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Sermon - The Twenty-Third Sunday after Pentecost (A) - 19th October 2008
St Alban’s Epping 7, 8 and 10 am
Readings: Exodus 33:12-23; Psalm 99; Matthew 22:15-33
I love movies. I find it a great way to relax. But one of my favourite movies is “The Shawshank Redemption.” Of course I have the DVD. I like to watch it every now and again. In part, the film is about a group of men in jail. They have been convicted of murder so they all face long sentences. At one point in the film, they discuss the subject of “hope”. One man claims that in spite of their situation in jail, they must have hope, he asks “How can you live without hope?” But another inmate warns them, “Hope is a dangerous thing. Hope can send a man crazy. Hope has no place in a jail like this.” But the others shook their heads. They could not imagine living without hope. And so the rest of the film focuses on the idea of how hope can shape our lives.
We all hope for things. If we are well, we hope we will stay well. If we are sick we hope to see better days. We hope our children will do well and prosper. And our hopes will shape and mould how we live. One hope I’m sure we all share as Christians is a hope of a life after death We may not be sure what that means. We may not be very clear about what we are hoping for. But we hope for a life beyond this life. The Funeral Service speaks of a sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life, but mentions no details about it. But the idea of hope in resurrection is not a uniquely Christian idea.
In our gospel reading today the subject of resurrection was raised not by Jesus but by the Sadducees. The Jews had been debating the subject of resurrection for several centuries before Jesus came on the scene. And there was a general belief in the idea of resurrection. The objection to resurrection by the Sadducees was only a recent development. But the scribes pointed to Daniel’s description of resurrection to prove the doctrine. In chapter 12 we read “Multitudes who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake, some to everlasting life, others to shame and everlasting contempt.” So in Daniel we have the idea of a resurrection of the righteous and the unrighteous who also face a judgment.
Jewish ideas of resurrection were very physical. They didn’t believe that people were resurrected to become ghosts or angels or some heavenly being. Resurrection was always bodily. This idea is reflected in Ezekiel 37 with the valley of dry bones. This is a picture of the reconstitution of the people of God but it starts with a valley of bones. The bones first link up to become whole skeletons and then the sinews and muscles appear, and then they are covered with skin. Once the bones have become bodies, God gives each one breath so that they can come to life again.
The Jews understood resurrection in those very physical terms. And this had an impact on such things as capital punishment. If you were executed by the State they aimed to keep your body in tact during the process so it would be in a fit state for resurrection. So when John the Baptist was beheaded, it was considered particularly horrific because his head had been separated from his body. To compensate for that his family would have made sure that his head was buried with his body so it was prepared for resurrection. This is why it is emphasized at Jesus’ crucifixion that not a single bone in his body was broken. Though it was a shocking way to die it was a comfort to the church that his body was not broken, but it was complete and ready for resurrection though Jesus’ resurrection occurred in the middle of history and not at the end as it will be for everyone else.
All of this has implications for Jewish burial. Cremation was forbidden as it destroyed the bones. Rather, the body was placed in a tomb for a year or two until the flesh had rotted away leaving just the bones. Then the bones were paced in a box, all together in one place to await the resurrection. They weren't in a box to save space. Rather it was a simple way to keep the bones together. But resurrection was to include the whole of creation. Ezekiel 47 speaks not just of a new people or a new Temple, but the whole of creation. Resurrection is not about becoming a ghost when you die. Rather it is looking forward to the day when you will be a new creation,, within a new heaven and a new earth.
And because the Jews understood resurrection in such physical terms, there was a discussion over what these new bodies would look like Will they be the same body or a completely different body. 1 Corinthians 15 is all about the nature of a resurrection body. But the Jews had been discussing this topic in these terms for centuries before Paul took up the subject. And this is why the Sadducees question in Matthew 22 is so important.
The Jews had attempted to thrash out every fine detail of resurrection and the Sadducees where using this desire for detail to destroy all hope of resurrection by presenting these absurd anomalies. So they approached Jesus, who obviously endorsed the idea of resurrection, with their question. A man had married, had no children and he had died. According to Moses’ law, the man's brother should marry the woman. This was to ensure ongoing care for the woman so she would not face hardship. But here the Sadducees string the story out with seven brothers who all die and there are no children. Then the woman dies. So at the resurrection, whose wife will she be?
Part of Jesus’ answer is to explain that they don’t understand resurrection. Resurrection can be compared to Genesis 1. This is a fresh start – a new creation. Second Jesus points out that we will be like the angels. He is not saying we will become angels. Rather we will be like angels in that angels do not marry. The implication is that there will be no need for reproduction – and hence, no need for marriage in that sense. But it also doesn’t mean that we won’t be able to recognize each other at the resurrection. Paul implies that there will be both change and continuity. At the resurrection we won’t have a body that’s subject to decay – a body that can't do what it once did. We will be a new creation. But there will be continuity. It will still be us – it will still be you and me.
But then Jesus went on to prove the truth of the resurrection. The Sadducees only accepted the first five books of the Bible as scripture and they have no direct reference to resurrection. The Jews had tried for many years to find a way to prove the resurrection from those five books but had been unsuccessful. But Jesus presented a whole new argument – though it was similar to how the Pharisees had been thinking. Jesus said, “Have you not read what God said to you ‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.' He is not the God of the dead, but of the living." Its no wonder the crowds were astonished. They had never heard this argument before.
But what they had heard supported the general understanding that God would keep his promises. He promised Abraham that he would be the father of a great nation. He had promised Israel that there would be a return from exile. The Jews understood that if God made a promise to a person, that person would see the fulfilment of that promise. That’s why Jesus could say in John 8, “Abraham rejoiced at the thought of seeing my day, and he saw it and was glad.” So if God is eternal, his promises remain until they are fulfilled and the person who receives the promise will survive to see the promise fulfilled.
God is the God of the living, not the dead. There is life beyond this life. There is life beyond death. But we have the advantage in that we have seen Jesus go through the resurrection before us. Resurrection does happen. Jesus is the first fruits of a new creation. He is our hope for the life ahead. And that hope is to shape our lives now. We are encouraged to live as Jesus lived, with generosity, with love, with forgiveness, doing to others as we would have them do to us, knowing that living in this way with this hope is never in vain for we too possess the hope, we possess the promise of a resurrection life in a new creation, a new heaven, a new earth.