God’s Present Tense Promise
2016-11-06-YearC-All Saints
That poor woman!
Married seven times, widowed seven times, and 6 times having to marry the brother of
her husband! I mean, my brother-in-law is a fine person, but… And then the question, “Whose
wife will the woman be in the resurrection?” Who will she belong to then? Whose property will
she be at that point? Really, still property in a patriarchal culture for all of eternity?
Of course this isn’t an actual situation, and far from being an actual situation, it is a
scenario created from a provision of Jewish law that has been pushed to an absurd and ridiculous
length, with the purpose of embarrassing Jesus.
The law was outlined in Deuteronomy 25, “When brothers reside together, and one of
them dies and has no son, the wife of the deceased shall not be married outside the family to a
stranger. Her husband's brother shall go in to her, taking her in marriage, and performing the
duty of a husband's brother to her, and the firstborn whom she bears shall succeed to the name of
the deceased brother, so that his name may not be blotted out of Israel.” The primary goal of the
law was to preserve patrilineal descent. A secondary goal may have been to provide for the
safety and security of the woman.
The Sadducees hope to embarrass Jesus with this absurd question because they don’t
actually believe in the resurrection. Sadducees were a group of religious leaders who came into
their role through their family connections. Likely from the original temple priests in the line of
Zadok, they had wealth, power and prestige. They served in the temple in Jerusalem, and only
there. There were tensions between the Pharisees and Sadducees. Pharisees served as religious
leaders in Jerusalem, but also in outlying communities. They didn’t have the same level of
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wealth and power. And the two groups didn’t agree on the same set of religious understandings.
Sadducees only accepted the Torah as normative. The first five books of the Hebrew Bible, what
they considered to be the words of Moses, guided them. Not the oral tradition, not the words of
the prophets, not the psalms. And in the first five books of Torah, there is no explicit reference to
the resurrection.
The Pharisees, on the other hand, accepted the oral tradition of the Torah, the writings of
the prophets and the Psalms and they believed that there was resurrection.
So, Jesus finds himself in the midst of one of the big religious debates of the day. He
finds himself between a narrow reading of scripture and a more broadly interpreted reading of
scripture. He finds himself between a rock and a hard place, in other words.
The Sadducees hope to trick him into speaking against the Torah and against the word of
Moses.
But, as he has shown many times before, Jesus is not so easily tricked.
His answer does two things.
First, he rejects the premise that they present—the premise that says life in the next age is
guided by the same rules as life in this age. Not so. Those who die will neither marry nor be
given in marriage. Marriage and the result of marriage—heirs and continuation of the family
name and legacy—those things are of no importance to those who are children of God and
children of the resurrection.
Second, he offers his own biblical interpretation on the topic of resurrection, finding in
the story of Moses and the burning bush, an implicit promise of the resurrection. God says to
Moses, ‘I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of
Jacob.” Jesus’ point is that God is not saying, once upon a time I was the God of Abraham, Isaac
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and Jacob. God doesn’t say that God remembers Abraham, Isaac and Jacob with great fondness
and occasionally remembers them by looking at their pictures in his heavenly photo album. God
speaks of his relationship to these patriarchs who preceded Moses in the present tense. Even
though the time of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob on earth in this life is past, God’s promise to them
and for them continues in the present and into the future. God is their God, God will always be
their God. God’s promise is for all of God’s people, in all places, through all of time.
He polishes off the Sadducees’ argument by telling them that, “God is not a God of the
dead, but a God of the living, for all live to God.
His argument is so persuasive that the verses that follow our reading have the scribes
complimenting Jesus, “Teacher, you have spoken well.”
This dicey interaction between Jesus and the Sadducees is only one of several that have
been ramping up the tension between Jesus and the Jewish leadership. Jesus has finally arrived in
Jerusalem, made his triumphal entry with his disciples and was welcomed by the crowds waving
their palm branches. In short order he makes his way to the temple, drives out the merchants and
overturns the tables, and then settles in to teach every day. Luke tells us that the “…chief priests,
scribes and leaders of the people were looking for a way to kill him; but they did not find
anything they could do, for all the people were spellbound by what they heard.”
Just before our passage, the Jewish leaders have questioned his authority. Jesus told the
provocative and even incendiary parable of the wicked tenants who kill the heir of the
landowner. They seek to trap him with a question about paying taxes, and now the Sadducees
have this tricky question. The Jewish leadership is pushing Jesus toward a future that leads
finally to the cross, and Jesus is not backing down.
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Jesus’ way forward leads inevitably to his humiliating death on the cross at the hands of
the wealthy and powerful elite, and the Roman Empire.
But he knows, and we know, that his death was not God’s final word. God raised Jesus
from the dead so that God’s promise might continue for all of God’s people in the present tense.
When Jesus answers the Sadducees question, he talks about a distinction between this age
and that age. “Those who belong to this age… Those who are worthy of a place in that age…”
We are all too aware, that for us, there is a clear line between this age and that age, between this
life and the next, between our life on earth and our promised future life with God. Death brings
us each a constant reminder that for us, that line is clearly and distinctly drawn. I was with my
father when he died, and it was very clear. One moment he was with us, the next he was not. His
body was still there. He looked the same. But the particular force that had animated him for 74
years was no longer present.
But what I hear in our passage today, in Jesus’ particular explanation of God’s words to
Moses, is that the distinction that is so clear for us between this age and that age is not a
distinction that exists for God. We belong to God, in this age and in the next. Our death is not the
end of our relationship with God. God is our God now and always. That’s true for those we love
who we have lost, including Don and Loren, Jean, Pete and Denny. It’s true for each of us. It’s
true for Officer Martin and Sargent Biminio. It’s true for all God’s people who have gone before
us and who now rest in God’s eternal care.
We belong to God. We are God’s own. And that is a present tense promise—true for each
of us, right now, right here.
It’s a promise we can hold to, even as we struggle with a world in which it seems like the
only response is a violent response. It’s a promise that sustains us, even when it seems like civil
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words and care for our neighbor have disappeared. It’s a promise that provides a foundation for
us to stand on, when it seems everything else is uncertain. And it’s a promise we are called to
share with others. It’s a promise we are called to give voice to in a world that seems to be facing
a shortage of hope. It’s a promise that, as people of faith, we can use to tell others that they
matter, that they belong, that they have a place in this world—even as they worry they don’t,
even as they feel everything they have been certain of is now uncertain.
On the Festival of All Saints, we celebrate that God is a God not of the dead, but of the
living; for to God, all of them are alive. God’s love is not bound by the practical realities of time
and space.
We saw that truth brought to life last week as six of our members claimed for themselves
the promise they received as infants. We will see it again in the water of this font when we
celebrate four baptisms next weekend.4! Katie, Nathan, Ruth and Lisa will be washed with the
water of God’s promise and marked with the cross of Christ forever—for this life now, for
eternal life with God. I encourage you next week when we celebrate those baptisms, and receive
new members through the Affirmation of Baptism to remember your own baptism, and to
remember the promise that you belong to God, forever.
We also see the truth of God’s present tense promise each week when we celebrate the
sacrament of Holy Communion. Gathering together for this meal, which is a foretaste of the feast
to come, we gather with all of the saints through all of time. The communion rail is the place in
our lives together where the ‘this age/that age” distinction becomes a little less clear. The meal
belongs to God and at the meal the reality of God’s forever presence takes center stage. Today
we come forward to celebrate with all those who have gone before us. With Pete and Denny,
with Loren and Don. And with Jean. I particularly like to think of gathering at the rail with Jean,
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Califf One of the first times she came to church was on Christmas Eve, and she wasn’t able to
come forward so I took her communion. I didn’t think about it, I didn’t ask, I just took it. Jean
was, in some ways, uncertain about her faith, about the church, about God and how it was that
God was present for us. At the same time, she wanted communion, she appreciated it when our
home communion team members or I brought it to her at Mill Pond. She received it with
gratitude and thanksgiving. Even with her questions, she was clearly held in God’s loving
embrace.
We belong to God, and we are alive to God, each one of us, today and forever.
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