November 11, 2007
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Twenty-Fourth Sunday After Pentecost
Please read Luke 20:27-38
Also read
Haggai 1:15b–2:9;
Psalm 145:1-5,
17-21;
2 Thessalonians 2:1-5,
13-17
Some
Sadducees, those who say there is no resurrection, came to him
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."
--- Luke
20:27-38
Gotcha Theology
Living in these days of
Gotcha Theology,
Or more precisely,
atheology,
when the name of the game
is not “What is truth?”
but “How can I catch my
opponent in error,”
it’s good sometimes to
reflect on the way
Jesus dealt with those
who sought to trick him.
A case in point: this
incident.
The Sadducees,
skeptical secularists
that they were,
spun out an improbable
scenario
and posed their question
to trip him up.
“Gotcha!”
But he responded
and silenced them for a
time
No clever turn of phrase,
no agile twisting of
thought,
just plain talk.
Instead of wordgames
about complex
relationships
he went to the core of
his message:
Eternal Life.
They sought to carry time
into eternity;
He brought eternity back
into time.
They sought to tangle him
in a marital rubik’s
cube.
He straightened it all
out with simple logic.
They were skeptics about
the life beyond,
yet they posed their
intricate question
about life and death and
marriage
in the very terms they
rejected.
He swept them aside
in an enduring
affirmation of life and hope.
Taking as his text the
ancient sobriquet:
“the God of Abraham,
the God of
Isaac,
the God of
Jacob,”
he summed up his
case in a single sentence:
“Now
he is God not of the dead,
but of the
living;
for to him all
of them are alive."
The ancients and the
moderns, all alive in him.
Case closed!
Lord, in these days of argumentation and
debate,
grant to me a confident reliance upon
the truth,
expressed in love, as affirmed by
your Son,
the Living Truth,
for it is in his name that we pray.
Amen!
---
rvc
The Weekly Lessons are based on the lectionary texts for the week – usually the Gospel lesson. They are not designed as a formal commentary. Rather, they are the personal reflections and original compositions of The Relay Online editor, Rev. Robin Van Cleef, and offer a jumping off point, using the scriptures as triggers to thought, imagination, and (we hope) empowerment. As you read them, let your own imagination play, and let the Spirit speak to you, leading you where it will. The Gospel Lessons reflected on this site may not be copied, reproduced or otherwise manipulated elsewhere on the internet without the expressed consent of the author. Please also note that while we're unable to quote Bible scripture on these pages, it is permissible to redirect our viewers to Bible passages using hyperlinks to web sites having that authority.
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