Sermon for Friends Congregational Church
“Doubting Our Disbelief”
Delivered by Reverend Dan De Leon
Sunday, November 11, 2007
Genesis 9:1-3; Philippians 4:10-13; Luke 20:27-38
Shall we pray…
Risen Lord, God of the living, help us to comprehend something of the magnitude of your resurrection. Forgive us for taming that great good news, for reducing the resurrection to our ticket to heaven when we die. Instill within us a sense of just how radical it is that you raised Jesus from the dead, the “first fruits of those who have died.” Grant us resurrection vision to see your present and coming kingdom and courage to live as citizens of that kingdom. Amen.[1]
Dr. Kenneth Cracknell was a retired/tenured professor at the seminary at Texas Christian University when I studied there. He hailed from England and had a full, white beard and always wore frameless glasses and an oxford. But it always had one button undone close to his bellybutton on account of his very round belly literally bursting it open. And he was always smiling, always enjoying his profession.
At the end of every semester when the students filled out our anonymous evaluations of our professors, Dr. Cracknell would say, “Go ahead and fill it out, but don’t waste too much time adding your written comments. I’ve got tenure, don’t you know.”
And without fail, at least once in the semester, Dr. Cracknell would find an opportunity to comment on the class’ subject matter, and he would say in his unforgettable accent, “I am not a Sadducee, for Jesus made me glad you see.” And we believed him.
I am not a Sadducee, for Jesus made me glad you see. The meaning behind that quip is found right here in this morning’s gospel reading from Luke. Now, there’s nothing wrong with being a Sadducee. That rhyme Dr. Cracknell repeated time and again had more to do with what Jesus was proclaiming, not what was bad about the Sadducees.
So, let’s take a look at our friends, the Sadducees, for a moment. Sadducees were of the priestly class of Judaism, and many of them were aristocratic, wealthy. They were theologically conservative, and their scriptures were the Pentateuch, which is the first five books of the Bible. That was the basis of their doctrine.
Today, there are fanatic evangelical Christians who might say, “If the Bible doesn’t say it, I don’t believe it.” That’s a pretty hard line. Well, picture Jesus trying to communicate with the Sadducees who say, “If the Pentateuch doesn’t say it, I don’t believe it.” That might be an even harder line.
Jesus is talking about a new creation and a new kingdom. His teaching is radical. And you can picture the Sadducees sitting on the outskirts of the crowd listening to Jesus, crossing their arms, smirking, waving their hands in dismissal. They’re like Statler and Woodruff, the two old guys, sitting up in the balcony during the Muppet Show going, “Tell me again why we come here!”
I hope we can indulge the notion this morning that we are very much like the Sadducees in our own particular way. Our hard line might not be Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy, but we share very real feelings of doubt and even antagonism with the Sadducees who pestered Jesus before us.
The winds of change whisper with assertions of “we can change our public discourse,” or, “we can change our lifestyles and vocations to be better stewards of the environment,” or, “we can learn to appreciate our differences and lay down our arms;” and we respond with our stone walls of “how do you intend to pay for that,” or, “that’s far too idealistic, it will never work,” or just, “that’ll be the day!”
We are 21st century Sadducees, and our hard line is the status quo. Our hard line is our fear of losing the life that we are comfortable with, or losing our sense of understanding that we have with the world we live in.
We are a lot like the Sadducees, and that’s what makes it so hard for us to embrace God’s good news of resurrection. That’s what the Sadducees refute in this morning’s story. The Pentateuch that the Sadducees follow to the letter mentions nothing about resurrection by their interpretation, so they try to corner Jesus with this outlandish scenario of seven brothers all marrying the same woman in this life. “Well, who gets to marry her in at the resurrection, Jesus?” May as well be us asking the same outlandish question.
Loudon Wainwright III is a storytelling songwriter, and his song, The Man Who Couldn’t Cry, tells about a guy whose dog dies and then he loses his arm in a war, and eventually he dies. Loudon sings, “He went up to heaven, located his dog. After that he rejoined his arm.” It’s meant to be kind of a joke, but it really speaks for us and how we look at the afterlife.
See, we want an explanation of the resurrection just like the Sadducees. “We have lots of questions about the whole idea of resurrection. But, usually our questions about the resurrection have to do with us. What’s going to happen to us?”[2]
At the resurrection, will I get to be with my parents and my grandparents again? And how old will they be? How old will I be? Will I never have to shave again? Please, Lord, let that be the case. Will there be limitless ice cream and pizza for me to eat, and will that black cigar and that big barrel of beer surrounded by my best buddies be waiting for me? What will it be like for me?
We are concerned with me in the afterlife and not with our communion with God at the resurrection. When I think about resurrection, I think about Easter. And when I think about Easter I think about that age old hymn spiritual that even Johnny Cash covered, Were You There.
Were you there when they crucified my Lord?
Were you there when they nailed him to the tree?
Were you there when they laid him in the tomb?
Were you there when the stone was rolled away?
Sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble…
Fleming Rutledge became on of the first women to ever be ordained into the Episcopal priesthood in 1975, and she preached these words in an Easter sermon: “If the resurrection is God’s ultimate word to us about our destiny, and I believe it is, then there is reason for us to tremble, because recognizing this utterly new truth means that we will sooner or later be led to relinquish our dependence upon all those things that in this world meant life, truth, beauty, security, power and wealth—even our careers, our loved ones, our very lives.”[3]
We shiver at the thought of death, but we tremble at the thought of resurrection, of new life, of a new heaven and a new earth, of being in communion with the God who loves us so much that we have been given all we need to be who we are meant to be in this time between the already at the not yet.
See, in resurrection, we don’t worry about death, or marriage, or good parenting, or keeping the litter box fresh, or maintaining a healthy diet. At the resurrection, we won’t worry about cancer, or war, or political corruption, or cultural schisms, or climate change. All we will worry about is being with God. That’s all.
Think about it: If this life of faith is all about focusing on God so that all our worldly fears will be insignificant, and if this life is all about putting God first so that all other things that we worry about will come to us in due time, then the kingdom of God—heaven—is a magnification of what we simply attempt to practice; our ethic of kingdom living becomes a real way of life in the resurrection.
Now, why are we hearing an Easter sermon on stewardship Sunday? Because God is the God of the living, not the dead. When Jesus answers the Sadducees, he quotes scripture from their Pentateuch: Exodus 3:6, where God calls to Moses from the burning bush, “I am the God of Abraham, Isaac and Joseph.”
We hear an Easter message on Stewardship Sunday, because our God is concerned with all things living. God loves and cherishes life. God loves and cherishes your life and my life. And in our lives, it may be very difficult for us to understand the resurrection; but that is what is so amazing about that gift from God: resurrection is not ours to understand. We are only supposed to receive it.
Stacy’s dad is in town this weekend, and I made breakfast for everybody Friday morning, but he was slow to wake up. So, I left his breakfast in the oven to stay warm. And a few minutes later, we woke up and traipsed into the kitchen where I was working on this sermon. And I said, “Your breakfast is in the oven.” And he said, “What is it?” And I said, “Free.” And he said, “Yeah, but what is it?” And I said, “Yours.”
Christianity is a gift, and we are called to receive it, not understand it. Some would argue that Christianity exists to inform one’s sense of morality. Some say that Christianity is the basis for family values. Some say that Christianity is our requirement to help the poor, and if you follow Jesus’ teachings that makes perfect sense. And in the past, Christianity has been interpreted to justify slavery, conquest, manifest destiny, sexism, racism, war, and now the ostracism of gay and lesbian peoples.
When Jesus answered the Sadducees, he didn’t answer their outlandish question, he answered the attitude that it came from. And his answer was the gift of the resurrection. He’s speaking just as clearly to us this morning. Jesus will not answer our questions about the specifics of heaven any more than he will answer our foolish disagreements over what the Bible means here and there, or what denomination has Christianity all figured out.
But Jesus, now as of then, will answer our attitudes and say that resurrection is God’s gift to the world, where there is a new heaven and a new earth waiting for every anxious, troubled soul. And Christianity is our response to that free gift. We Christians praise this God of freely given love in our houses of worship called Church.
This gift of church is where we answer the stonewall antagonism of this world that sounds like the Sadducees all over again. The world asks the church, “When history produces the fanaticism of apartheid, holocaust and genocide, why do you foolishly believe that anything will ever change,” and we say, “Faith”
The world asks the church, “When you bolster yourself on principles of justice and mercy, how do you expect to change a world where there is enough food for all, but millions go hungry; where there is enough healthcare for all, but millions die of simple stomach aches every day; and where so-called free knowledge is caged behind an unequal system of education, that causes millions to helplessly grow into those shackles of hunger and illness,” and we say, “Hope.”
The world asks the church, “How do you expect to reconcile the human divisions of racism and intolerance that continue to bolster anything from hate crimes in public school yards to wars all over the earth,” and we say, “Love.”
And the world asks, “How do you expect for those principles to be passed on? How do you expect for that message to speak to and through generations that are being born into this broken world? How do you expect this thing you view as an organic gift that pulsates with faith, hope and love to carry on,” and we say, “Stewardship.”
In one of his sermons, Peter Gomes shares this: “Rabbis tell us that when a wise man heard that the end of the world was near he went out into his garden and planted a tree, and act of courage, audacity and hope—the only possible response.” Stewardship is the church’s only possible response when Sadducees pin us in corners of logical disruption and indifferent doubt…even if we are those very Sadducees.
We are resurrection people who share in this gift of the church with a response that is not logical to the world: stewardship. Stewardship might not even be logical to us: “Why do I want to give my time, my money, my gifts to the church?” Because when we all do that, the world notices our great thanksgiving, and silence will fall upon them just like that crowd around the Sadducees at Jesus’ response.
We are resurrection people who receive the gifts of God’s kingdom by our very nature. So, in this time given to us, what can we do for the kingdom? How can we help cultivate our prayers of “God’s kingdom come, God’s will be done on earth as it is in heaven?” The great Methodist, John Wesley, puts it this way:
Do all the good you can
By all the means you can,
In all the ways you can,
In all the places you can,
At all the times you can,
To all the people you can,
As long as ever you can.
Blessings be upon our Stewardship Sunday, and let the resurrection people say, “Amen!” Thanks be to God.
[1] Prayer by William H. Willomon, from Pulpit Resource, Vol. 35, No. 4, Year C & A, October – December 2007, p. 25.