27 Some Sadducees, those who say there is no resurrection, came to him 28 and 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. 29 Now there were seven brothers; the first married a woman and died childless; 30 then the second 31 and the third married her, and so in the same way all seven died childless. 32 Finally the woman also died. 33 In the resurrection, therefore, whose wife will the woman be? For the seven had married her.”
Luke 20:27-38
34 Jesus said to them, “Those who belong to this age marry and are given in marriage, 35 but 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. 36 Indeed, they cannot die anymore, because they are like angels and are children of God, being children of the resurrection. 37 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. 38 Now he is God not of the dead but of the living, for to him all of them are alive.”
My sermon from 22nd Sunday after Pentecost (November 9, 2025) on Luke 20:27-383.
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Now there are times when our tone – the emotion, energy, and inflections we use when we speak that reveals way more than what we actually said. The sounds we make – especially when they don’t match our words – can point to something stirring in our soul. Our tone might, for example, invite others to not take seriously what we’re saying and that we want them to move on. Yet a pause, a stutter, or a drop in key can be our way of asking others to find out what’s in our heart and soul. Listening to the tone is how we read between the lines so we can hear what’s truly being said. Now when I was in seminary, one of my theology professors regularly responded to every question with a question of his own. It was, at first, quite annoying since we thought we were smart to say what needed to be said. He, though, wasn’t trying to dismiss us, ignore us, or act as if his words were more important than our own. Rather, he wanted us to notice how our curiosity about God and ourselves was related. By paying attention to our tone and where emotions show up in our words, we can discover how faith speaks into the lives we actually live. Our questions can often reveal how a hurt, joy, or deep grief is shaping who we know God to be. And yet there are other times when our tone reveals an unwillingness to imagine life being anything other than what it is right now. In today’s reading from the gospel according to Luke, the question Sadducees asked was probably said in an incredibly dismissive tone. But rather than getting defensive, Jesus invited those around him to practice their own holy curiosity by discovering who their God chooses to be.
In Jesus’ day, different groups within Judaism had their own understandings and practices when it came to following God. Jesus’ own movement was merely one of many swirling within the wider Jewish community. One of the more powerful of these groups were the Sadducees who were the overseers of the Holy Temple in Jerusalem. They were wealthy, important, politically powerful, and collaborated with the Roman Empire. When the Jewish community eventually revolted against Roman rule in the late 60s, the ensuing war led to the destruction of the Temple and the Sadducees themselves. It’s difficult, then, to fully reconstruct what they believed and taught. Yet we think, when it came to life, they imagined it as a rather limited thing. They assumed there was life after death but that it would be so alien, so isolating, and so meaningless it had no bearing on our life today. To them, the only access we’d ever have to peace, comfort, and joy was our handful of years on earth. Learning how to navigate the status quo was the limit of what life could be. And so the traditions and practices at the heart of their covenant with God was how they maximized their today. When the Sadducees came to Jesus with a question about the resurrection, I’m pretty sure their tone was a bit over the top. Nothing about their question involved being curious since they already had an answer. For them, this life was all that could be so seeking something else wasn’t part of their spiritual DNA. Their tone, then, was all about making Jesus look silly when he tried to answer what, to them, was a ludicrous question.
Yet – if we remove the tone the Sadducees used – we might realize their question is our question too. Life, as we know, has a way of not going according to plan and wondering how much more there can be is incredibly human. Having doubts, asking questions, and pondering what all this might mean doesn’t mean we’ve lost our faith. Rather, it’s an acknowledgement that life is full of mysteries we don’t always have an answer to. And while we preach, proclaim, and lean into a Jesus whose resurrection shows how God is always writing a new chapter for you, we know Jesus’ wounded feet, hands, and side remain. Figuring out how today shapes our tomorrow isn’t something we can easily see. Our holding onto that mystery is, itself, pretty hard which is why, I think, we – without even realizing it – fall into the habit of acting as if this really is all there is. We put into place rules and practices that manage the limits of what is possible. We let our lives and our world be shaped by all the constraints life brings and fall into the trap of seeing life primarily as a competition and adding additional constraints to differentiate those we value and those we don’t. We might have moments when our talents, skills, and a little luck generate a little bit of prosperity and happiness for us and those we love. But the constraints we build for ourselves and for others will, in the end, close around us. If we act as if today is really the limit of what may be, we end up toning down who we imagine ourselves, our communities, and our God to be.
Jesus, though, refused to let the tone of life limit who we, with our God, get to be. And that’s because the life he imagines for us has already begun to take shape when – with a little water and a word – God’s words are first uttered into our ears. It’s this word of promise that reveals how the constraints of this world will never constrain the love God has for you. And rather than letting our experiences be the limit of what life is, Jesus begins to transform us into who we, in Christ, get to be. Our ways of seeing life as a kind of competition where we have to get ours before others take it from us will no longer be what defines us. Rather, the One who comes into our lives and grabs ahold of our souls will reimagine our every day with a hope that never ends. We [in a few minutes / at the 10:30 am worship] will get to see God’s imagination lived out when we publicly welcome [three kids] [Mason, Cade, and Mack] into the body of Christ. They will hear how the constraints we’ve placed on the world will not be the limit of who God knows they can be. Instead God’s imagination as fleshed out in the life of Jesus will be at the heart of who they are. And when we act as if what we’ve experienced is all there is, God will show them – and all of us – the more that’s already on its way. That doesn’t mean, however, our questions, doubts, anxieties, and fears will suddenly end since our lives are constrained in a variety of ways. We will often refuse to let mysteries be mysteries and search for answers that never satisfy our souls. A life with faith is a life that will always ask questions since even Jesus, when he knew he was about to be betrayed, asked God if there might be another way. Yet we trust that even when life is hard, we – because of Christ – are part of something more. The life we live is a life enfleshed by the One whose care, kindness, strength, mercy, and grace is the tone extending us beyond the limits of what can be. And it’s this Jesus who, through baptism and in faith, will be there to carry you into the fullness of what your today and your tomorrow will always be.
Amen.