden? Was there any need for divorce then? No. Man and woman then were created to live perfectly together. It was only after the coming of sin that divorce became necessary. And when the Kingdom comes, as it will, and men and women live together perfectly once more, there will be no need for divorce.'
The Sadducees also tried to trick Jesus with a problem concerning marriage. Now the Sadducees didn't believe in resurrection or an afterlife, and they thought they could get the better of Jesus by asking him a question about that.
'If a man dies without having children,' they said, 'it's the custom for his brother to marry the widow, and beget children for him. Is that not so?'
'That is the custom,' said Jesus.
'Well, now: suppose there are seven brothers. The first marries, and dies childless, so the widow marries the second brother. The same thing happens again: the husband dies childless, and she marries the next, all the way down to the seventh brother. Then the woman herself dies. So ¨C when the dead are resurrected, whose wife will she be? Because she's married all of them.'
'You're wrong,' said Jesus. 'You don't know the scriptures, and you don't know the power of God. When the dead are resurrected they will neither marry nor be given in marriage. They'll live like the angels. As for the resurrection of the dead, you forget what God said to Moses when he spoke from the burning bush. He said, "I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob." Would he have spoken in the present tense if they were not alive? He is not the God of the dead; he is the God of the living.'
The Sadducees had to retreat, confounded.
Jesus and the Family
But for all Jesus's defence of marriage, and of children, he had little to say in favour of the family, or of comfortable prosperity. On one occasion he said to a crowd of people who wanted to follow him, 'If you don't hate your father and your mother, your brothers and sisters, your wife, your children, you'll never become my disciple.' And Christ remembered Jesus's words when he'd been told that his mother and brothers and sisters had come to see him: he had rejected them, and claimed that he had no family except those who did the will of God. To hear his brother speak of hating one's family worried Christ; he would not have chosen to write those words, but too many people had heard Jesus say them.
Then one day in Christ's hearing Jesus told a story that disturbed him more greatly still.
'There was a man who had two sons, one quiet and good, the other wild and unruly. The wild one said to his father, "Father, you're going to divide the property between us anyway; let me have my share now." The father did, and the wild son went away to another country, and squandered all his money in drink and gambling and debauchery, until he had nothing left.
'Then there came a famine in the country where he was living, and the wild son found himself in such desperate need that he hired himself out as a swineherd. He was so hungry that he would have been glad to be able to eat the husks that the pigs were eating. In his despair he thought of his home, and said to himself, "At home there are my father's hired hands, and every one of them has all the bread he wants, and to spare; and here I am, dying of hunger. I'll go home and confess to my father and beg his forgiveness, and ask him to take me on as a hired hand."
'So he set off towards home, and when his father heard he was coming he was filled with compassion, and he hurried out of the town to meet him, and embraced him and kissed him. The son said, "Father, I've sinned against heaven and I've sinned against you; I don't deserve to be called your son. Just let me work for you like one of the hired hands."
'But the father said to the servants, "Bring out the best robe, and some sandals for my son's feet, and hurry! And prepare a feast ¨C the best of everything ¨C because this dear son of mine was dead, and here he is alive again; he was lost, and now he's found!"
'But the other son, the quiet one, the good one, heard the sounds of celebration and saw what was going on, and said to his father:
'"Father, why are you preparing a feast for him? I have been at home all the time, I have never disobeyed your commands, and yet you've never prepared a feast for me. My brother walked away without thinking of the rest of us, he squandered all his money, he has no thought for his family or anyone else."
'And the father said, "Son, you're at home all the time. All that I have is yours. But when someone comes home after being away, it's right and proper to prepare a feast in celebration. And your brother was dead, and he's come to life again; he was lost, and he's been found."'