Sermon from the 25th Sunday after Pentecost Luke 20:27-38

Sermon:

Text: Luke 20:27-38

Grace and Peace to you from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ who is our redeemer who lives.

            This is a rather complicated text. Who are the Sadducees? Why don’t they believe in the resurrection? Why are they asking about this strange marriage situation? What does Jesus’ answer have to do with our marriages and other relationships? What does it mean to have a God of the living and not the dead?

            The Sadducees really only show up in this one section of Luke, but they were a rather large group, competing with the Pharisees for control of the temple. They for the most part disappear after the Jewish Revolt of 70 AD and the connected destruction of the temple at that time. They disagree with the Pharisees on many issues, but a large one is the concept of resurrection. Resurrection also has a place in Jewish Theology, where the Pharisees believed it would occur, and Jesus agreed with them, but the Sadducees did not. They only read the Torah, the first five books, and in their interpretation of those did not see resurrection as a thing. They are set on getting rid of Jesus, but also to discredit the Pharisee’s at the same time.

Just before our text for today at the very end of Chapter 19 we find the story of Jesus cleansing the temple, throwing out all the money changers and other people that both the Pharisees and the Sadducees approved of, and our chapter today is one story after another of the Pharisees attempting to get Jesus to say something that they can use to convict him and get him killed. After the Pharisees have tried this for awhile the Sadducees show up and ask Jesus their question, trying to both get Jesus to say something incriminating, but also to have him shoot down the Pharisee’s reading of scripture.

Their question revolves around a biblical law called the Law of Levirate marriage, which worked to make sure that male lineages continued. If a man died childless, his wife would marry his brother and the first-born would be considered his. Now, the situation that the Sadducees give is almost laughable, something like this occurring is out of consideration. And to them the idea that this one woman would be married to all seven of these men at the same time makes them assume that then also the concept of resurrection is also just as laughable.

            So, they are all just standing there grinning at one another thinking, Ha! We got him. He has to either agree with us that resurrection is laughable, or state that this immoral situation of one woman being married to 7 men is acceptable.

            And Jesus pretty much says, you have no idea what resurrection means. And I think sometimes we also are unclear on the subject. The Sadducees are working under the assumption that resurrection is the same thing as immortality, living forever, everything just as it is right now. But, Jesus says that it’s not that way. Resurrection is different from immortality. The way things are now is not how things are in the resurrection. Jesus says that concepts of marriage don’t translate to how things will be. And then he just refuses to actually answer their question. He doesn't state in any way who she would be married to, doesn't really state what marriage is going to be.

            Which is frightening to a lot of us, especially those of you who are very happily married, or who were and a spouse has died. Is Jesus saying that you won’t see each other in the resurrection? Does all the work we put into our marriage here mean nothing?

            But, that’s not Jesus concern here. We have to try really hard to remember that Jesus is not really answering a question about marriage, but a question about the resurrection. Jesus does not say that marriage will be in any one form in the resurrection, but he does say it will be different, just like everything else will be different, and frankly we can’t know what it will be like until we are there. But, it’s not like now, there is not going to be a heavenly Elk Point with a heavenly Jefferson 9 heaven miles away. And to dwell on that distracts from Jesus’ true point in his answer to the Sadducees.

            The resurrection is real.

            The Sadducees start their question by using the typical beginning to a question you would ask a rabbi. Teacher, Moses wrote for us, Jesus responds in a typical manner, he argues by also quoting from the Torah. He recalls the story of Moses at the burning bush. Moses asks God in the bush, who are you. To which God responds, I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. Jesus says, By Moses’ time Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are dead, so for God to still be their God, since it says is the God of, not was the God of they must therefore be alive. And if they are not alive on earth, they must be alive in the resurrection.

           

            What’s important in Jesus’ answer is not anything about how marriage may or not work in the resurrection, but that God is God of the Living. The living here, you, me, your neighbors, and your friends, and those living in the resurrection, all those who we remembered last week in lighting candles, and every day in our hearts. God promises that all of these are in the resurrection, the resurrection that is enacted and begun in Christ’s death and rising. An event that Jesus knows is mere weeks away as he answers their question.

            We can’t know what our current relationships will be like in the resurrection, but we know that whatever form they take, they will be greater, and being in Christ, they will be indestructible. In Christ we will be with those we love, and Christ will be with us all.

            Of course we still dread death, we will be concerned about the state of our loved ones who have died, but in Christ they live. In Christ we live.

            God of the living gives us meaning here as well, since we are loved by the god of the living, both here and in the resurrection, we can give voice to those who suffer, that God loves them, we can walk with those who struggle, saying that God struggles with them, we can be Christ for the world, caring for the poor, the hungry, the sick, because Christ was Christ for us, giving us life when we were dead.

            We can walk in this world, wracked by death, because we know that our redeemer lives and in him we live.

            Amen.