God of the Living

Proper 27C
Job 19:23-27a      2 Thess 2:1-5, 13-17      Luke 20:27-38

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

Today, some Sadducees come to test Jesus with a question about resurrection. Now we usually hear more about Pharisees, so who are the Sadducees? They are people in “a Jewish group that [is] closely aligned with the aristocratic and priestly classes. . .In contract to the Pharisees, the Sadducees [reject] the authority of oral tradition, [deny] the belief in resurrection and angels, and [emphasize] free will over determinism.” [1] (No Calvinists here!) For this group, resurrection is a foolish idea. They believe that the way you live after death is through your children. You marry, you have children, they have children, and the family line continues into infinity. Thus you live on, after your death, through your heirs. As is true in the Christian Church today, there is a lot of arguing among different groups of Jewish believers—over authority of scripture, how one interprets the laws of faith on a daily basis, who is in, who is out, etc.

And so when these Sadducees ask Jesus a question about resurrection, they do not really care what Jesus believes is the “right” answer. They just want to trap Jesus and cause trouble. Yet Jesus—as usual—does not fall into their trap. Instead, he gives them an enigmatic answer. Jesus reminds them about Moses and the burning bush. In that story, Moses asks God what he should say when he goes back to Egypt to free his people. Who should Moses say is sending him? God gives Moses an enigmatic answer. Moses, here’s what you say. You say that I AM has sent you. I AM the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. I AM WHO I AM. In other words, a God of the present. A God of this moment. A God who is with you, no matter where you go or when.

Now Jesus faces people who want to make him look foolish by asking him a question with no answer. And Jesus’ answers them this way: Remember the God of Moses? Of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob? This God is still our God. A God not of the dead but of the living. For in God’s eyes, these pillars of our faith are not dead. They are alive in the Lord.

Is there resurrection? Is there life after death? Is there something beyond ourselves about which we can only speculate? Human beings have speculated and argued and written about this question for millennia. In the ancient world, Job wonders about this question. Out of terrible physical pain and deep grief and loss, Job somehow continues to have faith in God. In something larger than himself. “I know that my Redeemer lives, and that at the last he will stand upon the earth; and after my skin has been thus destroyed, then in my flesh I shall see God.”

Thousands of years after Job lives, the church in Thessalonica wonders when they will see God’s kingdom on earth as it is in heaven. When is “the day of the Lord”? Has it come already? Perhaps in the midst of a terrible time of persecution under cruel Roman emperors, some in the Church probably think “the day of the Lord” has arrived. The apostle Paul writes to say no, we are still living in an in-between time. The already and the not yet Kingdom of God. “So then, brothers and sisters,” Paul writes, “stand firm and hold fast to the traditions that you were taught by us, either by word of mouth or by our letter.”  As a leader in the first-century Christian Church, Paul encourages his people to proclaim God’s love—with their lips and with their lives. Jesus has gone back to God. They thought he would come back soon. Yet as the faithful look around, Jesus has not come back. The world is no better than it used to be—in fact, it looks worse. Christians have been thrown to the lions, or beheaded, or crucified, or turned into human torches at Nero’s garden parties. Is there hope in such a world? Is there really hope that God has something in the next life that is worth dying for?

We may very well ask the same questions today. We may come to church on Sunday and say the Nicene Creed—this ancient creed that is an affirmation of our corporate faith. The last sentence of that creed is this: “We look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come.” At every funeral done in the Episcopal Church, we recall those words of Job: “I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth; and those this body be destroyed, yet shall I see God; whom I shall see for myself and mine eyes shall behold, and not as a stranger.” What does this mean—that we will see God for ourselves? What does it mean that we believe in “the life of the world to come”? And even if we really knew what those things meant, so what? What difference does resurrection hope—professed out loud on Sunday morning—mean for us on Wednesday or Thursday morning?

What it means is that our God is not a God of the past tense. Our God is not a God of the future tense. Our God is a God of the present tense. Our God is with us right here and right now. In this moment. In this alive and real moment. Last Sunday, we understood this in a variety of different ways in this community of faith. As we celebrated the Feast of All Saints last Sunday morning, I invited you to imagine that the saints who have gone before us were—literally—standing here in this worship space as we sang the Sanctus. We did that. I don’t know how you experienced that, but I can tell you that at the end of the Great Thanksgiving, as we said the Lord’s Prayer, the sounds of those words reverberated all over this worship space. In fact, they rang in a way that made me look up. For suddenly, it sounded as if there were far more people in this space than I had actually seen here. And in that instant, I knew that the saints were truly with us. They are with us in this place.

This is a mystery. As people of faith, we believe that in death, life is changed, not ended. We do not understand that, yet we say it anyway. God is with us, whether we are in this world, or in the world to come— a world you and I have not yet experienced, yet a world of resurrection life in which we hope. And while we wait for the time when all of God’s saints gather at the river, the truth is that God does not wait to come to us. God comes to us in the here and now. In the pain and struggle of our lives. In the griefs and losses. In the joys and celebrations of new ministries and Holy Spirit doves and Bach and Mozart and holy smoke.

Our God is with us in both the extraordinary moments and in the simple, ordinary ones. Our God is with us now. Today. No matter what we are doing or where we go, God is with us. Our God is not a God of the dead, or of the past, or of some dimly hoped for pie-in-the-sky future. No. Our God is a God of the living. A God of today. Of this very moment. So live into this moment—and every moment of your life—with God. Give thanks for the One who is now and present. The Holy One who is the great I AM, in this life, and in the life to come. Amen.

[1] The New Interpreter’s Bible, Vol. IX: Luke and John, (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1995), 388.

Picture of Leverite Priest from http://www.messianic.nazirene.org/Inside.jpg

Moses and Burning Bush picture from http://www.coptic.net/pictures/Icon.MosesAndTheBurningBush.jpg

“Communion of Saints in Paper Mache” from http://www.katehodgson.net/saints.jpg

Text © The Rev. Sheila N. McJilton