Proper 27

Luke 20,27-38

Rev. Neli Miranda

 

On November 1, Christian tradition celebrates All Saints’ Day to honor and remember all the saints of the church recognized for their exemplary lives. All Saints’ Day is followed by the Commemoration of All Faithful Departed on November 2. On this day, we remember all those who have died in the faith of Jesus, particularly our family members and friends who have gone before us. In our Anglican tradition, many congregations commemorate all the faithful departed on All Saints’ Day.

Our liturgical order allows us to celebrate All Saints’ Day on the Sunday following November 1.  Thus, today we honor and rejoice in all those who through the ages have faithfully served the Lord, especially our beloved ones who have preceded us into the eternal kingdom, where there is no more pain and suffering but eternal joy. This celebration embodies our Christian belief in Jesus’ victory over death, which assures us that death is only a step in our resurrection to eternal life because Jesus says, “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live” (Jn 11:25-26).

In Jewish spirituality, the hope in resurrection arose in the post-exilic period, in the midst of suffering, persecution, and death. During this time, powerful Empires inflicted pain on the people of Israel and tried to destroy their faith, yet their hope in resurrection sustained them. In Jesus’ days, many people continued keeping this hope alive in the face of the suffering inflicted by the Roman Empire and the Jewish elite who exercised power over them. 

Luke tells us in today’s gospel that Jesus reaffirms the hope in resurrection in a confrontation with the Sadducees, “. . .those who say there is no resurrection” (20,27). Sadducees were a group of influential priestly families who had a strong socioeconomic, political, and religious impact on the people. Besides dominating the temple and its priesthood, they also had a big influence on local politics and tended to have a good relationship with the Roman rulers of Palestine. They represented the conservative view within Judaism and rivaled the Pharisees. Thus, while the Sadducees adhered strictly to Moses’ Law, the Pharisees considered interpretations and traditions derived from it.

According to the Sadducees’ interpretation of Moses’ Law, it did not mention resurrection, so they denied it. Thus, in an attempt to make belief in resurrection an absurdity, they gave Jesus an intricate case to solve, which was based on one of the most representative Laws of Mosaic legislation, the Levirate Law. This Law was intended to perpetuate the lineage of a man who died without offspring and to protect the rights and wellbeing of widows. This Law commanded that when a man died without descendants, his widow shall not marry outside the family to a stranger but to her husband’s brother to have descendants who would elevate the deceased’s name.

 So, the Sadducees presented the case of a woman who had had seven husbands who had died successively leaving no children; finally, the woman also died.  “In the resurrection, therefore, whose wife will the woman be? For the seven had married her” - The Sadducees asked Jesus in an ironic tone (20,33). It appears they wanted to show that resurrection is incompatible with the teachings of Moses to which they strictly adhered. Certainly, they wanted to ridicule Jesus!

I ask you… were the Sadducees mocking the people’s hope in resurrection? Were they mocking the hope of the poor they themselves oppressed? Were they ridiculing and misinterpreting a law given primarily to protect the family?  Were they making the woman of the story an object? They were!!

Jesus rejects the Sadducees’ arrogance and their twisted interpretation of the Law by speaking simply of a new age to come and of the resurrection from the dead. Jesus speaks about those worthy of attaining a place in that age and in the glorious resurrection. They, Jesus says, are no longer confined to the oppressive earthly structures that force them to marry, or marry someone they do not want, or to have children. They cannot die anymore—like the men and woman in the story—because they are like angels and children of God; they are children of the resurrection. In other words, Jesus is saying that the Levirate Law the Sadducees invoke does not apply to this age.

Jesus ends by addressing the Sadducees in the language they understood, Moses’ theology about resurrection: “And the fact that the dead are raised Moses himself showed, in the story about the bush, where he speaks of the Lord as the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. Now he is God not of the dead, but of the living; for to him all of them are alive." (20:37-38).

Jesus is in Jerusalem, where he will soon be murdered by the system led by the Sadducees; however, at the gates of death, he remains faithful to the hope in resurrection and confesses his faith in the God of the living who will raise him from the dead.

Today, sisters and brothers, our faith in Jesus’ God encourages us to rejoice for all our beloved who remained faithful to God and were resurrected to eternal life.  Our faith also encourages us to await confidently for our future in the God of the living.

Jesus mentioned those considered “worthy of a place in that age and in the resurrection from the dead”.  I ask, who might those be? They are Jesus’ disciples who love and proclaim life. They are those who everyday seek abundant life for all, those who long, dream, and strive for a new world, for a new age. Are you one of those disciples? AMEN