matter of life and death

Matter of life and death 111013

Haggai 2:4-9   Luke 20:27-38

As we continue to follow Jesus towards Jerusalem, the tension is mounting, and those who are threatened by his message are looking for ways to trap him into saying something damning….sort of like politics in an presidential election year!

There are questions about his authority, questions about taxes, and here a question about resurrection.

Sadducees, like Pharisees, were a sub group of Judaism.  The Sadducees held only to the authority of the Pentateuch —that’s where all that’s to be known about God is to be found, whereas the Pharisees saw God as continually being revealed and at work.  The Pharisees were theological innovators; they added books to the canon, and developed new theology as the culture evolved and changed.   This horrified the Saducees, and they thought that this idea of a general resurrection to life after death was a new fangled idea that was not orthodox.

The idea of resurrection has its genesis, in Judaism at least, in the oppression suffered by the people in the inter=testamental period.   They believed God to be loving and just, but God didn’t seem to be acting as such, so the idea of ultimate justice at some future date, if necessary after death, began to take root.

So they want to know where this Jesus guy stands, if he’s orthodox and ok, or one of those new liberals.

So, they cook up this utterly ridiculous question—posing a hypothetical question that makes a mockery of the idea of resurrection, exposes it as far fetched nonsense.   Much like many of us who’re skeptics do today.   It can’t be proved and it’s unbelievable, so you’re foolish if you believe it.

Jesus, however, not only refutes their narrow theology, he exposes its unimaginative assumption that life in the next world will mirror the conditions in this.  He exposes the injustices of current belief, like women being owned by men and worthless unless they bear children. He’s saying, as one blogger I read said, “ marriage is not of eternal importance.  It does not define you in God’s eyes.” (Dylan’s lectionary blog).   Nor does childbearing.  Nor does gender.

All your prejudices and expectations don’t belong in the new life, in the kin-dom, he says.  Those are all things that current society assumes to keep order and make themselves feel secure.   In God’s realm, all that need is gone, for our deepest security is in God, not in belief systems and social order.

 For the Sadducees, this concept of resurrection of the dead was a deal breaker breaker.  You had to discount that or be a heretic.

Which led me to wonder, is that still the case?  What’s the deal breaker for people today?   You must believe this to be a Christian, you must NOT believe that or you can’t be a Christian?

CS Lewis once wrote, after his wife died, “ You never know how much you believe until its truth or falsehood becomes a matter of life or death to you.”

And pretty soon for Jesus what he believed did become a matter of life and death….and resurrection!

What’s the life and death question upon which YOUR faith stands…what of your faith is that important that you cannot let it go?

For me, lots of so-called Christian beliefs are not life and death….some even seem ridiculous and unprovable.  There isn’t really any way to prove life after death, and what its like, inspite of all the books that have become very popular recently.  But ultimately, for me, that doesn’t matter.  What does matter, and is experientially true, is that Jesus and his way of life is real, not speculative, not untestable or uncertain…….that God is trustworthy, and keeps promises…..and that promise that I cling to is found over and over in scripture and in the worst and best days of my life:   from today’s Haggai reading, as the Jews returned from exile and wondered if they could ever rebuild their lives……a question that is incredibly current for our congregation:

Can this place rise again?  There’s not enough money, there are too few volunteers, there is a lack of leadership resources, bemoan Haggai’s people.  Hmmm.

And God says, Take courage, work, for I am with you.

We draw our very life from the living God, who is present with us, and that won’t stop after we’re dead.  But what matters most to me is how I live my life now, how I draw my life from God, how I live as a “child of the resurrection”. Ultimately, resurrection is about trust in the goodness and presence of God. 

As we move forward into an uncertain future, whether its first time parenting for our baptismal family, or the uncertainty of a difficult diagnosis, or our congregational future,

let us hear God say, take courage, and work, do not be afraid, for I am with you. 

Thanks be to God! Amen.