November 6, 2016
Sojourners UCC, Charlottesville VA
Luke 20: 27-38

²⁷Some Sadducees, those who say there is no resurrection, came to him ²⁸and 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. ²⁹Now there were seven brothers; the first married, and died childless; ³⁰then the second ³¹and the third married her, and so in the same way all seven died childless. ³²Finally the woman also died. ³³In the resurrection, therefore, whose wife will the woman be? For the seven had married her.” ³⁴Jesus said to them, “Those who belong to this age marry and are given in marriage; ³⁵but 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. ³⁶Indeed they cannot die anymore, because they are like angels and are children of God, being children of the resurrection. ³⁷And 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. ³⁸Now he is God not of the dead, but of the living; for to him all of them are alive.”

 

Into the Mystic

When I was a young adult trying to feel my way forward in the post-college world, and feeling like I maybe, possibly was being drawn to pursue seminary, I did what any overachieving student would do: I attended a workshop. This one was for people considering “Call and Discernment” at the Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley California—just a holler across the bridge from where I lived in San Francisco.

Given where I now stand, you won’t be surprised to hear that it was a very formative, and informative experience. One of the most moving moments for me was when we broke into small groups and our group sat in an evening-darkening room with a candle lit between us. Our group leader was a student: a middle aged large white woman with long hair who told us her moving story of call, finishing with singing “How Can I Keep from Singing” in a booming soprano voice and then turning to me and asking, “when did you get your call?” I was stunned that I had an answer.

And then two years later, when I was a second year student at Harvard Divinity School, my husband and I moved to a small town in Vermont so he could work and I, commute. I searched for a Quaker Meeting in vain, but was told by an acquaintance about a sweet, tiny church on Bromley Mountain with a new pastor: a middle-aged, large white woman from California with a booming Soprano voice.

Suspicious, I went to church on Sunday and there she was. Her name is Pastor Margaret Dawadeit and she’s still the pastor over on in Peru, Vermont. When I was leaving church that Sunday she stopped me and said, “I know you! How do I know you?”

I was ordained in that church three years ago this week.

Coincidences can be explained in many ways. And what feels remarkable to us, may seem run-of-the-mill to others. But I take moments like these and tuck them away. Because moments like these help us all remember that the world, like God, is continually mysterious and surprising and that there is more going on around us than we will ever really know in this lifetime.

It may seem like a strange story to begin with to explain this seemingly bizarre story of the exchange between Jesus and the Sadducees but stick with me.

The Sadducees were yet another Jewish sect (sort of like the Pharisees but not) that were out to pin Jesus down and prove him wrong. The main issue for these guys was Jesus’ claim of life eternal, and resurrection. The Sadducees were a sect that believed that this life on earth was a one-shot deal. There was nothing afterwards: what you see is what you get. It also seems that they were pretty cozy with Rome and had no interest in the social upheaval that followed Jesus around.

So, they ask Jesus what they think of as a “gotcha” question that appears on the surface to be about the Talmudic beliefs about marriage. Listen they say, “if a woman ends up married to more than one person, then how could she be married after life ends?” The Sadducees are thinking this is a mic dropping question. Because it’s not really about marriage. The sadducees know all about who Jesus is and they are trying to catch him in a theological slip-up. If there is more than this life and this world, they are saying than how can Jesus reconcile this discrepancy? She can’t have 7 husbands in heaven so, clearly the only life that exists is right now. Good luck with that one, Jesus!

The Sadducees want to prove that since none of the spouses in this story can be the “real husband,” then it proves that the resurrection is impossible. But Jesus turns their argument on its head. He “solves” the problem by proclaiming that there is no marriage after life. Because it’s something else altogether.

In his continually unsatisfying way, Jesus points us towards an answer but doesn’t really give us one. After death, there is something else and something more. He implies that marriage won’t need to exist because during Jesus’ time on earth marriage was the only protection women had in society. Jesus implies that this protection won’t be necessary because we are all children of God. We’ll be like the angels and our relationship with God will not end. And then he gives his mic-dropping example of Jesus and the burning bush. Once a child of God (like Abraham, Isaac and Jacob) always a child of God because there is more to life than what we see and it doesn’t end here. Had there been a microphone, he would have dropped it here.

Jesus is reminding us today through this story, just like my experience with Pastor Margaret reminded me, that there is more going on in our world than we can see with our eyes. This life is not the whole story.

Often even though we look to Jesus to provide answers to these literally larger-than-life questions, we find something that is less like an answer and more like Jesus pointing the way towards something. We may think we have an understanding of heaven, or resurrection and then when we sit and look closely at the words Jesus speaks, and it’s all fuzzy again. It’s an answer, but not entirely. He points to the veil between us and God to remind us it’s there and gives us an idea of what may be revealed, but doesn’t actually reveal anything.

Most scholars agree that Jesus is describing to refute the Sadducees is what we understand to be the “resurrection.”  But for anyone who thinks they may have clearcut idea of what resurrection is and may look like, I point you towards Andover theological library at Harvard Divinity school. I have a clear picture in my head of rows upon rows and stacks upon stacks of centuries of thinking about the resurrection. Nothing clear-cut can generate so much disparate thoughts, arguments and ideas.

What Jesus does clearly describe is a time and place where human relationships are changed and our relationship with God is more clear. We are closer to angels, but still children of God. Jesus draws this beautiful illustration of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob having once been children of God and still, in their death being children of God. Once a child of God, always a child of God.

And while his answer is in some ways satisfying in that it turns the Sadducees question on its head, it also leaves us with more questions. It always seems like there are more questions.

The day I saw Pastor Margaret in church, it confirmed some of my thoughts, but it also opened up a much bigger world than I expected.

That’s the thing: God continues to surprise us. God surprises us with a life that is steeped in mystery. And why should we think that what come next is any different?

For me, this piece of scripture is like an epic universal zoom-out lens. Like a picture of the giant cosmos with all of its heavenly bodies in orbit and a tiny arrow pointing to us on earth in our little place in this heavenly dance. A little reminder that the world is great and we are small. We live nested in a great mystery of God’s love.

When I was a little girl, my mom had a record she would play on our old turntable, by a tiny little folk band called Metamora. I think she liked that it showcased a hammer dulcimer and that just seemed cool. But there was a song on that album she used to play while we danced in our living room called My Little Potato. It’s a sweet little song written from the perspective of the father of a newborn baby. Because newborns kind of look like little potatoes and the songwriter wondered in awe about this tiny life that seemed to have sprung up from underground. He alternates between feeling like the world is suddenly shrunk down to the space between him and his baby—“the world is small, so small. It’s very small.” And then suddenly he zooms out because he is holding this tiny and fragile life in his hands and he realizes that the world is also big, “so big it’s very big.” And his baby has so much to learn.

We often focus on the “so small” parts of life. The questions that have answers, the problems that seem like we could (and should) fix them in this life.

We do have real struggles in our time here on earth: two days before our ugly and contentious election it is impossible for any of us to forget that—if it had been possible, I would have found a way, believe me. But so often we focus on what is right in front of us—the real struggles of racism, violence and power—that we sometimes forget that there is more. God is bigger than us. God is bigger than our country and this world. God is still God of us and Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

I have heard it said that humans tend to have two reactions (individually and corporately) to the discomfort we feel in living in such a vast, wide universe that gives us such great questions: we either look for answers or we look for togetherness in the mystery. I recall hearing in one of those delicious episodes of On Being with Krista Tippet years ago, (I looked for it this week, and could not find it anywhere—if you happen to have heard it to, please tell me who said it!) someone saying that most religious traditions break down along these lines too: sects that give concrete answers and sects that ask the questions, and hold them in sacred space, and point towards the mystery.

I think that Sojourners probably falls into the latter category. And as strange as this may sound, that is Good News, with capital letters not small ones. The Good News today is that we are together. We get to share this so small and so big life and earth. We get to share the work of protecting the water, celebrating God’s image in all of those around us, lifting each other up and holding on when we are scared.

Jesus reminds us today: there is so much more to this world than we will ever know. In this time of anxiety, of waiting for what is next, let’s do something unexpected: let’s live boldly in the knowledge that we are God’s children together in this vast mystery. We are together.  Let us celebrate our togetherness. Let us celebrate Jesus’ invitation to this table, to this life together.

This week, may we all remember to indeed act out our togetherness. Perhaps the greatest sign of this may be the wedding this coming Saturday of two of our own, Laurie and Rachel. Is there any gesture bolder than a wedding after 21 years of love? We all celebrate with you in your joyful act of love.

As we go forward, remember to reach out to people who may not expect your reaching.  Live boldly celebrating our mysterious, gracious God in the memory of Jesus who points the way. Amen.