Pentecost 22C
November 10, 2019
Job 19:23-27
2 Thessalonians 2:1-5
Luke 20:27-38
INTRODUCTION
All of our
readings today deal with the question of resurrection, of life after death,
salvation after suffering, of the newness that follows endings. Job professes
his certainty that his immense suffering will not last forever, that his
redeemer will finally come and defend him and he will be saved. Paul’s letter
to the Thessalonians offers encouragement amidst the confusion over what people
believed would be the imminent return of Jesus. “Don’t let this possibility distract
you,” he urges, “from the central teachings of the gospel in the meantime!”
Our Gospel
lesson requires some background to fully understand what’s going on here. It
begins with the Sadducees trying to trick Jesus. The Sadducees, as Luke will
tell us, are a sect of Judaism that does not believe in the resurrection. And
so, they are trying to trap Jesus by describing a scenario and carrying it to
its logical and absurd conclusion, thus disproving resurrection. The scenario
uses levirate marriage as the premise, so I wanted to explain first what that
is. In some patriarchal societies (such as 1st century Judaism and
some still today), the levirate law says that if a woman’s husband dies childless,
she should marry her husband’s brother. At its best, this is a practice that
protects the vulnerable widow, because she cannot support herself and this law
requires the family to take her in and provide. But perhaps more than that, it
is a property issue because it keeps the wealth in the family, allows for the
possibility of heirs, and keeps the blood line going. The scenario the
Sadducees describe push this law to its max, imagining 7 brothers who all die
childless – in this case, they ask, to whom does the women belong in the
resurrection? It’s a clever question, but Jesus of course has an even more
clever response.
The question of
resurrection, what happens when we die, and what this all means for life right
now, is a question central to the life of faith. So as you listen, think about
how you would answer that question: what does all this resurrection talk mean
for your life right now? Maybe our readings will offer you some insight. Let’s
listen.
[READ]
Grace to you and peace from God our
Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
How many of you
have ever wondered about or tried to imagine what happens when we die – where
we go, what it looks like, who will be there, etc.? Yeah, I think most people
have wondered about this, and especially people of faith, who have whole
doctrines around what happens after death. I was a part of one weekly Bible
study in which these questions seemed to come up at least once a month – people
had passionate opinions on this, and these were some heated discussions! They
were hungry for answers.
Well, the good
news, or maybe the bad news, is that we are not alone in having these questions!
People have been asking such questions since our existence. Today we witness
one example, as the Sadducees confront Jesus with a pressing question about the
resurrection. Now keep in mind, this is the Jewish understanding of
resurrection that they are talking about, not the Christian one (since that
hadn’t happened yet, though at this point in the story, it’s just about to). This
Jewish understanding of resurrection said that in the Messianic age, when the
Messiah comes, the souls of people who had died would be reunited with their
bodies and return to Jerusalem, where the temple would be reconstructed. The
Sadducees, however, didn’t buy it. This sort of resurrection is only mentioned
in the writings of Daniel and Isaiah, and Sadducees only believed in the
authority of the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible, in which
resurrection is not explicitly mentioned. (That’s why, if you wondered, Jesus
mentions the story about the burning bush, because this points out
justification for resurrection even in the Pentateuch.)
But really, all
of this is very interesting, but is not the point of this exchange. What is
more important, at least to me and my faith, is that Jesus’ answer shows us
that the Sadducees, and perhaps we as well, are asking the wrong question. The
Sadducees are viewing resurrection life through their own earthly lens,
assuming that eternal life would be like this life, but forever. And I think we
sometimes fall into that trap, too. Perhaps we assume we will be enjoying all
the best parts of this life, with all of our deceased loved ones, but to the
nth degree, and of course with no pain and with Jesus around to ask all our
questions about life on earth. I won’t lie, this sounds pretty good to me!
But Jesus is saying here that
resurrected life will be qualitatively different from life on earth. Now I,
having never experienced eternal resurrected life (no one still on earth has!),
do not know exactly what it will be like, because I, like you, exist within a
human framework. I have no more definitive insight than you do on this topic. But
we do know this: resurrected life cannot be understood within the framework of
our human systems and laws and logic, because it is qualitatively different.
Of course, that doesn’t stop us from
trying to imagine! And there are a few things in this text that can help us to
do that. But before we do that, let’s not stop there. Let’s take it a step
further, and try to understand not only what resurrected life will look like in
eternity, but what that might mean and look like for us now. Because even now,
before we have died, we are a resurrection people. That happened when we were
baptized – baptized into Christ’s death and into his resurrection, his life. So
what difference does all this make for our earthly life, and what will we do
with it? Ready to dig in? Okay!
Jesus tells the Sadducees that in the
resurrection there will be no marriage. This might sound strange and even
concerning to our 21st century ears, but remember, marriage in the
first century was not like marriage today. This does not mean we won’t see our
loved ones again. It means that broken human systems, like levirate marriage,
will no longer rule the day. Check out this scenario the Sadducees describe, in
which a widow is shuffled between brothers like a piece of property. I
mentioned before that at its best this system of levirate marriage protects
widows, but it’s hard not to see the oppressive system in place here. So, in
the resurrection, Jesus says, no one will be property of another person,
because we will all belong equally to God. In the resurrection, no one will
take advantage of the vulnerable for the sake of maintaining their wealth and
property, and the poor will not be seen as expendable. Human suffering will no
longer be used as a tool, for the sake of argument, debate, and theological
comeuppance – indeed there will be no more suffering! Just picture that day
when the hypothetical woman in the Sadducees’ story arrives in a place where
her worth no longer depends on her husband, her dowry, or her fertility; she is
loved just because she is. I can imagine her, basking in the glow of the eternal
light and love of the God who created her. She is no one’s tool. She is only
loved.
So if that offers us a glimpse of
what resurrected life is like, then the next question is, what does this mean
for us, resurrection people still on this side of eternity? We could just hold
it, hope for it, trust in it, wait for it, and not really change anything about
how we live… but I think it is more than that. I read this as a call, to work
toward bringing about this reality of God’s kingdom, insofar as it is possible,
right now, “on earth as it is in heaven.”
How do we do that? It starts with
looking around and asking some questions. In what ways are people getting rich
on the backs of the poor? What can we, as resurrection people, do to change
that?
In what ways does patriarchy still
persist, giving women less opportunity to thrive and serve God in the
particular ways they are gifted to do so? How do we, as resurrection people,
dismantle that?
Where are the poor, weak, or
disenfranchised still treated as expendable, or as mere tools to make a point?
How do we, as resurrection people, instead view them and lift them up as the
beautiful and beloved and worthy people that God created them to be?
“Now God is the God not of the dead,”
Jesus concludes, “but of the living.” That means that everything we do, as
resurrection people, ought to be for the sake of life – life for us, and for
all of God’s children. That, finally, is what these texts mean for us today, on
this side of eternity: because God is and always has been about life, from the
creation, to God’s continual providence, to the incarnation, to the death and
resurrection of God’s own Son. So then we are to live as if we are ruled not by
death, but by life, “for to God, all of us are alive.”
Let us pray… God of the living,
our world is plagued by so many broken systems, and we are so often a part of
them. Help us instead to live as your resurrection people, always seeking to
bring about life for all your children. In the name of the Father and the Son
and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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