Pentecost XIV

By The Rev. Martha Frances+
Year C, Twenty-Fourth Sunday after Pentecost; Proper 27
11 November 2007

Text: Luke 20: 27-38; Others: Haggai 1:15b-2:9; 2 Thessalonians 2:1-5,13-17; Psalm 145:1-5, 18-22

      Jesus is approached by the Sadducees with what sounds like a pretty far-fetched situation they have concocted from the law of Moses.  They ask about the levirate law which was designed to protect & make provision for a widow in a society with no social security, but more important, to preserve the family name & keep the land in the late brother's family.  In that society, the man's brother was to marry her & help her produce children who could care for her & the land.  Sounds pretty bizarre to us, but it provided responsibility for the well-being of those whose options in society were limited.  Now the Sadducees have cooked up this question to test Jesus, the 3^rd of a series of questions they have presented to him.

      Jesus knows, however, this is not an honest question from open-minded people desiring to learn from Jesus.  Rather, the Sadducees, the wealthy conservative party of aristocratic religious leaders, only believe in the Torah, the first 5 books of the Hebrew Bible: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, & Deuteronomy.  The Sadducees don't believe in the resurrection, so their question is an attempt to bait Jesus, making fun of both him & of those Jews who expect resurrection & an after-life.  The Sadducees set up a no-win situation & hope to see Jesus squirm, discrediting him in front of his followers.  However, Jesus turns the tables on them by reframing their question & answers them with a quote from their own Scriptures, the Torah.  There, Moses said God is God not of the dead but of the living.

      Besides stopping the Sadducees from their riddles, Jesus has several things to tell us in the passage today.  What can we learn from this story?  In effect, Jesus tells us all the second-guessing we might do concerning the after-life is sort of pointless because resurrection life is not going to just prolong our present earthly life but will be totally new.  Jesus says there will be no need for marriage in the next life because then, there will be no death; even the patriarchs—Abraham, Isaac, & Jacob—are still alive to God.

      I always get nervous when I hear a preacher, usually at a funeral, suggest that the deceased will find an eternal golf game or whatever was her or his favorite earthly activity in heaven.  Now, an eternal golf game would be more like hell than heaven to me!  But that's not the point.  No matter whether what is described is a heavenly fantasy island or streets paved with gold, our human version of the next life is always limited by human imagination.

      Jesus' admonition to the Sadducees—& to us—is very much in line with Moses'—& most of Judaism's—belief in life after this one.  Jesus tells us we don't have to worry about life after death; the resurrection life is not dependent on our wishful thinking but on the very nature of a loving God on whom we depend.  Jesus reveals the Sadducees' question as irrelevant in the first place, reminding us as well as his first listeners that we need not major in minors.  Would that more of the members of the Anglican Communion could remember this today!  I'm really pleased that this parish &, to a large extent, this Diocese, has kept our focus on the mission of the Church to continue to reach beyond ourselves to baptize & teach the Gospel & equip the saints for ministry & not gotten hung up on ideological controversies.

      Another thing Jesus tells us is to focus not on our nature but on God's nature.  The psalmist describes God's close relation to humans when he says "The Lord is near to those who call upon him, to all who call upon him faithfully.  He fulfills the desire of those who fear him; he hears their cry & helps them.  The Lord preserves all those who love him. . ."  If it is God's nature to care for us now & in eternity, then surely we can leave the details of that life to such a loving, all-encompassing God.  Letting God take care of the details is part of what having faith is all about.  Jesus invites us to a new level of faith—our letting go of our illusions about the next life & trusting that the God to whom we turn our will & our lives is a loving God, one who cares for us enough that this totally new existence will be more than we can ask or imagine.

      So, if we're not going to sit around drawing architect's sketches for dwellings in heaven, what on earth are we to do with our lives here on earth?  Jesus says pretty consistently:  live it!  Live it to the fullest; share it with others; don't give up the faith! 

      In today's 2^nd lesson from the epistle to the church at Thessalonika, a disciple of Paul's assures the Christians there that Jesus' return (what they called "the day of the Lord") had not yet come but that they were chosen by God to be the first fruits for salvation.  Although their sanctification (which means their being made holy) is the work of the Holy Spirit & not their own doing, they are called to stand firm & hold fast to the Gospel they had received, day by day living into them & sharing them with others.  Those who had expected Christ's immediate return were getting discouraged, & the epistle writer wanted to encourage them to continue their work in building up their Church for Christ's glory.

      Certainly we at Hope can take comfort in & gain strength from all the gifts which we have received from the Spirit which we often neglect to acknowledge.  We do not have the persecutions & tribulations which faced the early Christians, so we aren't challenged as radically to be ever-vigilant in tending our own faith journey & sharing it with others.  That's one of the blessings of the United Thank Offering about which we have a page in our pew bulletin today & for which we will have a semi-annual ingathering next Sunday.  If we keep our blue boxes close to us & drop a few coins in as we give thanks for daily blessings from God throughout each 6 months, our coins accumulate.  Joined with those of others here, throughout the diocese & eventually the whole Church, our offerings can make a marked difference to outreach ministries throughout the Church.  Please give generously next Sunday & then start over with an empty Blue Box giving thanks daily.  Before long, you'll have established an attitude of gratitude which will spill out into the rest of your life.

      At this time of making a commitment to the budget of Hope for 2008, it is important to ask ourselves what the gifts which God has given us are really for.  If they're just to transfer money from you to the church, it's a transaction, but it's not necessarily a gift.  When we share a gift, it's an investment in another's personhood, &, in this case, in the personal integrity of Hope Episcopal Church.  When we give of our gifts to Hope—whether they be gifts of our treasure or of our time & talents—we are really connecting ourselves to our community, making Hope's future matter in our own lives & our lives matter in Hope's life.  In so doing, we invest in the future.

      Similarly, when we stand up with Jessica & Jennifer as we will do in a few minutes, affirming our support of their baptism, we commit to allowing God's Spirit to be active in our lives, not just individually but also as part of the larger community we call Hope.  Once again this week, I ask you to pledge to fulfill these baptismal promises along with those being baptized & their family, so that we as a parish community can do infinitely more than we could ask or imagine.  Hallelujah!  Amen!