"Do You Really Want to Know?"
Sermon Presented November 11, 2007
Luke 20:27-40
If you aren't sick of it already, I'm sure that soon you will be fed up with the evasive answers to questions being offered by presidential candidates. We desire thoughtful and satisfying responses to our questions: we want to know where the candidates stand on important issues; but we seldom get what we want! When questioners try to trip up the candidate, evasive answers are one way to handle the situation. Sometimes there is no correct answer to a question or easy solution to a problem!
Politicians aren't the only ones guilty of evading the tough questions. Parents, teachers and ministers do the same for fear of a possible backlash. Some theological and moral questions must be examined and answered carefully, because a pat answer gives no one satisfaction. When a person asks me rapid fire what I believe about evolution, abortion, homosexuality and the inerrancy of Scripture, I know that they aren't interested in exploring the topics, but just want to see if my answer fit their understanding. I love to discuss issues, and the attitude of the questioner determines my openness to share my thoughts.
In our text, the question put to Jesus by the Sadducee is insincere and meant as a trap. However, Jesus' answer serves two purposes. He reaches the heart of the question and silences his questioner.
Luke places this conversation in the week of Jesus' death. It's the third in a series of four debates Jesus has in the temple with religious leaders that week. This debate is unusual in that this is the only time Luke mentions the Sadducees and it is the only mention of Jesus discussing the 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 as straight teachings. His wisdom brought him respect - even when there was no agreement. The verse immediately preceding our text says: "being amazed by his answer, they (the religious leaders) became silent." They had no retort. They still have no retort!
There are two issues here that I want us to look at. The first is questioning and the second - resurrection. These topics are intertwined in the text.
First let's look at the one asking the question. He's a Sadducee - one holding the theological position that there is no resurrection. He's not looking for an answer, but is trying to trap Jesus by constructing a story to the point of being ridiculous! Sadducees are religious conservatives who accept only the first five books of the Hebrew Scripture as authoritative. They are closely aligned with the aristocracy and priestly classes, and reject the authority of oral tradition. They deny belief in resurrection and angels, and emphasize free will over determinism. With his question, the Sadducee attempts to reduce the position 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?
The Hebrew Scripture says that if a man dies without children, his brother is obligated to take his widow and have children by her, because children keep the property within the immediate family and give the widow security. Marriage is viewed primarily as an arrangement of a man's right to a woman and a woman's right to male support. If a man refuses to take his brother's widow, she has the obligation to call the elders, pull his sandal from his foot, and spit in his face - signifying that she is free from any further obligation to her husband's family. With this law as background, the questioner wants to know: if the woman has seven husbands - all brothers, who will she be married to in the afterlife?
At the time of Jesus, the idea of resurrection from the dead was a fairly recent concept. Before that time, Israelites believed people lived on in their descendents and in their memory. Now the Pharisees accept the idea of resurrection, but the Sadducees do not.
Because there was no proof of resurrection, there was nothing wrong with the question asked of Jesus - if the man really wanted to know. However, the way he asked the question gave him away. He didn't want to understand Jesus' belief; he wanted to set a trap!
Most of us are curious about what will occur upon our deaths, but we don't usually talk about it until a doctor suggests Hospice care for us or a loved one. Then it may be too late to ask the questions or seek answers.
So if we avoid talk of death, we probably avoid talk of resurrection. We can prove that people die, but we can't prove the resurrection. When we can't prove the mysteries of life, we avoid the discussion. However, an unbelieving questioner brings it to Jesus' attention and to that of the gospel writer.
In Jesus' rebuttal to the story, he makes two points. First he says that Sadducees misunderstand the nature of life after death. Our bodies won't be the same as before, but will be like angels. The future isn't based on anything we can understand. 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 bases his answer on the book of Genesis - Scripture the Sadducees accept as God's word. He says 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 - those who were once dead but now live in the resurrection.
Jesus says what resurrection isn't, but not what it is. Here we must deal with the mystery of the unknown and the limitations of our understanding. The Bible doesn't answer many of our deep questions directly. Most of the biblical writings on the topic of the afterlife are based on visions, which are not to be interpreted literally. We are asked to accept a great deal on faith.
Karl Barth, a German 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 Sadducee was given more than he sought from Jesus but he couldn't hear it because his mind was closed. However, he did see that he couldn't best Jesus with his question.
This is Jesus' only discussion of resurrection in Scripture. (Paul tells the church at Corinth that the resurrected body is a spiritual body and not one made of flesh and blood. There will be no marriage and we will have new bodies.) Soon after this discussion, Jesus experienced resurrection. He surrendered life as he knew it and when the women came to take care of his body, they couldn't find him. When he showed up later, he had a body, but he could walk through locked doors and vanish while people were looking at him. He was the same - recognizable - but he was different, and this is where the mystery lies.
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 that 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 the answers. It may be impossible for God to picture it for us.
The age to come 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, and herein lies the mystery.
There is mystery in all spiritual matters. There is mystery in God. We can't make a list of tenets of faith and then explain everything to our own or any one else's satisfaction. Faith comes from our experience with God in Christ and not from written words. I can't explain why I experienced God's presence so powerfully last Sunday morning and God's absence at other times. I can't explain why dreams and visions hold great significance for many of us. I can't explain Jesus' resurrection to my satisfaction. But even when we don't understand, we know that sometimes life in this world only makes sense if Jesus was raised and will take us too.
There will be times when our faith will be challenged by those who believe themselves to be more spiritual than we or by those who have no interest in God's ways. When those challenges come, we can't allow ourselves to be over-powered by the challenger. When we keep our minds and hearts open to God, God's Spirit will lead. I love to interact with those who have honest questions - not because I have all of the answers, but because when people seek, they usually find what they are looking for, and that helps me too.
How do we answer those who question us? Do we become defensive or try to convince them of our superior intellect or understanding, or do we try to explain our understanding and let God do the rest? For me, the care with which I answer depends on the questioner's desire to hear my opinion or to understand an issue.
The question that was intended to trap Jesus, brought enlightenment! Oh, not to the Sadducees because they didn't really want answers, but to others in the audience and to us. I can't prove beyond a shadow of doubt that God will raise us to new life, but I'm banking on that truth. I trust the promise Jesus made to prepare a place for us and then to take us to be with him. I invite you to trust that promise too. It will bring peace in troubled times.
