Practice Resurrection
Luke 20:27-40
Will Fitzgerald
Kalamazoo Mennonite Fellowship
November 6, 2016
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."
This incident in Jesus's life can be divided into two parts: the first part, in which the Sadducees try to entrap Jesus, and the second part, in which Jesus teaches about resurrection.
Luke is often helpful to us as readers in explaining why a story is being told. Here, he tells us that the Sadducees were a group who did not believe in the resurrection of the body after death. The Sadducees also only considered the first five books of the Bible (the so-called books of Moses) to be canonical scripture. One of the teachings in the books of Moses concerns a method to help ensure that a man would have progeny (this was especially important to people who didn't believe in resurrection, since their only immortality would come in this way). If a man died without children, his brother was to marry the widow and raise any children from that marriage as the dead man's.
This story of the seven brothers isn't a real story; it's not like they knew some Joe and Jane to whom this had happened. It's a hypothetical, told to be clever and entrap Jesus.
Jesus's answer is a bit complicated, and it bears further study. But I think the complexity of Jesus's answer is part of the answer. Jesus seems to be saying, you have know idea of how complicated the resurrected life is. Your simple trick fails in the face of the complexity of resurrection.
And I take it to be an important example to us, an example which calls us to humility when faced with theologies that depend on our certain understanding of the afterlife. If you haven't experienced the reality of the afterlife (and we haven't), then overly sure statements of how things have to be about heaven or hell or judgment are to be avoided. We're certainly called, in this example, to avoid theological trickery and one-upmanship.
In the second part fo this taeching, Jesus counters the Sadducees' claim that there was no resurrection. It should be noted that Jesus is addressing the Sadducees here, which means he (for their sake) uses on the books of Moses for his claim. In fact, he uses one of the founding stories of Israel: Moses's encounter with God at the burning bush. This is one of the places where Israel became Israel, where Jews became Jews.
The version, as least as we have it from Luke, seems to obscure Jesus's point a bit. It's best to go back and read the original telling of Moses's story in Exodus chapter 3, especially:
Then Moses said, “I must turn aside and look at this great sight, and see why the bush is not burned up.” When the Lord saw that he had turned aside to see, God called to him out of the bush, “Moses, Moses!” And he said, “Here I am.” Then he said, “Come no closer! Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.” He said further, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God.
And later:
But Moses said to God, “If I come to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your ancestors has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what shall I say to them?” God said to Moses, “I am who I am.” He said further, “Thus you shall say to the Israelites, ‘I am has sent me to you.’”
The point Jesus is making is that the very being of God, God's "I AM" nature, is tied up with resurrection. God said, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” He says this in the present tense (Not, "I was the God of Abraham, but I am the God of Abraham). God's own nature is eternal being, and God's life is present even in some who have died, such as these partriarchs.
So, Jesus goes from answer a tricky question to delving into the essential life-giving being of God, which resurrects/gives life to the faithful dead.
As people who live in a post-Christian and rationalist society, it is very easy for us to forget the importance of resurrection. To be honest, it's something I find easy to forget. One of the reasons I became an Anabaptist was that it seemed like Mennonites cared a lot for the this-worldly needs of people, and took seriously the commandment to love our neighbor – now, not just in some "pie in the sky, by and by." And this still delights me. But it's too easy to become so earthly-minded that we are of no heavenly good, to change an old expression. As Wendell Berry says, "Practice resurrection."
In case you haven't read Berry's poem, you can find it here: Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front