God of the Living

A Sermon from November 10, 2013 - based on Luke 20:27-38.  The audio recording was taken at the Praise and Worship service at Bethany.  

Luke 20:27-38

Some Sadducees, those who say there is no resurrection, came to him and asked him a question, "Teacher, Moses wrote for us that if a man's brother dies, leaving a wife but no children, the man shall marry the widow and raise up children for his brother. Now there were seven brothers; the first married, and died childless; then the second and the third married her, and so in the same way all seven died childless. Finally the woman also died. In the resurrection, therefore, whose wife will the woman be? For the seven had married her."

Jesus said to them, "Those who belong to this age marry and are given in marriage; but those who are considered worthy of a place in that age and in the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage. Indeed they cannot die anymore, because they are like angels and are children of God, being children of the resurrection. And the fact that the dead are raised Moses himself showed, in the story about the bush, where he speaks of the Lord as the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. Now he is God not of the dead, but of the living; for to him all of them are alive."


    Jesus knew that his death was approaching.  He could see the writing on the wall.  After months on the road, Jesus finally arrives in Jerusalem and he immediately begins to stir things up.  His first act upon arrival was to drive out those who were selling things in the temple.  The chief priests and the scribes and the leaders of the people rally together to try and find away to kill Jesus.  The stage is set for the trial and the cross.  His passion has already begun.  A trap is being set for Jesus.  And the Pharisees and scribes seem to be closing in.  In wave after wave of clever arguments,  these religious leaders try to catch Jesus off guard while he is teaching in the temple.  They try to trap him in his own words.  And today it’s the Sadducees turn. 
    We know very little about the Sadducees historically.  They left no writings for us to study, so all we have is furnished by other historians and the brief encounters we have in the Gospels and the book of Acts.  What we do know is that the Sadducees were a wealthy group of aristocrats who operated the Temple and wielded their power as religious leaders.  They led comfortable lives.  They did not believe in the resurrection.  And why would they?  They had it made on earth so why should they look for what’s next?  And it is on this topic that they try to snare Jesus. 
    The Sadducees approach Jesus with a rather long story about a woman and seven brothers.  They are wondering how exactly it’s all going to work out in the resurrection.   What we have is a rather ridiculous story of a group of brothers with extremely bad luck and a worn out woman who outlives all of them.  How is this suppose to work out Jesus?  It’s a twisted spin on modern on-line dating sites if you will.  Matched-up by Moses dot com - if your husband dies, we’ll hook you up with your brother-in-law.  No questions asked.  This scenario almost needs a flow chart.  Jesus, she married all seven, that’s how the system works, that’s what Moses taught us - how is this going to pan out in the resurrection?
    The Sadducees, who do not believe in the resurrection, have the trap set.  For them the key lies in a rather complicated rule called levirate marriage.  This rule focuses on making sure their is an heir to keep the family land in the family.  The family legacy is held up by keeping the family name alive.  If a man dies with no heir, his wife is to marry his brother, thus ensuring the family name continues.  For the Sadducees, that’s the closest to the after life as you’re going to get.  Death has the final word.  Death always wins.  This life is all we get.  The afterlife is meaningless.  It’s all about what happens now.  So what happens Jesus?  How does this shake out?
    It’s a cold and calculated question.  They have Moses to back them up.  Jesus looks caught for sure.  But he knows there is a deeper truth about Moses.  He knows that he Sadducees left part of the story out.  They forgot the moment at the burning bush.    So Jesus will tell the rest of the story. 
    For at the bush death looked like it was winning.  The people cried out in Egypt, longing for release.  Longing for their promised land.  Longing for life.  Death had moved among them for too long, four hundred years, and God had heard the cries.  And so it was Moses at the bush, caught while tending sheep, who heard the call from God.  It was Moses who was unsure; “Who am I to go back to Egypt?  Who am I to haggle with Pharaoh?  And who I am suppose to tell them who send me?”  All of this in the face of fear and death for Moses.  But God spoke from the bush.  And God spoke life.
    “I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob,” God says at the bush.  God spoke of the ancestors as if they were living, for they were indeed living in the eyes of God.  God speaks life at the bush.  God who sets this world into being and is creator of all time - “I am who I am, I am who I was, I will be who I will be” - speaks life in the face of death.  And this is what Jesus tells the Sadducees.  Jesus dismisses the issue of marriage, the false trap set by those who only sought to destroy him.  Jesus dismisses the hollow plot and speaks life in the face of death.  “God is not God of the dead, but of the living.”
    And this is good news for us today.  For we journey in the midst of world that seems to spin out of control with the news of death.  And here I move into the realm of metaphor.  I am speaking here of death as a social reality.  Folks can have a heart beat and a pulse, can be physically alive, and yet dead to the world.  To be denied the gifts of community is to be denied life.  The poor, the lame, the blind, the outcast, the oppressed, those to whom Jesus ministered, are the socially dead, cut off from the benefits of life in the community.  Death as a social reality runs rampant in our midst.  We are stilling feeling the shock waves of a government shut-down where privileged leaders debated and delayed at the expense of the poor and needy.  We up to our necks in an argument over healthcare that ignores the most vulnerable in our society.  We are hearing rumors and stories of a football team that supported racist and bullying actions by a teammate.  Make no mistake friends.  Death is all around us where we see life taken away from our brothers and sisters.  All this talk of death seems to snuff out the fire at the bush, and silence the words of God to Moses.  Death seems to close around us like the cold stone of a tomb, fading the light of hope in our lives.  But the God who spoke at the bush also speaks at the tomb. 
    It was Mary, full of tears and questions, who went to the tomb to discover it empty.  The women had gone to the tomb to anoint the body of Jesus with spices, as was their custom, but they were met by emptiness, death all over again.  But two messengers had a different word; “Why do you look for the living among the dead?  He is not here, but has been raised.”  At the tomb, God continues to turn death into life.  At the tomb God enters into our lives and draws us back from the clutches of death, breathing new life into us who grow weary in the face of death. 
    It is in the face of death that God does God’s work.  It is in this world, so over run by death, that Jesus Christ did his work and ministry.  In the face of death Jesus taught, healed, and brought new life.  And the tomb was not the end of the road, but the beginning.  The beginning of a new way of life for those who follow Jesus.  The beginning of new life for you and me here and now. 
    To a world trapped under the weight of death, we who follow Jesus bear the word of new life for all people.  We are witnesses to the one who defeated the power of death once and for all.  We share the good news of the living God who entered into our reality of death and transformed our hopelessness into new life.  God speaks life in the face of death here and now in our lives. 
    The living God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob moves among us now.  Our living God gives us nourishment for parched relationships, providing the strength to even burn the midnight oil in an effort to mend strained and broken relationships - reminding us what it means to love. 
    Our living God, who came into our broken world through Jesus, moves among us now, teaching us how to confront the reality of death in out midst.  Last week our youth collected canned goods in a neighborhood of our community.  This act was a living testament to God who says no to the reality of death we witness in the hunger of others.  Stirred up by the power of Christ, our youth learned that we can confront the power of death with the blessings we receive as the sons and daughters of God.  In this event we are witnesses once again to the power of our living God. 
    We have a God of life, not of death.  May the living God of Abraham, and the ancestors, the living God present in Jesus, the living God who moves in us through the power of the Spirit be with you on the journey.