This week's sermon

Don’t mess with Jesus

        If this wasn’t church, I would use another word for ‘mess’. (I’ll give you a moment to imagine what it might be!)

        In today’s gospel, some Sadducees (who did not believe in the resurrection) come to mess with and try to trip us Jesus.

        You can always remember the name of those Jewish officials who didn’t believe in the resurrection by remembering that that’s ‘sad you see’. (I know I’ve told you that before, but I couldn’t resist.)

        They want to rope Jesus into not declaring the resurrection with a pretty complicated story.

        In Mosaic law, if a man dies and leaves his wife but no children, one of the man’s brothers must marry her.

        That was because women were essentially non-persons—they needed a husband or a son to support them.

        In the Sadducees’ tale, the man who had died had seven brothers. Each of them, in turn, marry the widow and each of them, in turn, dies, leaving her childless. Then she dies.

        Either the woman or the brothers had some pretty bad ‘karma’!

        But in the next life, they ask Jesus, who will the woman be married to?

        But you shouldn’t ‘mess’ with Jesus.

        He answers their inquiry without hesitation.

        Listen to what he says: “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 of the dead neither marry nor or given in marriage. Indeed they cannot die anymore because they are like angels and are children of God, being children of the resurrection.”

        And to add insult to injury, Jesus himself quotes Moses.

        “And the fact that the dead are raised,” Jesus goes on, “Moses himself showed, in the story about the burning bush, where he speaks to 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.”

        It’s not in today’s gospel, but the next two verses of Luke say: “Some of the teachers of the law responded, ‘Well said, teacher.’ And no one dared to ask him any more questions.”

        So, don’t you dare try to mess with or trick or out-smart Jesus!

        On a personal note—and one I hope you’ll reflect on—I’m a bit of an agnostic when it comes to the Resurrection.

        I must admit, I don’t know what I think about that part of our system of belief and creed.

        I have a priest friend who is on my zoom meeting every Tuesday morning who is as confident as all get out about the resurrection. Interestingly, he’s Jewish and converted to Christianity, but he obviously isn’t a Sadducee.

        In the hundred or more times I’ve sat next to death beds, I’ve been assaulted by the patient’s family members about the resurrection.

        I usually halt and stumble about verbally before saying, “I leave that up to God.”

        And I do leave that up to God.

        It is my hope to live a life ‘worthy’ of resurrection, if that is what is in store for me.

        I’m much more fascinated with ‘this side’ of death than with the ‘other side’.

        Feel free to report me to the Bishop—wouldn’t be the first time, for a variety of reasons—but I stand by what I think….I’ll leave that up to God.

        I won’t ask you what you believe about the resurrection, but it is helpful to dwell on it and ponder it.

        I’ll bring you to that moment of pondering by remembering the last prayer of the burial service.

        And these words are said by the priest, facing the body or the urn:

        “Into your hands, O merciful Savior, we commend you servant. Acknowledge, we humbly beseech you, a sheep of your own fold, a lamb of your own flock, a sinner of you own redeeming. Receive him/her into the arms of your mercy, into the blessed rest of everlasting peach, and into the glorious company of the saints of light. Amen

        Ponder, my friends, ponder…..