The first reading was Job 19:23-27a.
The
holy gospel according to Luke
27Some
Sadducees,
those
who say there is no resurrection,
came
to Jesus 28and asked him a question,
“Teacher,
Moses wrote for us that if a man’s brother dies,
leaving
a wife but no children,
the
man shall marry the widow
and
raise up children for his brother.
29Now
there were seven brothers;
the
first married, and died childless;
30then
the second
31and
the third married her,
and
so in the same way all seven died childless.
32Finally
the woman also died.
33In
the resurrection, therefore,
whose
wife will the woman be?
For
the seven had married her.”
34Jesus
said to them,
“Those
who belong to this age marry and are given in marriage;
35but
those who are considered worthy
of
a place in that age and in the resurrection from the dead
neither
marry nor are given in marriage.
36Indeed
they cannot die anymore,
because
they are like angels and are children of God,
being
children of the resurrection.
37And
the fact that the dead are raised Moses himself showed,
in
the story about the bush,
where
he speaks of the Sovereign
as
the God of Abraham, Sarah, and Hagar,
the
God of Rebecca and Isaac,
and
the God of Jacob, Leah, and Rachel.
38Now
God is God not of the dead,
but
of the living;
for
to God all of them are alive.”
The
gospel of the Lord.
-----
It
is profoundly ironic that in our readings for today it is precisely those who
do not believe in the resurrection who prompt our deeper thinking and
experience of the resurrection. Job, as was typical of his time, doesn’t
actually believe in the resurrection or everlasting life the way we might
today.
For
Job, when you died, you died and the way you lived on was through your
descendants and the name, or reputation, you made for yourself. And yet, today we find new meaning in
Job’s words, “I know that my Redeemer lives, and that at the last will stand
upon the earth; 26and after my skin has been thus destroyed, then in
my flesh I shall see God, 27awhom I shall see on my side, and my
eyes shall behold, and not another.”
Much
of our understandings and lives are built on others’—on the lives and
understandings of those who’ve come before us. In this way, we hear Job’s words and we are able to find new
and different meaning, even as the old understandings may remain, fade, or
change. We hear in Job’s word a
promise of everlasting life—a promise of new life in the resurrection.
Jesus’
encounter with the Sadducees also turns things around. You see, the Sadducees
try to trap Jesus with complicated questions about the Resurrection—which they
don’t even believe in!
So
it comes as no surprise that Jesus uses their question as more of a jumping off
point than as a question in need of a clear answer. With their resurrection
question in his metaphorical pocket, Jesus dives into the nature of God.
After
all, the resurrection only matters insofar as our God is beyond death.
Jesus
alludes to Moses’ encounter with God at the burning bush, where the name Godgives Moses is “I AM or I will be.” God is an active God.
God is a present God. God
is God even into the future. Jesus
says, “God is God not of the dead, but
of the living; for to God all of them are alive.”
God’s
presence with us is a forever thing and there is nothing we can do to screw it
up so badly that that will not be true—for us or for anyone else. God is God of the living and yet even
when we die, God is still with us.
Too
often in our culture, we avoid death like the plague and then when people die
we give a set amount of time for grief and then expect people to be back to their
old selves again. But that is not
how grief works and that is not how love works. When people we love die, the work of grief is figuring out
our new relationship with them—one built less from physical presence and more
from heart, feelings, and memories. Loved ones who have died still remain a part of our lives,
just in a different way.
In
fact, there are times throughout the year and places where peoples across
cultures recognize the delicate difference between the living and the dead. In
Celtic tradition, they referred to it as “thin places,”—in thin places and thin
times, the boundary between those of us who are alive and those who are dead is
thinner and we are more able to sense their presence.
In
Mexico, the Day of the Dead—el Día de muertos—is a time spent with those who
have died—making altars at home or decorating graves. Last night we celebrated together—remembering friends,
family, and community members who have died, and we built the altar that is in
the back, decorating it and adding our own pictures, mementos, food and drink
from loved ones.
This
time of year, when the earth grows cold, when the harvest finishes, is the time
when we are all closer to death.
It used to be that some wouldn’t make it through the winter and so these
celebrations of life were what carried people through to the next one.
It
is also fitting that today is a communion Sunday because communion is one of
those places where “we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses.” Communion is many things—it
is a communal meal in which we participate in God’s alternative economy where all are fed—all receive our daily needs.
Communion is a renewing of God’s covenant of love with us.
And Communion is also our participation in and our glimpse of the feast to
come. In this, we don’t just
practice, but we taste the feast, we participate with the great cloud of
witnesses. When we receive the
bread and wine that is Jesus, we are in line with our parents, spouses,
friends, and even children who have completed their baptismal journey. We join
with our ancestors in the faith throughout the ages to celebrate the power of
life that comes from God.
Today especially as a community of faith, we gather to celebrate and remember those we love who have died. As we do, we also feel their presence and the ways they continue to impact our lives.
For
some of us their presence will always be tangible and for others it will fade
and morph with time. For some of
us, our grief at the death of a loved one or even a stranger will overwhelm us,
for others it will settle in as numbness or come back at unexpected times.
Each
of us grieve and process death differently and on All Saints’ Day and special
anniversaries, we experience again the presence of those who have died. Those thin places invite them into our
lives again in a different way. We eat their favorite foods, reminisce about
memories and over pictures. We go
to bed, wrapped in their arms, only to find that it is our God who is holding
us close, remembering with us, and bringing us again to each new day, each new
feast, each new life.
