Sunday Worship
Welcome to Sunday Worship in Leesfield Parish on the Third Sunday before Advent, also Remembrance Sunday. Today we have only one service in the parish, a Parish Eucharist at 9.15 am at St Thomas' Church.
Following the service, we will meet with other churches from the area and the Royal British Legion at 10.10 am outside Lees Library to process to the War Memorial in Lees Cemetery for the Act of Remembrance at 10.30 am.
If you are unable to be with us in person, you will find resources below to worship at home.
Our first hymn this morning is "Great is Thy Faithfulness"
Today's Gospel
Luke 20: 27 - 38 The Resurrection and Marriage
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.".
Reflection
I have to admit – this reading is far from straight forward.
The Sadducees were trying to catch Jesus out by referencing God’s law from Deuteronomy 25 which is attributed to Moses. The Old Testament law requires a man to marry his brother’s widow to produce offspring, and they used it to set the stage to discuss a complicated scenario surrounding resurrection and so discredit the concept of an afterlife which they vehemently did not believe in.
To make things simpler, the Sadducees could have made exactly the same point by just referring to a situation with one brother, but they were so devious they added extra layers of complexity to try to make themselves look clever. I would argue they did exactly the opposite – by being so convoluted they probably lost half the people they were trying to show off to.
Because the Sadducees thought the whole idea of resurrection was just a silly concept they never thought to consider what the afterlife might be like. Their hypothesis is based entirely on our human life, existence and laws as a frame of reference. They had never entertained the idea that heaven is entirely different our day to day experience here on earth as we know it.
Jesus’s rebuttal is simple and direct – in as many words he is saying, “ Who ever said that marriage will exist as part of life in a post-resurrection existence? Why would we even need marriage in God’s new Kingdom, where everything will be refreshed and made new again.”
Of course this opens up a whole realm of technological debates about what heaven is like and what will the after-life be like? It’s certainly not a question that we can address in a short reflection, and I would not consider myself remotely able to give a firm view. In reality the only person that could answer it, stunned the crowd and Sadducees into silence – in the verse that follows today’s passage it says; “And no one dared to ask him any more questions.” What a shame, wouldn’t it have been great if someone had asked, ‘What is heaven like?’
But it does give us pause to think what our own ideas might be. I don’t think many of us picture heaven as a place with angels sitting on fluffy white clouds playing a harp; to be honest I don’t really know where that image came from, perhaps a TV advert from many years ago?
There is plenty of reference throughout the bible about the idea of a ‘new earth’, such as Rev. 21:1, “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away “. Some scholars suggest that this infers God will totally refresh the world as we know it. The brokenness, violence and sin that exists in our world will be totally refreshed and made anew in a perfect way that will never be tarnished again by sin.
But what that will look like is for God alone to know. If we try to speculate based on our current experience then we are making the same mistake as the Sadducees did.
However, the good news is that the promise of resurrection is a reality and Jesus is the living proof.
The promise of the world to come, God’s kingdom where He is with us is also reality whatever that may look like, because Jesus the Son of Man tells us it is. When we turn to Jesus he promises, “we cannot die anymore, because we are like angels and are children of God, being children of the resurrection."
Now that is something to look forward to, even if we can’t yet understand what it might look like.
Paul
Our Prayers
