The Twenty-Second Sunday after Pentecost - November 9, 2025

Summary

Mother Suzanne tackles a challenging gospel passage where the Sadducees question Jesus about resurrection using a hypothetical scenario involving Levirate marriage, where seven brothers successively marry the same woman. Jesus responds by explaining that resurrection life is qualitatively different from earthly life, not merely an extension of our current existence. Mother Suzanne emphasizes that as "resurrection people," we are called to live with purpose and intention, reflecting Jesus' light and love while trusting in God's goodness.

THE GOSPEL                                                                                                                                                           Luke 20:27-38

 Some Sadducees, those who say there is no resurrection, came to Jesus 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. Now there were seven brothers; the first married, and died childless; then the second and the third married her, and so in the same way all seven died childless. Finally the woman also died. In the resurrection, therefore, whose wife will the woman be? For the seven had married her."

Jesus said to them, "Those who belong to this age marry and are given in marriage; 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. Indeed they cannot die anymore, because they are like angels and are children of God, being children of the 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."

Artwork:  The Pharisees and the Sadducees Come to Tempt Jesus, by James Tissot (1836–1902)

Transcript

Mother Suzanne:

Oh God, keep me as the apple of your eye. Hide me under the shadow of your wings in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen. Please be seated. So before I begin, I would just like to say, after that gospel reading, if you are shaking your heads wondering what in the world that meant or is, you're not alone. So this has been my work this week is trying to make sense of a gospel passage that has left me shaking my head most of the week. So I just wanted to say that in full disclosure. This is my best attempt at making sense of this passage. I do hope perhaps a measure of hope will shine through. Oh God, may the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be holy, pleasing and acceptable to you, my rock and my redeemer.

Amen.

Well, Jesus has entered Jerusalem after having traveled and every day we read that Jesus was teaching at the temple. And it was here that the religious authorities try to trap him with these trick questions and they confront him consistently with them. At this point in our narrative, Jesus has less than a week to live before he will be falsely charged, secretly arrested by night, tortured and hung on a cross. So that is where we are at in the narrative, very, very near the end of Jesus' life. And in light of knowing that his death is fast approaching, perhaps there is a poignancy to this passage today, at least I found one. Jesus is entertaining a cruel interchange with those who will be partly responsible for his death, the Sadducees, about life after death and resurrection. Interestingly enough, this conversation begins when the Sadducees come to Jesus with a hypothetical question about this thing called Levert marriage.

It's a very old word. It actually leverite means in Latin brother-in-law, and I'm going to tell you what it means. In leverite marriage, if a man dies, leaving his widow without a child, then a younger brother is to then marry the widow and hopefully father a child for the one who has died. Does that make sense? Straight out of the book of Deuterteronomy from the Torah and the Sadducees, they were religious folks who only believed in the Pentateuch. So the first five books, so this comes from Deuteronomy. So if a man dies and leaves the widow without a child, the brother would then be united in marriage to the widow hoping to sire a child. Show of hands. Does everybody understand what Leverite marriage is? Maybe. Okay. All right. So this question is posed. Seven brothers in all marry this one woman, but none of them father a child with her before she dies.

Therefore, the Sadducees ask, "In the resurrection, to whom will she be married?" So for modern ears, this scenario might not stir an ounce of understanding or interest. I get that. As most of us really can't relate to having been married seven times, let alone married to seven brothers. But this is how things were done at one time in history. For that time, marriage was based largely on security and procreation. Unlike today, where it's largely based on love and companionship, in that time, security and the ability to have a child was tantamount. So the question at the end of all these marriages is simply in the resurrection, whom will she be married to? Who does she belong to?

Enter Jesus. He steps onto the stage and in his very Jesus-y way, tries to make sense of this trick question. He knows they are trying to trap him. And even message is fuzzy for you as it is for me and maybe most everybody who was hearing it. If you move through the layers, if you take your time with it, perhaps it does indicate that the resurrected life, resurrection life, is qualitatively different than life as we know it here on earth. This is in fact the mistake Jesus points out the Sadducees are indeed making. Their question is premised on the assumption that eternal life is an endless state of more of the same of which we experience here on earth. I know that's a lot, but this is what Jesus says about resurrection.

It's very different. Well, what does that mean, Jesus? Well, at the most basic level, the ordinary events and relationships by which we track our journey through this mortal life, things like marriage, childbirth, graduations, retirements, and so on, do not characterize our eternal lives because resurrection life is not merely an extension of this life, but something totally and wholly different. Right? Said another way. Jesus is saying that, yes, these events matter here in this life, but in the next, we will encounter life so differently, more fully that perhaps these relationships and events won't matter to the degree they do here. For resurrection life is so different than our present earthly lives.

So that begs the question, is Jesus saying we won't know our spouses, our friends, our children, our family members in heaven? That's where my mind goes. Well, Jesus isn't addressing the answer directly to that question in this exchange, but he also doesn't say we won't know those who have been dear to us. And while we don't know what relationships will be like, we know that we will be related to each other in and through our relationship with God. Now, what that looks like, none of us know, for sure. So you may be asking, why does any of this really matter? That's a good question. I've thought about that all week. Why? Why do we need to think about things that we don't know the answer to? Well, what I've come to understand, and I hope maybe this passage makes you think about, is that resurrection truly is about trust in the goodness of God.

So this idea of resurrection developed at a time when life was so despairing and so irretrievably bad that there seemed to be no hope at all. It was really developed in the intertestamental time period when the people of Israel found that life was nearly impossible. It was a hard, hard time, but they held to their faith and God was still real to them, even in the midst of immense suffering.

So the only way for some to resolve the contradiction between the absolute injustice of their world and their conviction of the justice and love of God was to postulate that there would be another resurrected life when things would be set right. Those who had been faithful and just would finally be rewarded at last. It was also only reasonable, many concluded that those who had not been faithful and just would be punished. So in its Genesis, resurrection reflects a thirst for justice and hope and trust that God is good. So bringing that back to us, 21st century here at Grace Episcopal and Alvin Texas, I often tell folks, and we had a funeral here on Friday afternoon, and so this has really been stepping in my mind and heart because I said these words.

We are resurrection people. So in many ways, I feel as though we should live in a constant state of what it means to be resurrection people. We don't know what the end will entail because we haven't experienced it yet, right? But as our text reminds us today, we can be assured that God is both the God of the living and the God of the dead, meaning no matter what, whether in death or life, we are his. And belonging and loving him means doing the things he did because what we do know and what we are certain about is how Jesus lived and moved and had his very being. Even as he was sparring with the Sadducees one week before his death, he moved about with purpose and intention, healing, teaching, loving, and meeting needs. And if we are to mirror our lives as Jesus, we are to do the same, move about with intention and purpose, putting God at the center of whatever we do, offer ourselves up to his service, moving about as if ministry opportunities are the norm, not the exception, and most of all, making your orbit your space better because you reflect the light and love of Jesus.

So in closing, whatever limits we may experience about what it means to describe resurrection life and what it means to deal with a complicated and hard passage. This passage does invite us to proclaim with confidence our faith that the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob raised Christ from death and promises to do the same for us, whatever that is for you. For God is the God not of the dead, but of the living, both then and now, and that is the hope we have as God's children. Amen.