November 9 2025 Pentecost 22
Haggai 1.15b-2.9 Psalm 145.1-5, 17-21 2 Thessalonians 2.1-5,13-17 Luke 20.27-40
Our gospel today is the final ‘test question’ for Jesus. Before this passage, the Herodians and the Pharisees, who normally did not ‘get on’ with each other had joined forces to ask Jesus about taxes in an attempt to get him to either upset his audience by appearing to capitulate to Rome, or risk political sedition by appearing to encourage dodging the payment of taxes. Now it is the turn of the Sadducees to try to trip him up, by posing a bizarre hypothetical to see if he would contradict their interpretation of Moses. The Sadducees doubted the concept of resurrection, the restoration of life to the whole person on the last day, so they ask Jesus this curious question marriage beyond the grave.
And if we notice carefully, Jesus does not answer that question, he simply tells them, you have resurrection all wrong, God is God not of the dead, but of the living, for to God all of them are alive. He tells them there is a future and a hope ahead of all of us, regardless of what we have done, spiritually, personally, or institutionally. God sees the possibility of new life, when all we see is death. Jesus places the answer where it belongs, in the context of God’s graceful care for humankind and the cosmos. The dead will live on, God is the God of the living, and we will live on. What the afterlife looks like is unimportant, what matters is God’s fidelity and enduring love. God is alive, yesterday, today, and tomorrow, God is faithful, and we are in God’s hands, and nothing can separate us from the love of God.
But the thing is, the Sadducees are not the only ones who struggle with the concept of life after death. Many of us probably do too, because it just doesn’t ‘make sense’ to our rational minds. Our rational brains keep telling us there are discrepancies between resurrection and the laws of biology and physics. We try to wrap our minds around the idea of the empty tomb, a reanimated body, a hope beyond the grim finality of death, and it leaves us not knowing which way to turn. And Jesus understands that struggle, so he challenges us to ‘stretch ourselves’, to see anew, to see again. He invites us to stop thinking about what’s possible or impossible, because all things are possible for God.
While Jesus tells us, in this passage, some details of what resurrection will look like – no one is ‘owned’ by anyone else, we are all ‘un-attached’ in the afterlife, that really does not tell us much. But it does tell us that resurrection life will be qualitatively different from life as we know it. What we know as life here today – marriage, childbirth, birthdays, retirements, graduations,- will not be part of our eternal life because resurrection life is not an extension of this life, it is something completely different.
But regardless of what we do not know about resurrection, this passage invites us to proclaim with confidence our faith that the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob raised Christ from death and promises to do the same for us too. The conclusion to Jesus’ response to the Sadducees sums up our hope of new life. “Now he is God not of the dead, but of the living, for to him all of them are alive”. We serve the God of the living. But what does that mean for us. Could it mean that God is always making new, making alive, making vibrant. Could it mean that we need to stop hanging on to those things that are dead, or those things that are deadening, or passing away. Could it mean we need to risk evolution, metanoia, growth and change. Are we ‘game’ to ask what ‘new’ or ‘living’ thing is God inviting us to do, or experience, or start, or are we are too afraid to let God do it. Are we ‘game’ to look at exploring how we are being led to new ministries within the parish.
Next week we will all return our ‘Ministry’ forms, where you identify those areas of ministry in this parish you are willing to be involved in. It is where you prayerfully agree to assist with the ministry of this parish by – reading, or providing morning tea, or cleaning, or setting up for services, or assisting with pastoral visiting in the home or at Roslyn Lodge, or serving, or assisting with fundraising activities, or ….. And I could go on for quite a long time, but you have all received your ministry sheets, they have explained what all those roles involve, and you have, hopefully, prayerfully considered what your answers will be. This year, are you ready to not just ‘do what you have always done’, maybe you have discerned a desire, or a want, or a yearning to ‘try something new’. New can be scary. But new can also be exciting and freeing. Can you hold out for the impossible, can you dare to live as Jesus longs for you to live. As children of resurrection.