10 November 2013

“Do you have to eat, or get your hair cut, in heaven?”
Luke 20:27-38 / Job 19:23-27a
OT 32C
10 November 2013


It’s been said that a good teacher encourages her students to ask questions. A good teacher wants to be sure that his students are engaged with what’s being presented, that they aren’t just sitting back and letting it wash all over them. A good teacher wants to have give and take, back and forth, with her class, to broaden the whole experience of learning. “There are no ridiculous questions,” we’ve all been told; in many different types of classrooms, and many different situations, we’ve all been asked to ask. It’s a good thought, a noble thought, an optimistic thought, “ask away, about anything, and we’ll talk about it.”
But the reality behind that statement is, well, different. Because we know that there is such a thing as a ridiculous question.
Sometimes the question shows that the one asking it really hasn’t been paying attention at all: “Could you go over that one more time, please?” even after it has been gone over, in excruciating detail, for the past half hour.
Sometimes the question is meant to forestall the inevitable – a test, some work, something that must be done that the one asking the question doesn’t want to do at all. “So, what you’re saying is, you’d like the leaves raked, into a pile? Could you tell me how you want it done, again?”
And sometimes, the question is asked to make the teacher or the one being asked the question, look stupid, to trip them up, to embarrass them. The press is quite good at asking these kind of questions. So, too, are some confirmation students.
And, coincidentally, so are the Sadducees in today’s Gospel reading.
Now, on the surface, their question looks innocent enough. They were just being good Bible scholars and asked Jesus, a rabbi, a teacher, a question about a law of Moses that appears in the Hebrew Bible. Deuteronomy 25 verses 5 and 6, to be exact:

If brothers are living together and one of them dies without a son, his widow must not marry outside the family. Her husband’s brother shall take her and marry her and fulfill the duty of a brother-in-law to her. The first son she bears shall carry on the name of the dead brother so that his name will not be blotted out from Israel.

This practice was known as Levirite marriage, and although it may sound strange to twenty-first century ears, if we think about it, we can understand why it would have been practiced, in a time and place where agriculture was the main way of making a living, and men alone determined the course of history. To inherit the family land, to keep wealth from being concentrated in just a few families, there had to be a male son born to the dead father, and this was a way that a man could live on even if he left no natural children, he could still have left an inheritance for the future, through his brother.
So the question the Sadducees asked Jesus reflected a practice of Israel, a law of Moses.
A little far-fetched, perhaps … seven brothers, all marrying the same woman, all dying … it sounds more like the plot of a modern mystery novel rather than a Biblical story … and you’ve got to believe that those brothers must not have been too smart … after the second or third brother died, wouldn’t you think that the rest of the brothers would say, “forget this, I’m out of here, she’s got to be bad luck, a jinx, or something!” But our text doesn’t reflect any of this kind of a plot … the question is asked … seven brothers, each marrying the widow, in turn, each dying, in turn …
… so, Jesus,

… in the resurrection, therefore, whose wife will the woman be? For the seven had married her.

But there’s more to this question than just the words here.
And where we get a clue of this, is in the first words of our reading:

Some Sadducees, those who say there is no resurrection …

And there it is. A seemingly innocent question about an obscure part of the law of Moses, a little farfetched, yes … becomes something more. It’s a trap, a stealth question, if you will … it looks innocent enough on the surface, but then it burrows along into the one being asked, until it explodes KA-BOOM and makes the one being asked the question look like a fool.
You see, the Sadducees, even though they were asking about the resurrection, didn’t believe in it for one minute. They … the Sadducees… along with the Pharisees, were part of the Jewish leadership of Jesus’ time … but unlike the Pharisees, the Sadducees believed that this life, here on earth, here and now, was it. Period.
There was and is nothing more than this … imagine there’s no heaven … no hell below us … the Sadducees would have really liked that song by John Lennon. Religion was to serve only the here and now; since there’s nothing more than this, the Sadducees thought, we need the rules and laws of religion to be exactly and precisely followed.
So this question they asked Jesus was designed to make him look dumb … the most far-fetched scenario put forth, seven brothers, all leaving the same widow … so when they’re raised, Jesus, who’s wife is she gonna be? Huh? Huh?
But Jesus was no sap, he wasn’t taken in by this seemingly innocent, but ridiculous question.
He answered it straight out: marriage, Levirite marriage, any kind of marriage; that is for this time, here and now. In the resurrection things will not be like they are here on earth, they will be different. People won’t marry to ensure inheritance in the resurrection. So much, Sadducees, for your ridiculous question.
But Jesus didn’t stop there, he continued: and by the way, Sadducees, there is most certainly a resurrection, because God says there is … not just in what God says, but in what God does and who God is … our God isn’t a God of the dead, people created for just this life, and no future … NO … our God is a God of the living … when my God says “I AM the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob” … this means that these our forebears live still, as will all the children of the resurrection.
Jesus wasn’t willing to give up one bit on the resurrection. The scribes present, who may well have been Pharisees, people who believed in the resurrection, congratulated Jesus on his answer.
But Jesus needed no cheering section for his answer. He trusted in it completely … indeed, he himself lived it into visible truth, when he was raised from the dead, and this whole business of Christianity, a faith that centers on the resurrection, was born ... Easter became the focal point of our faith … “I know that my Redeemer lives” became our theme song … and “death is not the end” became our hope and our trust.
For what Jesus came to us to do for us, was abolish death forever.
It’s the only truly unique thing about Christianity, after all … that we worship a God who became human, died, but did not stay dead … he rose from the dead.
Other religions have buildings and festivals and nice art to look at, they sing and pray and praise their god or gods. Other organizations get together over food and drink and have a good time. Other service groups help people, by bringing them food, and clothing, or health care.
But only Christianity claims that death is not the end, that we will be raised from the dead and inherit eternal life, because our Lord has done it already.
And that’s not an idle claim.
Because we are surrounded by death.
Every law of nature, every thing we look at, touch with our hands, see with our eyes, says that things don’t last forever … and once something is dead, it stays dead. You can’t resuscitate a dead dog, or a dead bat, or a dead leaf … or even bring back that dead shrub in the yard, no matter how hard we try, and how much mulch and fertilizer we put on it, dead is dead.
And so, as I naturally follow that kind of thinking, it must be the same with the people I care about, who have died. Great grandma and grandma and dad and mom, Damian and Gertrude, Vivian and Matt, Esther and Louie and Dollie, they are all dead, all gone, forever.
Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, it’s the way it looks, so that’s got to be the way it is, right?
Yet Jesus’ words, his life, his death, his resurrection, say something else to me. They make me ask another question … could what he’s saying be true? My heart wants to know … will I see my dead relatives and friends again? And is there something more for me than just getting balder and greyer and paunchier and older, until I too end up, ashes and dust?
I want to hear. I want to know.
But here’s those crazy Saduccees again. And they don’t care about my question. All they care about is, making religion serve them and make them look good, right here, right now.
They’ll put something nice together, a slick religious package. They might have a catchy name and logo … they will separate themselves from other people, distinguish themselves as being so much better than the other religious packages. They will decide who is holy, and who isn’t. They will make walls between themselves and others, and build their own little empire … and they’ll try to sell it to me, make me buy into it, to make me feel better, to make me forget about my gnawing question.
But, you know what, I don’t want any part of it.
You see, if that’s all religion is … coming up with ridiculous questions, labeling folks as “in” or “out,” based on their politics or their lifestyle or their background, making more rules and erecting walls between people … well, you can just forget it, as far as I’m concerned. I’ll find something else to occupy my time. If all religion does is nitpick over minute details, or just plain criticize people, separating, dividing, being one big negative to the world … we’re the church of people not like that … we’re the church of this alone …well, I’ve seen enough of that kind of behavior lately, and I don’t want to see any more.
No … the main thing we must be centered on … we who in Jesus are called to be “children of the resurrection” … is the resurrection.
We are not centered on some doctrinally pure, pristine religion that sets traps and builds walls and separates itself from “the unpure.” That’s what the Sadducees were aiming at. And there was sure a movement with a future and an appeal to others … try finding the local congregation of Sadducees in your Google Search.
No … in a world that screams and bleeds death … death is what we see, death is what we hear, sometimes death is all we feel in us … in this world … we are called to follow a leader who is The Resurrection and the Life. We are called to set everything else aside, all our assumptions, all our prejudices, indeed all that we have … so that we may be totally taken up in this Word, and then, be sent out to bring this Word of Life to others.
For this is the only Word, the only answer that will make the pain in my heart, and your heart, be healed. We miss our loved ones who have died and so want to be with them again. And only the God who promises resurrection … only our Lord Jesus Christ … gives that promise to us … in words we can hear … in water we can feel …. in bread and wine we can taste and touch and take into our very bodies … in an open and welcoming community he creates, a community of sinners, to be sure, but we are also claimed as his saints … you and me … so that our words may echo Job’s words,

I know that my Redeemer lives, and that at the last he will stand upon the earth, and after my skin has been thus destroyed, then in my flesh I shall see God.

How sad, you see, to be a Sadducee. Only seeking pristine, pure … unappealing, DEAD religion. Well, they can have it.
How much better to be called into the life of faith in Jesus … a messy faith, to be sure, as we go out and bring that Word to people in all the pain and sorrow and struggle of life … but it is the only Word, the only faith which gives real hope, real comfort … a real Word of forgiveness … of healing … of a future with our God and those we love forever.
Amen.