God of the Living

Sermon for the Twenty-Second Sunday After Pentecost, Year C

The Church of the Epiphany | Washington, DC

Luke 20:27-38

While Jesus is teaching in the temple, along comes a group of Sadducees. And with manufactured concern, they lay out before him this convoluted dilemma:

A woman marries—but then her husband dies. Given the reality of the society within which this hypothetical woman lives, without a husband she will likely become destitute. And what’s more, without children, her worth remains unproven. 

So, she marries again and again, over and over. She has seven husbands in total. Each dies, one after another. And there are no children to show for any of these marriages. 

Finally, her sad, tragic life ends—not that this is of much concern to those telling the story though—and then she enters the afterlife. But the question so urgently in need of Jesus’ attention is this: to whom does this woman belong? To put it differently: who gets to claim rightful ownership over this childless widow?

For some people, material concerns are always the fundamental issue at hand—which is fueled by a kind of anxiety that extends well beyond this life. All of the presumed constraints of this reality in which we live follow to the grave, and then even into an imagined afterlife.

Is there no peace, we might wonder to ourselves, for this woman? No freedom even in death? Is the life to come really just more of the same controlling structures that bind us now?

But Jesus, of course, does not share the Sadducee’s concerns. So, in response, he replies: the Living God is God not of the dead, but of the living.

It’s not exactly direct communication. But there sure is quite a conversation happening here. 

Sadducees, like the Pharisees that are so familiar to us, were a religious sect. These were the intellectual elite. They were wealthy and sought out ways to align themselves with the occupying political powers of Rome. Their concerns were largely occupied with the matters of this life—becuase in it they were quite comfortable. So, it is not especially surprising that they do not believe in resurrection or have much time for an afterlife.

Throughout human history, this is typically how things work. The people most longing for the promise of new life are often those most familiar with life’s hardships, with the constant decay that is part of day-to-day living in struggle. 

Rather than looking toward something to come in a distant afterlife, Sadducees place faith in what they can see and touch, in what they can understand themselves. Materialism. Rationality. Power.

The theologian Paul Tillich's definition of  ‘faith’ is helpful here. Faith, Tillich suggests, is related to matters of “ultimate concern.” Meaning that whatever thing is most important to us is given the power to form the shape of our faith. When something manages to grip us tightly it becomes an object of ultimate concern, and in it our true god is revealed.

Anything can become a god for us—money, beauty or social influence, certainty, control or safety. Once we become totally devoted to preserving that thing in our lives, it becomes the god we serve—and in which we place our faith and hope for salvation.

Both the Sadducees and the Pharisees demonstrate this for us in different ways. 

The Pharisees’ ultimate concern is with their own righteousness. Obedience to a moral code is paramount, so they memorize all of the rules and carefully draw inside the lines. 

Sadducees, on the other hand, are ultimately concerned with understanding. There is no rational, verifiable proof of resurrection—so they don’t believe in it. And since they’ve never experienced an afterlife for themselves, they reject any notions of it.

And when faith is determined by human understanding like this, god is then confined to the same terms.

Neither of these are very compelling examples of faith. And personally, I am interested in a god who is larger than my human situation and capable of doing something about it. But I think if we’re honest, both the faith of the Pharisees and the Sadducees hold up a helpful mirror to ourselves… Because all-too-often we would prefer to keep things contained to the scope of what we’ve determined is possible and comfortable for us.

Jesus hears the question put in front of him—which has been intentionally crafted to embarrass him—and he responds as though the Sadducees do not really know God. And because they only know a god constrained to the terms of their world, their imagination is drastically limited. 

So, he introduces them: “Now he is God not of the dead, but of the living: for to him all of them are alive.”

God is not merely god over what ends in death: as though God should be preoccupied merely with earthly treasures that moth and rust will destroy, and earthly experiences subject to a similar kind of decay. 

Thankfully, this is not who God is...

God is the God of the living—who creates and never ceases to create anew. What the Living God does is generative, full of mysteriously wonderful creativity that unfolds in the most unlikely of places. 

Each and every one of us is called to know the belonging that waits for us in an eternal home. And not a single one of us—past, present or yet to come—will be overlooked or left aside. Even after our lives have passed they will not be forgotten or left to the dust of history, because they are forever held in God’s long memory. 

Faith then, Jesus would have us know, is about a relationship with this Living God. This is the center of all of it. Faith is not about righteousness, and it is not about understanding.

Now, let’s be real for a moment: we are in quite a situation. And truthfully I really do not know how we are going to get through all of this… I do not know what it will take to get over this political impasse. I do not know when this government shutdown will end. I do not know how we address the plague of violence that is inflicted on our schools and the isolation of young men. I do not know how hurting marriages might mend, or what will happen in the absence of SNAP funding.

There is so much beyond our understanding. And this is good news, friends. Because God’s life-giving creativity is not determined by our ability to understand or even to fully imagine on our own power. 

Here’s what I do know: the Living God will make a way where it seems there is no way. 

This is just how it was for Abraham on the mountaintop and Moses in the desert, from Isaac and Jacob down through all of God’s people. It’s how it’s always been in my own life, too—through many dangers, toils, and snares. 

Jesus invites us to walk with him on a path beyond the realm of our own understanding. It is vast and full of the mysterious unknown. It leads to new life. And we can trust him—because the love of the Living God endures forever.

Amen