"Gotcha!"
Sermon Presented November 7, 2004
Luke 20:27-40
During the past nine months we've been inundated with political speeches and advertising that were based on a candidate's response to questions asked with the purpose of trapping them into saying something controversial. It's like the questioner was ready to pounce and say "Gotcha!"
I like straightforward answers - even if I don't agree with what is said. I appreciate knowing where a person stands on an issue. But many people hesitate to give straight answers because they don't trust the questioner. This not only occurs in politics, it happens in seminary classrooms, ordination councils and job interviews.
In our text, the question put to Jesus by the Sadducee is insincere and meant as a trap. However, Jesus' diplomatic answer reaches the heart of the question. A "Gotcha" question loses its punch with a profound answer.
Luke places this conversation in the week of Jesus' death. It's the third in a series of four debates Jesus has with the religious leaders during this final countdown of his life. The first debate questioned Jesus' authority and the second questioned whether or not to pay taxes to Caesar. This third debate is unusual in that this is the only time Luke mentions the Sadducees and his only mention of Jesus discussing resurrection from the dead. Hear this exchange as written in Luke 20:27-40.
Jesus was a master at giving thought-provoking responses. Sometimes his answers were presented as parables, and other times, just straight teaching. His wisdom brought him great respect from his audience - even when they didn't agree with him. The verse immediately preceding our text says: "being amazed by his answer, they became silent." He shut them up! They didn't have a retort! Wouldn't you love to have the wisdom and power to whither your opponents with a word?
Let's look at Jesus' questioner. He's a Sadducee. Sadducees are religious conservatives who accept only the first five books of the Hebrew scriptures as authoritative. They don't believe in resurrection and they don't believe in angels. (I imagine Luke felt a need to describe the Sadducee here because his audience isn't Jewish.) Because the question about resurrection comes from a man who doesn't believe in resurrection, it's doubtful that he really wants an answer. He tries to reduce the concept of resurrection to an absurdity.
His carefully crafted question goes like this. A hypothetical woman marries a man with six brothers. When her husband dies without fathering a child, she marries one of his brothers who also dies, and so on, one brother after the other, until all of the brothers are dead without leaving an heir. Finally the woman dies. The question: Whose wife will she be in the resurrection? I can just hear the silent retort of the questioner saying: "Gotcha!"
I'm enough of a feminist to wish Jesus had addressed the issue of women being considered property to be passed from one brother to the next, but he didn't. This wasn't an issue in that culture. Also, at that time there were no fertility doctors and no one to investigate the deaths of seven men married to the same woman.
But the story brings up the topic of death. Death isn't something we talk about much - our own death or that of a loved one. I knew a couple in their mid-80's who fired their physician because he told Sylvis he was dying and they should call in the family. They refused to face the fact that he was dying. I ministered to a child dying of cancer whose family wouldn't allow me to discuss death with him. When my father-in-law was dying of lung cancer, he wanted to talk to me about his death because my mother-in-law refused to allow the discussion.
People even avoid using the words "died" or "death." The words "passed" or "passed away" are often preferred. Death is often seen as a failure - failure of the medical system, failure to recognize the symptoms soon enough, or failure to live a healthy lifestyle. We try to avoid death as long as possible through good diet, exercise, regular checkups, and competent doctors and dentists. And we don't want our pastors to preach about death - unless it's at a funeral.
So, if we avoid talking about death, it's no wonder we don't talk much about our resurrection. We can prove that everyone dies, but we can't prove our resurrection. Luke may have told this story so people would contemplate their own death and resurrection.
In Jesus' rebuttal to the story, he makes two points. First, he says that the Sadducee misunderstands the character of life after death. Things won't be the same. They will be like angels (and remember Sadducees don't believe in angels.) There won't be any marriage or a continuation of life as we know it. The future isn't based on what we're experiencing right now. Resurrection isn't resuscitation to life as we know it.
Underlying Jesus' answer is the conviction that God is the God of living people and not dead people. He illustrates his answer with a story from the book of Genesis - scripture that the Sadducees accept. He says that God is the God of the living, the God in whom death has lost its power. God is the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Therefore the patriarchs must be alive - raised from the dead. (English teachers will appreciate an explanation based on semantics!)
How we view the resurrection depends on our concept of God. Jesus says what resurrection isn't, but we have no description of how it will be. This is tough because we want to know what it's like.
I believe it's important to recognize the mystery of the unknown and the limitations of our understanding. The Bible doesn't answer many of our deep questions directly. Much of biblical writing on the topic of the afterlife is based on visions, which aren't to be interpreted literally. But if you're like me, you would appreciate more concrete information on this and other related topics than is available. We are asked to accept a great deal on faith.
On the surface, Jesus' answer doesn't appear brilliant, but it gives new insight to those who truly want an answer. Karl Barth, a well-known theologian, stated that "the Bible gives to every person and to every era such answers to their questions as they deserve. We shall always find in it as much as we seek and no more." The Sadducees were given more than they sought from Jesus but they wouldn't or couldn't hear it because they didn't really want an answer.
In our text Jesus doesn't tell us what we will be transfigured into, but it will be similar to that of angels. We will have an immortal body. Paul tells us in his first letter to the church at Corinth that the resurrected body is a spiritual body and not one made of flesh and blood.
This text has everything Jesus is quoted as saying about resurrection. There will be no marriage and we will have new bodies. What we do know is that very soon Jesus went on to find out for himself. He surrendered life as we know it and when those who loved him came to take care of his body, they couldn't find him anywhere. When he showed up later, he had a body. Scripture says he ate fish, broke bread and cooked breakfast. He also walked through locked doors and vanished while people were looking right at him. He was the same - recognizable - but he was different, and because he was both, our futures may turn out to be as astounding as his.
Because of Jesus' experience, Christians believe in resurrection. We believe Jesus was resurrected by God and that we shall also be resurrected. And we have a real curiosity about what it will be like. What will we be like? Possibly the reason we don't know more is that we don't have the language or the concepts to describe this new life. Possibly it's because we are rigid and confident that we have all the answers. It may be impossible for God to picture it for us.
We get so bogged down in this world that we don't really contemplate something radically new, like resurrection. I have found that people don't contemplate it until they are dying. Heaven can't be understood as an extension of our present existence. We can't take what we like from our current life, raise it to the nth power and call it heaven. Resurrection entails transformation.
There is great mystery connected with the age to come. In spiritual matters, we can't make a list of tenants of faith and then explain everything to our own or any one else's satisfaction. Much of our faith can't be explained but can only be experienced. And even though we don't understand, we know that sometimes life in this world only makes sense if Jesus is raised and will take us also.
There will be times when our faith will be challenged either by those who believe themselves to be more spiritual than we or those who have no interest in God's ways. When those challenges come, don't allow yourself to be consumed by the challenger. Keep your mind and heart open to God. Answer briefly as you pray about your response and then continue on in the spirit of Christ. When God controls our lives, we may lose the debate according to earthly rules but we will win eternally when God makes good on the promise of eternal life.
The question of the Sadducee, intended to trap Jesus, instead brought enlightenment. Oh, not to the Sadducees because they didn't want answers, but to others in the audience and to us. What began as a game of Gotcha turned into a teaching moment followed by an "Aha!"
I can't prove beyond a shadow of doubt that God will raise us to new life, but I'm banking on the fact that Jesus' words are true. I trust his promise that he has prepared a place for us and that he will take us home to be with him. I invite you to trust that promise too. It will bring you peace in troubled times.
