SERVING THE GOD OF THE LIVING - Sermon for Pentecost 22C-Proper 27 (Luke 20)
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| Cesar Barredo |
The opening hymn invites us to remember all the saints of God, “who from their labors rest, who thee by faith before the world confessed, thy name O Jesus, be forever blest!”
While All Saints Day falls on November 1, the first Sunday of November seems to me to be an appropriate day to remember God’s saints who now rest from their labors and by faith confessed the name of Jesus, “forever blest.”
I expect each of us can name several saints whose lives exemplified the grace, mercy, and love of God. With that in mind I would like to lift up the name of the Rev. LLoyd Saatjian. LLoyd served for many years as pastor of First United Methodist Church in Santa Barbara. He was, in life, my friend, ministry colleague, and mentor. When I arrived in Santa Barbara, he encouraged me to become a leader in the local faith community and when I experienced difficulties later on in my ministry there he stood by me, encouraging me to stay strong and continue with ministry in the church. So this morning I lift up Lloyd’s name as one who confessed by faith before the world the name of Jesus who is forever blessed. On this All Saints Sunday, I invite you to ponder in your hearts the names of God’s saints who made a difference in your life.
When we remember God’s saints, we remember those who share in the resurrection of Jesus. The reading this morning from the Gospel of Luke speaks of that resurrection. The reading takes place during Holy Week. Not long before this moment in Luke’s story, Jesus entered Jerusalem in triumph and then went to the Temple where he caused a ruckus by overturning tables, setting sacrificial animals free, and charging the folks who ran the Temple with turning God’s house into a den of thieves. So, it’s not surprising that this upset the Temple authorities, who by and large were members of the religious party known by the name Sadducees, the majority of whom came from aristocratic families, that included the High Priests.
As Luke reminds us, the Sadducees were known for rejecting belief in the resurrection and the afterlife. So a day or so after Jesus’ visit to the Temple representatives of the Sadducees approached him to see if they could embarrass him by demonstrating how ridiculous Jesus’ preaching of the resurrection really was. They based their rejection of the resurrection on their reading of the Torah, the first five books of the Old Testament. Jesus will respond to their perspective by telling them that according to the Torah, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is “God not of the dead, but of the living.”
Before we get to Jesus’ response, let’s hear what the Sadducees had to say. When they approached Jesus, they posed a question about the resurrection by setting up a scenario that made use of the ancient practice of Levirate marriage. According to what is written in Deuteronomy when a man dies childless, the next brother in line must marry his widow and produce an heir for the dead brother (Deut. 24:5-10). With that as the background, the Sadducees created a scenario in which a man died childless. Then, following the lead of Torah, the next brother in line took his widow as his wife, but he died childless. This continued on until all seven brothers had died childless. So if you accept the premise that there is an afterlife, who would she be married to in the resurrection? In other words, to whom would she belong in the afterlife? In their minds this scenario demonstrated how ridiculous and unreasonable this idea of resurrection is.
Before we get to Jesus’ response, we need to address the elephant in the room. I expect that the fact the woman in this story was forced to marry seven men with the expectation that she would produce an heir for her first husband might not sit well with everyone in the room this morning. This is a good reminder that we don’t live in a culture where women are the property of fathers and husbands. At least I hope we don’t! Therefore, following Jesus in the twenty-first century doesn’t require adopting first century cultural habits. For that we can be thankful!
As the rule in Deuteronomy demonstrates, the practice of Levirate marriage was rooted in a family’s need to pass on to the next generation the family name and property. While we might not practice Levirate marriage today, many families still hope that one of the children in the family will be a son who can carry on the family name. I know that it pleased my father when Cheryl and I produced a son to carry on for one more generation our family name. Whether that continues into the next generation is still unknown!
Now, let’s get back to Jesus. He listened to their story and responded by proposing that in the resurrection marriage and family don’t exist. Since no one dies, we’ll be like the angels, who apparently don’t get married. Therefore, their scenario doesn’t undermine the idea of the resurrection. When he shared this news, I can imagine some of the women in the audience breathing a sigh of relief because in the resurrection they would finally be free! On the other hand, many today hold tight to the hope that they will be reunited with their families in the afterlife.
While Jesus rejected the premise of the Sadducees’ scenario, he was more interested in demonstrating from the Torah the viability of the resurrection. While the Sadducees claimed Torah had nothing to say about the resurrection, Jesus pointed his inquisitors’ attention back to one of Israel’s foundational stories as proof of the resurrection.
In the Book of Exodus, Moses has an encounter with God who appears in a burning bush. This encounter changes Moses’ life and that of the people of Israel, because it’s in this encounter that Moses receives his commission to liberate the people from slavery in Egypt and learns the name of God. It’s here that God reveals God’s self as the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The way Jesus read that story, when God made this claim, God was saying that the three Patriarchs still lived in the heavenly realm. If they lived, then there must be a resurrection. That’s because God “isn’t the God of the dead but of the living. To him they are all alive” (Lk 20:38 CEB; Exodus 3).
While Jesus silenced his critics for the moment, the debate over the reasonableness of the resurrection continued into the present day. Although the resurrection stands at the center of the Christian faith, even many Christians struggle to make sense of it. I could try to respond to the contemporary challenges to belief in the resurrection, but on this All Saints Sunday, I would rather have us consider how the resurrection influences the way we live our lives in the present. What does the message of the resurrection say to us about the purpose of our lives?
While the resurrection is something of a mystery because we can’t test it scientifically, I expect most of us here today assume some form of life exists after death, even if we can’t scientifically test this belief. Since we can’t test this premise, we take it as a matter of faith that what Jesus said in this encounter is true. The God we serve is the God of the living and not of the dead.
If this is true then surely God values life itself and so should we. Even though death is a natural part of human existence, I don’t believe God rejoices in death and neither should we. Therefore, this has implications for the way we live on this planet. It suggests that we have responsibilities for the welfare of everything that lives on the earth. The biblical story opens with the creation of the heavens and the earth. The message there is that everything creates is good. Not only that, but God created humanity in God’s image to serve as God’s representatives, serving as stewards of God’s good creation.
If the resurrection speaks to the importance of life, it also speaks to the purpose of life. Since we live in an age of uncertainty where many in our midst wonder about the meaning of life, the premise of the resurrection suggests that what we experience now is a harbinger of what is to come.
Consider the word that the prophet Haggai delivered to a group of Jews who returned home from their exile in Babylon to find their homeland in ruins. Many of these returning exiles asked similar questions to the ones we ask ourselves. Haggai addressed a community that was discouraged by what they saw around them. Their Temple had been destroyed and the foundation stones for a new Temple lay scattered around the Temple mount. The plans for the new Temple were disappointing. This new Temple wouldn’t be near as grand as the previous one. So, what’s the point of being members of God’s covenant community? They wondered whether God was even there with them? Haggai told his community that this rebuilt Temple would be a foretaste of what was to come. He wanted them to know that they should take courage and rebuild the Temple because God was with them. In fact, they should remember the promises God made to their ancestors when they came out of Egypt. Yes, God’s message to the people of Israel, and to us, is this: "My spirit abides among you; do not fear" (Haggai 2:6).
So, could the promise of the resurrection serve as a sign that God is never absent from us and therefore we don’t have to live lives filled with fear and regret? Instead, if we embrace the promise of the resurrection we’ll be free to live boldly before God and love one another as God loves us.
Preached by:
Dr. Robert D. Cornwall
Pulpit Supply
First Presbyterian Church
Troy, Michigan
November 6, 2022
Pentecost 22C/Proper 27
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