The group was tiny this morning, not sure why, but we did have a thought provoking discussion on the interaction between Jesus and the Sadducees in Luke 20. These type of passages are my least favorite to preach from because it is basically a narrative and the theological questions it raises are too much for the pulpit; so my concern was what on earth to preach.
What it came down to, it seems, was hope. Luke has spent a lot of time dealing with faith and what faith looks like in the here and now. There is an obvious shift in this lesson as Luke has Jesus dealing directly with the age to come, the resurrection. The shift from faith now to hope for the future is stark and is obvious throughout the Propers. Job knows that his redeemer lives. The Psalmist seeks vindication, the Thessalonians are in need of hope in the midst of wicked and evil people, and even the collect looks to the second coming. We are turning a corner here. We are beginning to make our way toward Advent; waiting patiently upon Jesus as he comes again.
So I guess I'll be preaching on hope. I don't really know what that looks like or how it'll sound, but that's where I'm going. Anybody got an idea?
5 comments:
Hope is where I want to go with these readings, but I keep getting hung up on the Sadducees. How depressing to think that this life is it - add to that no angels and you've got a pretty legalistic thought pattern. You'd have to be one of the rich elite in order to make that all work. As we amass our stuff here in this life I have to wonder how much like the Sadducees we really act like. How do we express our hope? I know I don't believe that its ALL about the next life - what happens here - how we live our lives is important but God has to represent something bigger, something better, some mystery that I don't have the ability to grasp in total. In Luke the Sadducees seem to represent a group that thinks so small that the only expression of the Kingdom of God is the one here on earth so that a political solution is the one they are after. They needed to get rid of the Romans and establish a Jewish religious/political state and that would be the kingdom of God. So far I haven't seen any political system that actually works - human selfishness keeps getting in the way of the best of intentions. We may keep trying, but our ultimate hope is in the love and grace of God as shown in JC. One hope is that this isn't too rambling to make sense - I'm still working it out....
I really think you're on to something here. I call myself a Christian. I have "given up everything to follow God's call." But that everything I gave up really wasn't all that much. I still have a bunch of important things; health, family, love. But I also have a ton of things stored up. A lot of things in which I place my hope. Equity in my house. A savings account. A resume. A blog that somebody reads. In theology I am with Jesus 100% - there is a resurrection of the body and it will be amazing. In praxis - well, hmm, the here and now is a good enough place for my hope.
thanks!
We really struggled with this in our lectionary group, also. It seems to me that Jesus is seeing this group who is so set in their ways that he just has to shake them up with this idea that "marriage" doesn't exist in the next life. Now, I know we're not talking about "marriage" specifically, but it seems that we've got Jesus upsetting the order that we all hold so dear. Our order of relationships, of society, and roles within each.
I told them I can't imagine a place where Erin isn't my wife and Amelia Jane isn't my daughter, but this new life that we are being promised is so radical and so outrageous that we can't even begin to comprehend how it will look.
I could be way off here, but right now it's what I'm thinking I'll be going with. Good luck to both of you!
Ben: I read something this week on this theme. It said something like....Marriage is a human construct - designed at different times for different reasons. In the first century it most often assured the husband of heirs that were most likely his and the wife the security of someone who could provide for her and her children and the protection of family and community. Today things have changed some, but we still have legal and emotional reasons behind marriage. (Can you tell I took Jacques' class on marriage?) BUT the emotional ties that you, Erin, and Amelia Jane have that will most likely carry over into the next phase of our existence - they will be your sisters in Christ even if your relationship with them is not the same that it is right now. Shoot, your relationships will continue to change as you and they get older and circumstances change. Not that it will be worse - or even better - just different.
I agree, though, that just as God has created life here in such wild and wonderful diversity then God is capable of equally wild and wonderful life on the other side. If I have trouble imagining an ostrich or a hippo or a platypus here there is no way I can imagine life after death. (I've worked a platypus into one sermon, twice seems way too outlandish!!!)
My other thoughts have to do with hope vs faith. I believe that we need hope if we have faith, but I'm not positive that hope always leads to faith. Is JC once again calling us to think outside our small, comfortable boxes - to begin to imagine something more like what God imagines for us?
When working on this this morning, I had another thought that ties this into the current situation in our church. The idea is that Jesus is representing a continuing "revealing" of G-d's Word in terms of this Word not being "stuck" within the confines of the Torah. I think it opens up the conversation today about the continuing revelation of G-d's word vs. us leaving the word of G-d between the first word of Genesis and the last word of Revelation.
I don't know if I'm ready for that sermon here, but it is something to chew on. Just a thought.
Candyce, thanks for your other words. Great insight!
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