Welcome to the Catholic Influencers Podcast where we go deeper into Sunday's gospel reading to help you influence the world for Jesus. I'm Danii Sullivan and I'm father Rob Galea and this podcast is presented to you by FRG ministry.
Welcome to our podcast. We are in the middle of getting ready and Danii hasn't, she just put on her headphones. So, hi Danii. Hi father Rob and we're going through this podcast and we've studied individually, but for the first time we haven't discussed what we studied, so we're going to give this a go. It might be messy, but it might be good. That's the suspense. I have an idea of what it will be. But I think that's opposite to your idea of what it might be. Well, that doesn't matter.
Look, I'm interested, I'm interested to know. This scripture verse today I find quite interesting and arid at the same time. Ooh... That's a fancy word... I don't know how much you can get out of it for life, but we're going to try and I actually, there is something that did come out for me. But let's go before we go to the scriptures. Something interesting, Danii, what has happened to you recently? Yesterday I was in Echuca with my mum and sister. It's getting quite hot here.
I think it's in like the 30 degrees already and it's only October. And also like driving there, the paddocks were so dry, which is a bit scary for the farmers, yeah very... Arid. The word of the day. That's the context I'm used to it being used in which on the, on the topic of words, Chris, our German intern, we should just have a little Chris segment every week. Um, he's great, but he keeps using words that are English that are just really fancy English. Because it's what you read I suppose.
Yeah. So he uses them and then I have to like google them and be like, oh yeah, l ike that makes sense. And then it'd be embarrassing when his third language is better than my only language. Yeah that happens often. He's very patient with me when I'm learning English at 25. And then you bring it back down to English to him. Sometimes he does say things when I'm like, that makes perfect sense and your English is really good. Maybe too good and no one would ever say that sentence.
It's like I speak Italian and there are people who I can tell in a second, for example, when someone studied Italian formally and not linguistic, not through conversation, because Italian... ...Thank you! See I do speak italian. ...let me see, say something in Italian. Si, Si. Parlo italiano. [Fr Rob speaking italian]
Daniella in italiano.
You can't change my name, but Daniella is in Italian and Danielle is a male, but whenever I say Danii,... ...people think it's a boy. Yeah, and then they hear a female voice and they're thinking...you're kiding. Yeah, I had that problem and then I spell it weird as well. So it's just a mess, a big old mess. How have you been?
I've been well, I've been just working nonstop traveling and now settling here for a few days and although I'm looking forward to it I don't want to sound ungrateful, but dreading more travel. I am so tired but excited because January I go on holiday. That's exciting. We're going on holiday? Well I'm thinking I want to go backpacking you know like crazy for like two weeks backpacking across like Southeast Asia. I just can't reconcile the thought of you backpacking.
Well, backpacking as in, I'm going to go with a backpack but I want to stay in five star hotels. Okay, that makes more sense. I said that, I don't know if you shold publicize that as backpacking. It just means you won't have a suitcase full of hairproducts. I don't want to have a suitcase, but it also means I won't know where I'm staying the next night. But I love Asia because Asia is like a place where...you're just a tourist and I've been to so many.
Next year actually I'm going to be focusing a lot on Asia touring Asia with my work and so I want to visit some of the places before I go, understand the culture a little bit more as I minister there again. Okay, so let's get into the scripture. Luke 20 verses 27 to 38.
Some Sadducees who denied it there is a resurrection, came forward and put this question to Jesus 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 but died childless and the second and the third married her and likewise all seven died childless. Finally, the woman also died.
Now at the resurrection who's wife will that woman be, but all seven had been married to her. And Jesus said to them, the children of this age marry and remarry. But those who are deemed worthy to attain to the coming age and to the resurrection of the dead, neither marry nor are given in marriage, they can no longer die for they are like angels. And they are the children of guide because they are the ones who'll rise.
That the dead will rise even Moses made known in the passage about the Bush when he called out: Lord the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob, and he is not the God of the dead, but of the living for to him all are alive.
It's a beautiful but again, arid scripture verse because like what are you going to get out of it? But I think again, let's go into context. Who these Pharisees, who these Sadducees where there's a conversation. Jesus, and obviously these were the political powers of the time. They were the sort of forces to be reckoned with. You have the Pharisees , who were focused on religious, they were the religious leaders of the time.
They were seen as the people who obeyed, all the regulations, all the laws, everything, and then you have the Sadducees. Now Pharisees and Sadducees are often mentioned at the same time, but they couldn't be more different. They had nothing to do with each other. They were at war with each other because they believed different things and they held different roles. So the Pharisees were religious leaders while the Sadducees were more sort of a governing class, which included the priests.
Now I'm trying to say this, and your dog is licking me in my face.
You are so lucky. So it's jumped up . Pipper get down, get down. Okay. She is just a fun little bull of energy. Yes, she's a puppy, but she doesn't look like a puppy. She does not look like a puppy, but she does play like a puppy.
Sadducees and Pharisees, very different. And one thing that I came across when I was studying is that Sadducees are kind of like old school Jewish. Like they only take the full authority of the first five books of the Bible and then they were all written by Moses. So that's what they believe. They're not quick to kind of take on new customs or traditions. They're very old school and they're very much like keep it, I guess, keep it simple. So that's why they were kind of against the Pharisees.
The Pharisees wanted to kind of separate themselves from state. They wanted to make sure that, you know, the Gentiles weren't near them and that they were pure, where is the Sadducees wanted to keep the pace.
And they were slaves basically to Rome while, and Rome was not the church at the time. Rome was the governing body. So they were slaves to that , again, and the Pharisees, so there was the Pentateuch that's the first five books button but then the Pharisees also included the laws and then they were fixated in the laws. And I think it started with this because of the Sadducees. They started to emphasize the law and law and law and they became slave to the law.
And that's where Jesus sort of oppose them because they became less about the things about relationship, about serving God and loving God and more about regulations and laws. So you have these two . And the significant differences are also that the Pharisees believed in the resurrection of the body. So they believe that people would rise from the dead, but the Sadducees didn't. They believe that we died and we died once and for all.
Yeah. I actually read this, short essay on the Sadducees. It was really interesting. Like studying for these podcasts is the best. It makes my brain go a little bit mushy sometimes, but I genuinely love it. And there was in this essay that I read about the Sadducees , there was like a four beliefs like the difference between them and the Pharisee's . And these are like, they denied an afterlife that had rewards and punishments.
So that's all in this life. Meaning that what the punishment was only for this life, not for the next.
Yeah. And then another one was like the immortality a soul. So they didn't think that a soul was immortal. The third one, which is kind of referenced here is the resurrection of the body. They didn't believe in that. And then the fourth thing is that they didn't believe in the existence of angels or spirits. And then as we said before, like , and they denied the full authority of scripture outside of the Pentitude . So that's like the five or the fourth key belief differences.
But then also that scripture authority that they give.
So they didn't believe in heavenly bodies, even like the angels, the saints, they didn't believe. And so in a sense, as Catholics, as Christians, w e're more aligned with the P harisees than we are the Sadducees. But yet t hey mentioned all o f these at the same time, Jesus sort of was against the Pharisees was against the Sadducees. And so they knew that Jesus was very much with the Pharisees when theologically, okay. That he was more about the resurrection. He t alked about the resurrection.
And so they bring about t hat scholars to try and prove Jesus wrong, try to point him out and they just say, Hey, o kay, so let's take this, hey took a scripture verse, I think it was Deuteronomy 25 five, which says, that if your h usband sort of died, then you meant to marry the brother to make sure that the line is continued if they didn't have kids. And I think it was discontinued even by the time Jesus came. So this was a very old tradition.
But they bring this up and they say, if this woman has married seven men, then who's going to be her husband at the end? Then Jesus starts to argue and starts to say, Hey, let's meet through this. Prove the resurrection. But it's not the argument that matters here because that's where it becomes dry. We focus on the argument. Now the argument is important because at the end he proves that the resurrection is true.
And I love the part of the argument where he says that God is the father of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. So there's no dead in the kingdom of heaven. He is the father, not was the father. So he is proving through scripture, coming back to what they used scripture and bringing scripture back, the Pentitude back to them, to prove that there is a resurrection. So, but what I love about this is that he speaks their language.
He doesn't speak religious language like in a sense language that was too complicated or even that they were educated. He used language that they as educated people could understand. And I think this is so important for us as evangelists, as people who proclaim the gospel. And I was saying, you know, I'm going to Vietnam, I'm going to Southeast Asia and I'm going to speak to a culture which is so different to my own.
Next year I'm going to be talking in Vietnam, I'm going to be talking in and Indonesia, I'm going to India and I'm, I'm focusing on these areas. But the thing is I want to speak that, not language as in their countries and Vietnamese and Indonesian, but I want to know that culture . So when I give the examples, when I speak, I can speak their heart language. I want to spend time with their poor , I want to spend time , with their widows.
I want to spend time with their church leaders so that when I come to stand on the stage, I can speak their language. Not as though I'm, speaking to an American or an Australian culture and this is what Jesus did. He, because he loved people, he spent time with people then he could speak their language.
And I think are really important. Part of that is as you were saying, like knowing your audience, knowing those that you are going to speak to and that's exactly what Jesus was doing. Yes, he argued for, you know, this resurrection. But he argued it so skillfully and with those four things that I mentioned before with the Sadducees, didn't believe he addresses three of them in his answer. So he says about the resurrection that you know it comes about because we can't die anymore.
So he goes about that, the immortality of the soul. He mentions here that, you know, we can't die because we're equal to angels and that's something that they didn't believe.
So all of a sudden they're kind of like put you know, put a back a little bit because they're like, okay, so we're not like he's saying that they don't die, that they are immortal and they're equal to angels and that the marriage doesn't stand because all, you know, back in the Pentetude it was written because they needed to carry on the family name with descendants.
That's why it was the brother that would then marry the wife, but that's no longer needed because in heaven and at after the resurrection, like it doesn't matter what your name is because your just your, your identity is as a child of God. So he addresses that. And then also like, he knows that this emphasis that they place on the writings of Moses, that is where they get their full authority of scripture. So he addresses that to them.
He knows his audience and he's not trying to argue by using lofty words and you know, pulling out all these other sources. He just goes with exactly what they would understand and where, where they need to be, I guess enlightened and torn.
And so how important it is for us, for you and for me as well to use means of evangelization , that people can understand, that people can, can break up, that can chew and can swallow and this is why I think this is why I'm so proud of our team, like even at FRG ministry, but we spent so much time dissecting the language to our audience, you know, creating , curriculum resources and doing it in a way that's so relevant and speaking at schools and speaking in languages that is just so relevant to
young people in creating YouTube videos. Everything we do is intentional and is studied and is careful to address the audience we're speaking to because too very often we just come and we bombard with our blacks and our whites and we bombard with our rules and regulations. And basically what we're doing at that point is that we're destroying people because they cannot swallow the message of Christ, which is a beautiful life giving message.
And so after he argued and after Jesus presented their arguments, because Jesus spoke their language because Jesus understood their hearts and Jesus understood their theology and he, I know would have made the time to understand it would have made the time to intellectualize it and to internalize it. And because he did that, he spoke to them and that theology mattered that their lives mattered, then they will left speechless.
This, they had no more questions while throughout the rest of scripture.
Yeah throughout the whole of chapter 20. So this is at the end of chapter 20 in the gospel of Luke. Throughout the whole of chapter 20, they'd been questioning him. So they questioned his authority. They said like in whose authority do you do these things? And then they questioned him about the taxes, you know, do we pay taxes to seize or not? They said like people to spy on him and try to trip him up. And he was able to answer those in such a skillful way.
I think that's like you were saying like finding the language but just being able to explain things in a way that, you know, it's not meant to cause offense or raise your voice. It's just to get the message across clearly in a way that the audience will understand. And then this one again, you know, he explains it and even the scribes where , you know, they're like, well he answered that well.
Yeah. And then when, you know, they stopped asking questions, they didn't have any more questions for him cause they knew that he was going to be able to answer them.
And it was not big a Mike drop moment like, look, boom, like I've answered this and they have nothing to argue back. But they felt listened to. They felt understood. They felt like he went out of their way to answer them with love as well and with understanding. And sometimes again, one of the things I do is I'm on Twitter and there's Catholic Twitter, which is the most horrendous and the most and brutal and the most horrible place you can be.
Like people just argue and tear each other to pieces, supposedly Catholics because they're all looking for and waiting for this mic drop moment. You know, like, wow , I won the argument, but no one's listening. No one's loving. And this is what Jesus did. Jesus listened, he loved, he paid attention. Then out of love, he brought about the truth. You see? But this is where we need to be as Christians and even in our home. When someone offends us, don't just go boom and try and win the argument.
But listen to the even if you believe to be the wrong argument. Listen, pay attention, love, and then out of love, take a few deep breaths, calm, pray , and then bring back an with love. Okay, there needs to be truth and there needs to be loved. But sometimes we bring, we take the love out of the argument and that is a in a place. So even if we have that mic drop moment, we're going to look for another argument to drop that mic drop moment.
And I think going back to last week as well, like being able to hold loosely onto arguments, you know, we don't have to be so self righteous in our argument that we need to keep talking and talking and arguing until our point gets across. And you know, sometimes it will and sometimes it's warring and that's okay cause we have to leave room for grace in there. It's not our job...
...to go in and convert and it's not our job. Yeah. At the end of the day, we do our bit and then God does the rest. We have to leave room for God to work in that. But also like even if we do the very best that we can and we use all the right words and we allow the Holy spirit to speak through us, it's not always gonna be a good outcome. And I think that that is shown at the end of this gospel as well. Like they ran out of questions.
But then in Luke chapter 22 that the very start, I think it's verse two , the Sadducees and Pharisees are looking for ways to put Jesus to death. They ran out of questions, they started doing other actions. And I think that, you know, is an important thing to realize that it doesn't always look the way we expect it to look. And sometimes having an argument or having the right words and knowing the truth isn't going to make us well liked.
Exactly. And it's sometimes winning an argument creates more heat than it does light. And we're there to bring about the light and light is done in love. And so maybe this could be our homework, you know, even after look out, something to look out for in the homily. Again is how can I argue like Jesus, how can I listen like Jesus, how can I speak out of love like Jesus? And when people feel appreciated, understood, then there can be dialogue.
Then they can even though we know it and we say, no, this is bad. And then we go as though w e're militantly, t rying to destroy the people as opposed to the argument. Then we've lost the argument before we've even begun. So it has to be out of love. And I love how Jesus did this i n this scripture.
That's a really good homework assignment, father rob , thank you for that. So we will wrap up here for this week's podcast. Thank you for joining us. Please get in touch with us on the Catholic influences Instagram is now active, which is nice. So, just Instagram: 'catholicinfluencers_' , I think it is. And then FRG, social media as well. FRG ministry at Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. Email [email protected]. And you can send us a letter if you'd like.
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There you go please do be in touch too . We are reaching the end of this series of podcasts only two weeks left, and then we begin a new series. But we're changing it up, but we're changing it up hopefully out of your feedback. So please give us feedback. We want to know what we can do, how we can do. Series one, it was more based on topics and the interviews. Series two is based more on script scripture and Sunday gospel readings. Is that right?
I just, I mean like the 'more on' is a bit unnecessary. It's completely focused on Sunday gospel readings. And then now series three, maybe we should balance the two . Bring in the two. We'll see. Let us know your thoughts . Until next week. God bless, let his face shine upon you and smile for Jesus. Byee!