"God of the Living" November 10, 2013

Haggai 2: 1-9 Luke 20: 19-38 What an important Word for our time! What we read this morning names: the building of the Temple, Sex, Marriage, Life, Death and Taxes, however what underlies all of this is not about the building of the Temple, or Church, not about Sex, or Marriage, or Life or Death or Taxes, not even about Understanding the Resurrection. There is a great deal of fascination with all those topics today. Certainly about Sex, which is used to sell everything from Soup to Stocks and Bonds and electronic paraphernalia! Marriage has been an increasingly hot topic, as one Church and State after another has questioned the definition and boundaries of marriage. While the Affordable Care Act and the Debt Ceiling have been Political hot potatoes, 3rd Rails that everyone wants to be heard speaking about, and no one knows how to fix, what each of these arguments is about is Taxes. But have you noticed how much interest there is today about Life and Death and the After-Life? How many books, movies and television shows are there about Zombies who come back to life after death, about Vampires and Dracula, and Grimms Fairy Tales, and children and adults fighting over possession to be the Survivor of Never Never Land? But, while all of these provide the Context, the Set-up for the Joke if you will, what the Bible is about is that there is nothing more essential/nothing more powerful/nothing which can ever separate us from the love of God! Throughout these last several chapters of Luke, Jesus has been on the Road to Jerusalem where he will be killed. Along the road, and especially once coming to Jerusalem, Jesus challenged all the preconceptions, and power authorities, who were setting themselves up to decide between Life & Death & about Taxes, Marriage and Sex. In the process he angered and frustrated the Pharisees and Saducees and Powers that be. So here, in the 20th Chapter each set out to trap, to expose Jesus & faith as not only unworthy of believing, but as being ridiculous. Both the Pharisees and Saducees knew that by controlling the Questions, you control the Answers, you have power over what is discussed and what is acceptable and what is real. The Pharisees, who were the 1% of their time, the most highly educated, most affluent, demanded an answer to the same question posed repeatedly today about Taxes: are they lawful? As People of God, as the Religious Society of Skaneateles in this time and place, who provide food for the hungry; housing and food and safety and security for the elderly, who cannot provide for themselves; who have provided clothing to those wanting to work, and education to those who had been expelled; who have given our sons and daughters and spouses for military service; as non-profit corporations who provide free health care, and restoration of sight to the blind, and dream of a Peace Dividend where we can end Wars, Tribal Family Conflicts and Traumatic Stress and Violence, which Governments and the United Nations could not, should we also be required by Law to pay Taxes? And Jesus asks for currency from their pocketbook. Looking at it, Jesus describes this is Coin of the realm, Currency of the Government, with the image of Presidents and Caesar inscribed. Money is necessary for Taxes, for Power in this Society, for influence in this Reality. But you are created in the image of God, so give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and give to God what belongs to God. The Saducees were different from the Pharisees, in that while the Pharisees read and quoted all the Hebrew Scriptures, the Histories, Psalms, Prophets and Proverbs, the Saducees only held the First Five Books, the Pentateuch, the Torah, the Laws of Moses, and therefore the Only Authoritative Word of God. Clinging to Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy, the faith of the Saducees had no reference to Kings Solomon, David or Saul, to Babylon and the Exile, to anything that did not specifically relate to The Promise, The Covenant, the Law. The Saducees had no Babylonian Myths about Angels or Demons, no Visions of Daniel, no reference to the Assyrians, Babylonians, Alexander the Great, the Medes, Greeks, Persians or Rome, the Greeks were the ones who developed the concept of a Hades as an underworld, and the Romans that were places of Purgatory and Limbo. Consequently, different from the Pharisees who had limited power in the Roman Empire, and who debated Philosophy with the Greeks, the Saducees could only believe in the here and now of this reality, this world. Which is why in Sunday School, we learned that because the Saducees believed in nothing other than what they knew, they were “Quite Sad You See.” What is at stake for the Saducees argument, is not only about Marriage and Resurrection, that would be loaded enough, but for the Saducees this is about Defining Reality. The Saducees believed only in this life and Moses' Law, and not in an after-life, so all that matters is the here and now, where the Pharisees could argue about Philosophy and Imagination and other Realities beyond what we have known. So Jesus' answer must be defended by the Words of Moses and Abraham challenging the rules of reality. The Book of Leviticus is a Law Code, from God written down by Moses, defining the Nation of Israel to be not just a Holy Nation, but The Chosen Holy People of God. Leviticus defines according to Law, what you must do and must prohibit on the Sabbath. How you live daily life. Why and How you make a sacrifice. Why and How you pray to Almighty God. As the Promise given to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob had been about having a Child who would have inheritance of the Promised Land; as Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy had been about being this enslaved people set free from Pharaoh who came into the land of Canaan as The People of God, laws about inheritance of the Land were vital, not simply as the avoidance of Estate Taxes, but creating reality, real property, for who inherits what from whom. In that ancient world, the Eldest brother was to inherit everything, and women and children and slaves could not inherit, as they were defined as the relationships one inherited, of value just like land and resources. (Ironically, throughout the Pentateuch, while it is the Law of Moses, the Eldest never inherits.... Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses were not the First Born!) One of the Laws of Inheritance dealt with what happens, when a man is married and they have no children, and the man dies. What happens to the wife, to his property, to his lands? Is the lineage and genealogy cut off, or is there any way possible like Sarah using Hagar, like Tamar seducing her Father-in-law for the genealogy to be perpetuated? The Law of Leviticus prescribed, if a married man dies, his next closest relative will inherit his lands and property, so also his wife, in order that if he should produce a child by the wife, the child would be considered heir of the one who had died. The Saducees conjecture, that Resurrection of Life after Death is such an outlandishly silly idea, beyond reality, let us propose the most outrageous circumstance: There were Seven brothers, all of whom in turn took the wife of the eldest as his own, and none conceived by her. SO if the Resurrection is a reality, in the Resurrection whose wife is she, because they all were equally married, and presumably all had sex with her? Jesus response is “The question is not about the quantity of marriages. To grasp the resurrection, you need to believe that the Quality of life in the resurrection will be different. There is no Land in the Resurrection. There are no Children to inherit after you die, because you never die again. Belief in the Resurrection is not something we can explain, not something we can fully understand. All we can do is believe. There are hardships in life. There are Cut-offs in relationships which according to Law, and according to human nature are ENDINGS. The point of the Resurrection is that Life after Death is a different Reality. There is no marriage. There are no broken hips, no Alzheimers or dementia. Because in the Resurrection, life is not about us. There is no land, there is no power, no government, no fear, there is only a new reality and that reality is God. Everything is about God. Several weeks ago, I fell off the roof of my house. Since then, it seems everyone has at least one story about others who have had similar falls, perhaps from even less height, but who had to have surgery, and are paraplegic, or quadraplegic, or Dead. Stories about Football players who had concussions. About teens diving off a cliff. I never rode a motorcycle, because when I was five, my cousin was rear-ended on one and has served out the last 50 years unable to move below the neck. This Life, this reality we know, is very very fragile. I amazed by how many lives have been defined by a tragic accident, by a death, by a cut-off. My parents each died in the last five years. My wife's father died 15 years ago. I thank the members of this church who were here with us, to support us, through that. The day does not go by, when I do not wish for a different reality. To hear their voice. To see the twinkle in their eye. To create a new memory. To hear their reassurance, and their challenge. But I long for the hope to live in a reality where we can throw away canes and crutches, wheel chairs and slings, where we can be done with all the things that separate us and hurt and divide. Have you ever returned to the Junior High School you attended? Recall how huge those lockers were, and how intimidating just walking down the hall? When you return to walk the halls everything is different. There are the same smells, it is the same place, but can never live up to the nostalgia of what that represented. Returning from exile in Babylon, charged with rebuilding the faith community in Israel, Haggai asked the prophetic question: Are there any among you who remember what the Temple once was, and how much less this reality seems compared to that memory? The resurrection is not about walking on clouds, or wearing wings, but about a different Quality to life, Redeemed, and ReUnited, Forgiven and Whole with all Reality, especially with God.