Sermon, Proper 27C, Luke 20:27-38

For the past several months we have been on a journey. Where is that journey taking us? It's taking us to Jerusalem. We have been heading this way for what seems like forever now. Well, here we are.

The triumphal entry (the donkey, the palms, All glory laud and honor, the rocks and stones) was just last chapter. We've moved from pastoral concerns and cares in the surrounding countryside into Jesus' ministry in Jerusalem. For Luke, Jerusalem is the central location of the story: everything leads up to, culminates at, and continues on from, that city. Consequently, Jesus becomes more intentional, more focused, more driven and faces more confrontations.

In this section, Jesus is faced with three questions: that of his authority, that of monetary tributes, and that of resurrection. These questions were posed by the Sadducees. Outside Jerusalem, Jesus' opponents were the Pharisees. In Jerusalem, at the temple where he was teaching, he's now being opposed by the Sadducees, the temple priests. Jesus is an outsider, and they want nothing to do with him; and they certainly don't want him upsetting the delicate balance of power.

Just so you know, Judaism wasn't monolithic; there were different sects within the religion that held to very different beliefs. The Pharisees, for all the run-ins that they had with Jesus, did have a resurrection theology. The Sadducees did not. Their question about the resurrection, however, isn't actually about resurrection. Their question is one of power and control. It's an attempt to force Jesus into a box as well as, perhaps, divide the audience.

Most of the time, when you ask a question, you hope to learn something, to gain a new understanding, or to clarify a confusing issue.

Why did you paint the doors red?
Are you going to paint the whole church white?
Do you think we should get red or green carpet?

Other times, however, we ask questions not to learn anything, but to corner our opposition, label them and attack them.

Don't you think it's wrong to kill unborn children?
Are you saying we should let terrorists rule our country?
Why do you support illegal immigration?

These are the questions Jesus faces. By what authority do you do these things? Is it lawful to give tribute to Caesar? Whose wife will this woman be?

These questions, like the others I used as examples, have no basis in information. The people asking them have not intention of entering into a reasoned debate or of even considering how a different answer than their own might be valid. When faced with that attitude we often react to the attitude, not the question.

"How can you be so unreasonable?"
"How can you be so liberal?"

But Jesus doesn't react, he simply answers the question.

And the question posted today is this: Whose wife will the woman be in the resurrection?

There are a couple of ways I could go here, but let me focus on resurrection and what Jesus says about that. First of all, the Sadducees are missing the point. You can't apply the rules and expectations of this world to that of the resurrection. We will be like angels and are children of God. It is a scene so different from anything we know that it is almost unimaginable. No wonder Isaiah and Ezekiel and John had a hard time explaining their visions.

Second, in the resurrection we are changed. We don't' simply become immortal beings with our same bodily characteristics. We are changed, both physically and spiritually. We who are dead will become alive.

I talked about the end of the world in our last two study sessions. And in those discussions I talked about the differences between "Left Behind" and "Narnia." This was one of the differences. In Narnia, people die. In Narnia, Aslan dies. Death is part of the equation, but so is resurrection. Everyone eventually dies and everyone is ultimately changed.

In "Left Behind," however, death is an abomination. Death is to be feared. Which is why the "Really True Christians" don't experience death; they simply are whisked away at the Rapture to live happily ever after forever. It's immortality without change. In short, there is no death and there is no resurrection.

To experience resurrection is to experience death. We aren't immortal. Our souls aren't immortal. But we ARE resurrected into new life. God enables the dead to live.

Live how? you might ask. I don't know. Only God knows. We do know that God is the God of the living; the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, the Saints and you and me. We aren't immortal. We won't be sucked up into heaven by some great rapture vacuum cleaner. We will die. But we also know that, like Job proclaimed, our Redeemer lives and we will live again in resurrected form. And that is something to celebrate.

Amen.