When Jesus talks to the Sadducees about the afterlife, he’s not doing pastoral care. He’s not offering comfort, he’s not teaching us what we should say to grieving people. He’s outlining truth in a way that will silence a particular group that was attacking him.

• Though you don’t believe it, there is an afterlife.
• It’s fundamentally different than this life, and that’s not bad.
• There’s no death there, so the things that depend on death in this life are different.
• Marriage, as a metaphor for God’s love, and as a way to add generations, becomes unnecessary.
• Relationships between people and people and God will remain and deepen and have no troubles.
• Moses, an authority the Sadducees referenced, made this clear.
• And all those people, the hypothetical woman, all seven men, her family, their family, us, are alive to God.

The Sadducees, the people who asked the question, aren’t identified as saying anything. One of the scribes, another group, who knew the law well (and believe in the afterlife), did respond: “Well said, teacher.” And the questions which had been coming from all sides, stopped.

The goal, however, wasn’t to make people stop talking. Jesus’ goal was to welcome people to start trusting. To know they were and are loved. In their sadness, to find comfort from Jesus. In the immensity of life and death to have moments with the one who understands it all from the inside.

The other day, our grandson Ben saw huge concrete tubes. Nancy said, “If we stood in them, they would be so much bigger than we are.” Ben said, “They aren’t to stand in, they go in the ground.” And then he spent five minutes describing all the machines that would be involved in digging the hole, putting them in the ground, covering them up, and paving over them.

On one hand, he had a pretty good sense of machines and processes. He’s learned well from Handyman Hal.

On the other hand, he has no capacity to do the design or the construction of the project.

And he ignored his grandmother’s comment: “Those objects are so much bigger than us.”

We laughed as we listened. We didn’t argue at all with his narrative. We’re confident that he’ll learn what he needs to learn. And when it’s time for construction, we’ll turn to the one with experience.