At Diocesan Convention last month everyone attending did some work
around how we talk about Jesus,
how we witness to our relationship with Jesus.
We Episcopalians are notorious
for not being very good at speaking about our faith,
or even identifying what’s at the center of our faith – Jesus.
The Gospels present Jesus through his powerful words and actions
that reflect to us what the Kingdom of God is like.
But it is his death and resurrection that bring home to us very personally
the redeeming, reconciling and healing love of God.
I’m going to talk about resurrection
based on the Gospel reading for today.
not in terms of what we often think of it as –
where we go when we die, but how we live now.
The Gospel for today is a key source text
for our understanding of the Resurrection
and its application for our lives where we live them today.
In the passage the Sadducees ask Jesus a question that is meant to catch him up.
Well, who were the Sadducees? We hear more about the Pharisees,
so who were the Sadducees?
We know the Pharisees were those who observed a pious faith in God
and lived out their faith by careful observance of the Torah.
Theirs was a spirituality centered in the Law and in hope for the Messiah.
In contrast the Sadducees were predominately the priests and the aristocracy,
so they were heavily invested in the continuation of the Temple,
and therefore in continuing to live at peace with the Roman presence.
For them the coming of a messiah would be threatening
to their ordered lives that provided the people the essential services.
Their spirituality was centered in the sacrifices and rituals of the Temple.
But the main difference apropos to this Gospel reading
is in how they viewed resurrection.
The Pharisees believed that there was resurrection from the dead
while the Sadducees held to a “genetic” resurrection,
that is, that life was extended through offspring.
You lived on through your descendents
as they remembered you and as they carried on your name.
So that makes this question that the Sadducees pose to Jesus
particularly significant.
Their theology about resurrection in this way is expressed
through the hypothetical situation they present Jesus with.
And how purposely ridiculous is this situation.
In order to have a way to pass on inheritance,
and to assure being remembered,
one needed to have descendants,
hence the Mosaic law about raising up offspring through the brothers
This is a practical and concrete resurrection.
So how outrageous if then all the characters in their example
were to come back to life,
such as the Pharisees believed,
and then how could they figure out to whom the woman belonged?
Jesus responds by telling them they’ve missed the point about resurrection
- it’s not life like it used to be.
Resurrection is not life like it used to be.
I think we all get interested in life after death,
more so with each year that passes
and with each family member or old friend we bury.
There are a lot of ideas about what it is like,
but what is Jesus saying here?
First of all, the topic is resurrection, not resuscitation.
It’s not coming back from the dead
and essentially being the same sort of being.
It would seem that Jesus is saying that the old relationships,
such as husband and wife, don’t figure in resurrection life,
since there is no need for procreation and raising up offspring
to carry on the family name and inheritance.
One could say that in Resurrection there is a new way of being
that has transcended all previous forms of relationship.
Let me put it another way: it’s not life after death.
Death is no more,
death never touches this resurrection life.
For those who live in Resurrection life, there is no death.
The body may disintegrate around us
and drop away like a snake-skin sloughed off,
but in Resurrection one does not even taste death.
We are talking about a level of spiritual awareness
that moves a person from one understanding of reality
into a much greater and expanded awareness of a new reality.
The Apostle Paul got this.
This is what he was writing about in another key Bible text about Resurrection.
We looked at this passage last week in the Sunday morning class
on +Rowan Williams book, Being Christian.
Romans 6:3
Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus
were baptized into his death?
4 Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death,
so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father,
so we too might walk in newness of life.
5 For if we have been united with him in a death like his,
we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.
What this is saying is
by faith we live a new life in Christ,
and so have already passed over from death into life,
and the life that we live now,
is the Resurrection Life of Jesus.
We also call this the New Creation, newness of Life.
I am not talking about a theoretical concept to be understood,
but a new reality to be experienced,
experienced spiritually but truly experienced,
like one day you know, you just know
that life is new, that life is resurrection.
We still need to look at bodily death and what resurrection life is like then.
So coming back to the Gospel reading –
the passage talks about being like angels:
this is not to say that we BECOME angels,
but that we will be similar to angels,
in that we fully become spiritual beings, and as spiritual beings
are not subject to time or space or physical limitations.
What are angels specifically then?
Angels are pure spirit
whose whole being is focused in doing the will of the Father,
and being swift to carry it out.
That’s why they are pictured with wings.
Well, to cut through all this talk about angels,
or life before or after physical death,
Resurrection is essentially about realizing union with God.
And in that union with God
we then are in perfect knowledge and union with the will of God,
with the Mind of Christ.
That is a way to look at resurrection.
God is the God of the living, not the dead,
the God of those who are alive in Christ,
of those who realize that they are living in Resurrection – NOW.
May we come to this realization so profoundly
that we begin to see the effects of Resurrection
in our own lives and how we live them,
that we see the effects of Resurrection
in this faith community
and how we live together
and how we relate to one another,
and that we begin to see the impact of Resurrection
on our witness to the world outside our doors.
…because there are implications,
implications of resurrection as new life,
expansion beyond the limitations
of our culturally conditioned perspective on life,
life that is not conditioned by our bodies or our circumstances,
so much so that we can truly say when someone’s body gives out
“Life is not ended, but changed.”
as we say in the funeral liturgy.
So the obvious question is: Are we experiencing resurrection?
Are we aware that we are swimming in resurrection, the new creation?
If not, then what are we to do about that?
What can we do about that?
or to be as the gospel reading states,
those considered worthy of a place in the resurrection.
It is unlike that we would get there by studying,
although that will help.
We won’t necessarily get there by being squeaky clean morally,
although that is worthwhile and won’t hurt.
We are unlikely to get there to that place of realization of resurrection
simply by tithing, or acts of mercy, or being of service,
although all that is beneficial for others and for our own selves.
All that can help,
but only one thing is necessary –
to put ourselves in the best posture for being able
to see, to experience, to realize resurrection
is our openness, our submitting ourselves to grace,
to receiving grace.
Let the One who is the Master do the work in us of healing our sight,
opening our eyes.
Receive what is freely and generously given to you.
That is what makes us worthy of resurrection.
No need to roll away stones from tombs to see resurrection.
Resurrection will be visible everywhere.
Amen.
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