Springwood Presbyterian Church: Whitsett, NC

My first ‘priestly’ action as your pastor this week was to comfort part of the Greeson family in the death of Cleo Greeson Osborne and hold a memorial service here in the Sanctuary.

Our text today was a good one to study with the Sadducees testing Jesus. The question of the resurrection of the dead was my first in what I hope to be a long, meaningful ministry here. It is about asking questions. Getting to know some of Cleo’s family meant asking questions, learning about your cemetery, the by-laws, who’s buried there, the practices and procedures- all involved asking questions.

In my home life I am asked questions all the time.  Jack and I have three young adults in our family. They are out on their own- checking back with each of us when they have questions parents should be able to answer.

April has – it seems- an audition every week these days as she completes her masters’ studies in vocal performance in Cleveland, Ohio. Last week she flew to Minneapolis- for the day- to audition for the Minnesota Opera. Next week she will fly to Chicago for an overnight stay to audition for the Utah Opera and then at the end of November she will fly back to Chicago to try for the Colorado Springs Opera Young Artists program. She asks questions about travel and taxis and how to pray and stay calm in the midst of turmoil and stress- and then she says, "Mom, if I get one of these- they will PAY me to sing.”

Dawn, in her middler year at seminary in Atlanta, is taking a different type of test. She passed her Bible Content Exam, is preparing to take ordination exams, takes Greek and Hebrew and Theology and Bible tests. She is also tested as a new, young student pastor as she interns in a local church. Jack and I went last Sunday to hear her preach.  The ‘testing’ began in the morning staff meeting where the Head of Staff said “OK Dawn, teach us what will happen during worship today.” Then after the sermon she saw a man with advanced Parkinson’s disease struggle to hold up a rating card "10"; he graded her on her delivery.

And Robert, our youngest and tallest- is a junior in college.  He calls to ask questions like: “how do I pay rent, what about the utilities, when will I need new tires on my car.”

The classes in his major are difficult- he reminds us. But he is tested even beyond the academic arena as he dresses to meet with a potential employer, learns to tie a bow tie and put clothing together to look professional.

Now my husband is on the other side of the testing.   As a professor, HE comes up with the questions.  He does the testing and the grading and the refining of young minds-eager to learn.

Burying the dead and explaining our understanding of the resurrection of the dead to a gathered body of Christians may have been my first ‘test’ as your pastor; but for Jesus this questioning from the Sadducees about what would happen to this woman in heaven was like a final exam.

I heard about a geology professor at a university who was writing a question for his final exam in basic geology. Now, I know that he had in mind that the students would respond to this question by naming certain minerals and geologic rock formation, because the question that he asked was:

"Name three things that occur on the earth which do not occur on the moon."

One of the students, knowing a silly question when he saw it, responded, "Roller skates, Bruce Springstein and political parties."

The most difficult part of an examination is asking the right questions. And there is a sense in which this business about asking the right questions is true in a broader and deeper and more serious sense; because to ask a question is to reveal, to disclose something important about ourselves.  No question is morally or intellectually neutral because the one who asks the question discloses already in the question an agenda about the answer.

An important question- teacher to student, spouse to spouse, roommate to roommate, police to suspect, attorney to witness, friend to friend- any question already contains in the question a notion about what is important and what is not, what is true what is false, the biases, the angles of vision, the assumptions of the questioner.

I propose today- that IN the question is what the questioner assumes…………….

In the early 80’s a book was published called, "Between Parent and Child" by a man named Haim Ginott.  He opens that book by telling of his experience about raising a family in an apartment in New York City.  Their son, suddenly, out of the blue, asks him this question, "Dad, how many abandoned children are there in Harlem?"  The father is surprised, but pleased at his son’s sociological curiosity and so he gives him a dissertation – all he knows about abandoned children in Harlem.  When he is finished, his son looks up at him and says, "How many abandoned children are there in New York?"

The father adds a little bit more data and then the son says, "And how many abandoned children are there in the United States?”  Finally, the light comes on in the father’s mind and he knows the question which is REALLY being asked.  And he sits close to his son and assures him that he is loved, that he is not a child who will be abandoned- ever.

Behind every question……….-lies an assumption on the part of the one asking the question.  That’s true about the text for today; some religious leaders- Sadducees- didn’t believe in the resurrection because they only counted the first five books of the Bible as having value; they were taught- and believed- if it’s not in Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers or Deuteronomy- it doesn’t have value.

 In this episode from the latter part of the gospel of Luke – the Sadducees ask Jesus a question.  Actually it is the third question they’ve ask him in a series- and I venture to say-- the most difficult.

This question goes like this:  Suppose there was a woman who married a man who had 6 brothers.  But unfortunately, the man died before the couple was able to have any children. Now the Bible, the Law of Moses, is clear about this kind of circumstance; what is supposed to happen is that one of the brothers is supposed to step forward and take the widow as his wife and have children so that his brother’s lineage can be continued.  So brother number one steps forward, but alas, he dies too.  So brother number 2 steps forward, but he dies.  And three and four and five and six- all die.  Then the woman herself dies- seven weddings, eight funerals, and no children.

Now here comes the question- you can almost see their lips moistening as they begin to ask it.  "In the so-called ‘Age of the Resurrection’ – whose wife will she be?”  Now you can probably sniff out that this is a trick question, and it is.  But it is also a multiple-choice question:  Jesus has two choices, A or B.  Choice A is to specify one of the brothers. "Why (in the age of the resurrection) she will be the wife of the first man that she married" or "She will be the wife of one of the brothers in-between".

 It doesn’t make any difference which one he chooses. This is an impossible choice. That leaves B. And this is the one toward which the questioners are attempting to seduce Jesus. "Well", goes choice B, I guess you’ve got me there. She can’t be the wife of one of the brothers in the Age of the Resurrection. 

So since he can’t choose A or B, Jesus chooses C.  But C isn’t on the test: that’s right, he doesn’t answer the question. He challenges it. The Sadducees were trying to trap Jesus. They knew that the current teaching was that the woman must be the property of one of the brothers. Husbands in the first century had something like property rights toward their wives. So they are thinking how can she be the ‘property’ of all seven men?  “In this age,” said Jesus, “people marry and are given in marriage. But I tell you, in the age to come she will be equal with the angels. She will be a daughter of God.” 

A world- overturns an assumption.  And that assumption about the woman in the question is a part of a larger assumption being made by the questioners.  And that assumption is that the future of God is merely the present extended infinitely into the future.  If she’s got to be somebody’s property in this world- then she’s got to be owned by someone in the world to come- implies that heaven- eternal life is just more of the same.  "Oh no" (says Jesus) a new world is colliding with the old.  In this world there is death, in the world to come there is life.  In this world people are owned, in the world to come

They’re children of a Living God.  Jesus’ future is a radically and revolutionarily new day.

And that’s important, especially for religious people to remember, because it is easy to assume that God’s future only contains the possibilities which we define by our questions in the present- implying that God cannot (or will not) do anything new.

This episode with the Sadducees gives us enough hope to live in and enough hope to face death. It does not answer our many questions about the resurrection, nor does it provide a road map of what’s to come.  We have questions- but we are invited to trust that in God all our questions will come to rest. The question we looked at today was a game the Sadducees were playing with Jesus. From the insulation of their wealth, power and prestige- they thought they could out wit Jesus.

We have many unanswered questions:

• What can we do about those who hunger?
• What is our part in helping to establish peace?
• How can our alternative giving make a difference?
• Why do innocent people suffer?
• Why do bad things happen to good people?

On the other side of all our questions there are not always answers, but the living God who provides grace and who is more wonderful and hopeful than we could ever have imagined. I hope and pray that as your pastor and friend we can tackle these questions and others you ponder together as a community of faith.  Jesus didn’t answer the Sadducees directly nor does he always answer our questions. But what Jesus DOES is point us to a God whose faithfulness is immeasurable and inexhaustible, and in that faithfulness we find enough to endure all that life and death will ask of us. 

In the name of the Lord who saves us, God who loves us and the Holy Spirit who brings us peace, AMEN.

-Portions paraphrased from a sermon by Tom Long, ‘Homiletics’ Professor at Emery, 1978.