Proper 27C


Teacher,
"In the resurrection, therefore, whose wife will the woman be?"

Why do they need to know whose wife this poor woman will be?
Hasn't she gone through enough hassle already?
Seven husbands???
Give the poor woman a break!

Jesus was such a storyteller
its not often we hear him going through the paces with 
legal logistical argumentative proofs.
However, if you remember your ancient Greek rhetoric at all
(which I totally understand if you don't...)
you'll notice what the Sadducees are doing 
and how Jesus responds in kind.

The Sadducees who speak to Jesus
are using a case study to prove that there is no resurrection.
The Sadducees were a group who didn't believe in resurrection,
they didn't believe in an afterlife.
Yet, they know Jesus does believe in resurrection,
he keeps teaching and preaching about the kingdom of God.
So they decide to take him on in some old style debating. 
They offer a proof that there can be no resurrection.
And Jesus comes right back at them with a proof,
using their same source of authority, Moses,
that resurrection is real. 

It goes like this:
The Sadducees say, Moses wrote in the law
that if a man dies while leaving a wife but no children,
then the man's brother must marry the wife and have a child for the man,
to carry on the family line. 
However, a woman can only have one husband,
therefore if a situation in which a woman goes through multiple husbands
without any children exists,
then there cannot be resurrection, because then she would have multiple husbands
which she cannot have.

So Jesus answers back with another Moses story. 
You know the story of Moses and the burning bush, right?
Moses, searching after a supposedly 'lost sheep'
(God loves using lost sheep, lost keys, lost moments to call out to us in our lives...)
anyway, Moses in search of a lost sheep
finds a bush on the mountain which is burning but not being consumed.
As he gets closer to the bush, a voice comes from the flame
which tells him he is standing on holy ground and to take off his sandals
the voice tells him to go back to Egypt, a land in which he is doubly an outcast
and set free the people of the Israelites, who have been in slavery for a couple of generations
When Moses goes, um, who are you?
(as one naturally inquires when talking with a burning bush...)
the voice identifies itself as God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of his people
I AM WHO I AM.
All in the present tense.
Which is what Jesus is referring to.
God identifies himself as the God of people who should be dead, 
but God speaks of them as in the present tense,
as if they were still alive.
Its a subtle play on words.
But one the legalistic detail oriented Sadducees would have appreciated.
Jesus answered their logical proof with his own logical proof,
using the same source of authority, Moses. 

Thankfully, this logical debate is not all we hear from Jesus on this subject.
Jesus speaks very freely, not only in Luke, but in all the Gospel accounts,
about the resurrection,
about the kingdom of God.
He talks about how different the resurrection is,
there is no need for marriage
there is no need for death,
indeed there is life and quite abundantly.

This is one of the most interesting things about our view of the Scriptures
we can see throughout the Bible 
a slow change and progression of understanding about the afterlife
In the beginning of the Jewish tradition 
there wasn't much in the way of understanding about any afterlife
They developed an understanding of Sheol, 
a grey shadowy dark place cut off from everything else,
kind of how present day Catholics understand limbo.
Nothing happens there. 
There is nothing there. 
That was it.
As we move through the scriptures 
and through the centuries of religious and theological debate among the Jewish people
people start to have other ideas about the afterlife
and by the time of Jesus in the first century,
we have some solidified camps,
those who believe in a resurrection and afterlife
and those who don't.

And we can see them theologically struggling to figure this out 
in the passage we have from Luke today. 
Of course, today, we have Jesus.
We have resurrection stories from Jesus
We have teachings from Paul, Peter, John, Luke, Matthew
Christians authors throughout the centuries
all about what the kingdom of heaven is like 
and how resurrection life is different than what we are living now
And
We still don't get it.

It's not something we can give up on though.
The resurrection is a deep matter for the foundations of Christianity
we believe in a risen Christ
Jesus who conquered death in his resurrection.
If we don't believe in resurrection
than we are missing a key foundational piece.
Resurrection is at the heart of our tradition and theology
And it is at the heart of our continuing journey with God.
Without resurrection, we have no hope,
no chance of something different, something better, something new.

It is still going on today, our struggle with resurrection
Our struggle here at St. John's and Grace with resurrection is still continuing on.
We may have celebrated 10 years together
living in the same buildings and doing ministry together
but our lives together are still in need of death and resurrection
in order to become the beloved community we are called to be.
There are issues, anxieties, questions
which need to be set into the light
and reminded of the great Love of God
and the hope we have in resurrection.

Our congregations are still in need of resurrection. 
We have come to this time and place and we need to grow, 
we need to experience spring in the midst of all the current winter. 
We are a resurrection people. 
We need to believe in resurrection, 
not only at the end of our days into the kingdom of God, 
but here and now
breaking into the present
and changing the entire scope of the future.

Without resurrection we are simply on a path of death.
Without God we go through our lives and then they end.
With God, we experience new life, resurrection, 
not only after we die
but here and now.
Each of us experiences our own cycles of death and resurrection
and we can be a part of St. John's and Grace's resurrection
we can give our time in asking others to join our community
we can share our stories of why we love the community we are a part of with others.
The world is full of lonely people, 
they are looking for new life in community
they are looking for resurrection in their own lives,
and we can be a place and a part of that glorious new life.

Where is God working resurrection in your life right now?

In my life, I feel that God is still working on the death part right now.
I have a couple of things I am trying to let die,
in my own life and in my ministry
so that new life can happen.
I am waiting and hoping for resurrection,
even though some of the process is painful. 
I have faith that God is working, even though I don't always see it very well,
and wish sometimes it would happen faster,
even when I am the one holding myself back.

Thankfully, God promises to never leave us alone.
Which doesn't always feel like a promise we want God to keep,
God can be rather pushy 
(and if you need an example of that, read the book of Jonah,
God kept pushing Jonah),
but we know, when God leads us in a new direction
when God is working on and in us,
resurrection is coming. 
A new dawn is arisin'. 
(Like the dawn in the Resurrection window over there)

May we give thanks for all the deaths in our lives,
because they mean new life, new Love
through the work of our never-giving-up, unfailing Loving God.

Amen. 

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