Haggai 1:15b-2:9; 2 Thessalonians 2:1-5, 13-17; Luke 20:27-38
Ordinary 32C
Proper 26
Just in time: On the Sunday before the election, the lectionary gifts us with a minor prophet encouraging the remnant, an epistle warning the faithful not to be fooled about the timing of the second coming and a Gospel text devoted to a trick question using the law of “levirate marriage” and the resurrection.
Which one to choose when there is so much that resonates? Seriously, was this the week the common lectionary committee got giddy and just flipped open the Bible and appointed the passages where they happened to land? Given the gravitas of the timing, how do we preach the gospel to a gathered community keenly aware that a tumultuous season is both ending and beginning?
Maybe that’s the connection to this week’s readings. All three texts are written in a context of upheaval, anxiety and fear. Now, that resonates, right? Haggai tells his audience to “take courage” no less than three times, followed by that assurance that God promises, “My spirit abides among you; do not fear.” Clearly, Haggai is preaching to an anxious bunch. 2 Thessalonians is written to a persecuted church with the author trying to strengthen those waiting for Christ’s return. The writer “begs” the faithful “not to be quickly shaken in mind or alarmed.” Clearly, the recipients of the letter are anxious, likely shaken in mind and alarmed.
But what about the Luke text for this Sunday? How does it relate to an uncertain and fear-filled time? Well, remember that Jesus has just entered Jerusalem. The parade of praise and cloaks is not a distant memory and the authorities are increasingly worried about the crowds Jesus has attracted. The religious leaders are peppering him with questions, testing him, trying to trick him. The tension is mounting. Spies had been sent in order to trap him a few verses back with the question about paying taxes. It didn’t work. Now here come the Sadducees to ask a question to which they are already certain of the answer. Regardless of what Jesus says, he is doomed. He is on death row and an execution date has been set. There will be no stay granted.
Fear, anxiety, apocalyptic talk, questions of power and glory, uncertain outcomes – all these things pervade the readings for this week. Perhaps they are perfect for the first Sunday of the eleventh month before the second Tuesday in the last year of the second term of President Obama. Both leaders and people alike are wondering what’s next and worried they won’t be on the winning side of history in the days ahead. What’s the word of the Lord to the battered remnant, the persecuted faithful, the Sadducees, Pharisees, disciples and crowds?
First and foremost it is this: God is faithful. The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is faithful. The promises hold. The covenant remains. Even when the temple has yet to be restored and the remnant has forgotten past days of glory, God remains in control. Even when the world is in upheaval and each headline is more dire than the next, there is no need to be shaken in mind or alarmed. God remains in charge and God’s salvation story keeps marching forward through us and despite us. Even after the crowds so fired up at this or that rally have long gone home and Jesus is facing crucifixion, God will bring about reconciliation, resurrection, life out of the depths of cruelty and death.
The only reason on this Sunday before election day, or on any Sunday for that matter, to not be shaken or alarmed and to not be fearful is the truth that God is faithful in good times and bad, no matter who is elected president, regardless of anyone’s political affiliation, today, tomorrow and forever.
Whose wife will that bride for seven brothers be in the resurrection? It doesn’t matter when we all belong to the Risen Christ. The truth is whether we live or whether we die, once Jesus is raised from the dead, we are the Lord’s. We are the Lord’s on November 6, November 8 and November 9, and that should be the reality that rules our actions, guides our thoughts and shapes our lifestyles no matter who is elected to the highest office of this age.
What’s at stake in that exchange between Jesus and the Sadducees isn’t whose wife that exhausted woman is. What is at stake is life or death and Jesus’ response is what we should lift up this week: God is not the God of the dead, but of the living; for to him all of them are alive. Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, alive. Jesus, raised from the dead, alive – and if Jesus, then we, too, alive and God’s. That truth should alleviate our fear and quell our anxiety.
A recent Rolling Stone article, “The Age of Fear,” reports on the “terror management theory.” Eddie Guy writes, “One of the most important ideas in social psychology of the past three decades, it is predicated on the notion that as adult human beings, we have a desire to live, yet we know that – at a time and by a cause unknown to us – we are going to die.” He goes on to say that research has revealed, “that when people are reminded of their mortality … they can become more prejudiced and more aggressive toward people with different worldviews.” Apparently, we are easily shaken in mind and alarmed. The use of rhetoric this election season that plays on those fears is effective. No wonder many on both sides of the political divide predict dire consequences come November 9. We are so afraid.
I would suggest that this is a Sunday to remind your hearers to take courage, do not fear, don’t be so easily shaken in mind or alarmed, because God is faithful and the God of the living and we are the living who belong to God, always. Jesus is in the heart of Jerusalem and on the cusp of execution; frightening times await the faithful, but resurrection is surely coming and with it forgiveness, reconciliation and victory over all that threatens to overwhelm us, even death.
The questions we need to be asking of Jesus this Sunday and this Tuesday and the following Wednesday aren’t whose wife will that woman be, but rather who is on death row and in need of a stay of execution? Who is terrified of death and needs to know about resurrection life? Where are the widows we’ve neglected and how are we going to care for them? Trusting that the age to come is out of our control, how are we living in this age?
I have been reading “Just Mercy” by Bryan Stevenson. Even when I put the book down, it refuses to let me go. Stevenson writes about sitting with one of his clients just moments before the man, Herbert, is to be executed. Herbert says, “All day long people have been asking me, ‘What can I do to help you?’ When I woke up this morning, they kept coming to me, ‘Can we get you some breakfast?’… All day long, ‘What can we do to help you? … Do you need stamps for your letters? Do you want water? Do you want coffee? Can we get you the phone? How can we help you?’… It’s been so strange, Bryan. More people have asked me what they can do for me in the last fourteen hours of my life than ever asked me in the years when I was coming up.”
Stevenson notes, “Where were these people when he really needed them? Where were all these helpful people when Herbert was three and his mother died? Where were they when he was seven and trying to recover from physical abuse? Where were they when he was a young teen struggling with drugs and alcohol? Where were they when he returned from Vietnam traumatized and disabled?”
Where were those concerned about the widow’s status in the resurrection when she was struggling on earth?
During this election season of so much alarm and fear, I think we, like the Sadducees in Luke, have been asking questions of Jesus that aren’t genuine. We haven’t wanted to hear the answer. We’ve come to him already certain of the answer. We have wanted confirmation of our beliefs or evidence to convict those with whom we disagree. We come to the condemned man facing his execution and ask things that are irrelevant given the timing. Long before this late hour we should have been concerned about widows, not in the resurrection, but right here and now.
We should not be fearful, alarmed or shaken. We should be following our God who is faithful, in control and life giving. We should be concerned not so much with who wins, but with those who are lost. Come Wednesday, I pray we aren’t shaken, no matter the outcome of the election, but instead are courageous and calm because whether we live or whether we die, no matter what, we are the Lord’s and so are the vulnerable widows, the ones on death row, and even the people who voted differently than we did and God wants all of us to live, abundantly and together.
This week:
- What is the significance of Jesus being questioned about the resurrection so close to his own death?
- What quickly causes us to have a shaken mind and alarm in our context? What does our faith say about those things that we fear?
- Why is it important that Jesus talks of the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob? How does pointing to them provide proof of the resurrection?
- What trick questions does Jesus get asked in our day and time? Have you been asked any trick questions about Jesus or your faith? If so, how have you answered?
- How does the reality of the resurrection inform your living here and now?
- Take a look in the “Glory to God”hymnal at the “Jesus Christ: Resurrection” section (#229-257) and read through several of the hymns. How do those hymns inform your understanding of the Luke text? Of resurrection?
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