LAKE JAMES
NORTH CAROLINA
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LAKE JAMES NORTH CAROLINA
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Proper 27 C + Nov. 11, 2007 + St. Paul’s Church, Lake James
+ In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
One of my favorite stories has to do with a not-very bright person who decided to go ice fishing. He had read many books on the subject, and finally getting all the necessary tools together, he made for the ice. After positioning a comfy footstool, he started to make a circular cut in the ice. Suddenly, a voice boomed from above: “THERE ARE NO FISH UNDER THE ICE!” Startled, he moved further down the ice, poured from a thermos of cappuccino, and began to cut another hole when, once again, from above, a voice bellowed “THERE ARE NO FISH UNDER THE ICE!” Now worried, our ice fisher moved away, clear down to the opposite end of the ice. He set up his stool once more and again tried to cut a hole. The great booming voice came once again: THERE ARE NO FISH UNDER THE ICE!” Our frustrated ice fisher looked up and asked “Is that you, Lord? The voice replied, “NO, I’M THE MANAGER OF THIS HOCKEY RINK !” Sometimes, being caring Anglicans, can seem to put us in the wrong place or the wrong time. Have you noticed the Christmas decorations which many stores have already put up? The calendars followed by merchants are quite different from the Church calendar. The focus on Halloween begins in September, and immediately after, the red and green of Christmas takes over. Nor is that unique to autumn. When we are just beginning to observe Lent, stores are heralding the coming of Easter – their Easter, meaning colored eggs and chocolate bunnies. The pattern is consistent – anticipating a season or holiday long before it arrives. It’s a sensible business custom, and I’m not bashing it. In fact, there is an odd parallel to our liturgy this morning! I’m thinking of the Bible Readings and liturgical themes which Episcopalians, Lutherans, Roman Catholics, and Christians of some other traditions as well are using this very Sunday. Did you notice that our readings have started to focus attention on two of the major themes of the Advent season, even though Advent doesn’t begin for another 3 weeks? The subjects in question are (1) the Second Coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and (2) Life after death. Both are found in today’s Collect in which we said that Jesus came into the world to make us heirs of eternal life, and then we prayed that, when Christ comes again with power and great glory, we may be made like Him in His eternal and glorious kingdom. There they are – two Advent themes. To think about one’s death can be frightening, while to think about the Second Coming may seem to have little if any immediate relevance. But both are important, both are put before us in today’s liturgy, and so I want to address both in this homily. Let’s begin by considering the Second Coming. The fact is that most of us don’t expect Jesus to return later this morning, or this afternoon, or probably even next week! True, his message is that He will come again, and that we should watch, be on our guard, be alert for that great event. But, well, what’s your calendar like? Mine has family commitments, appointments, meetings, shopping, and even sermons to write. And, you know, I really expect to do what my calendar calls me to do! It’s not that I don’t believe that Jesus will come again, but that I don’t spend too much time thinking about it. Do you? Did you happen to see the newspaper photographs of the group who predicted that Christ’s Second Coming would take place two weeks ago on October 28th? They had all quit their jobs, sold their homes, and assembled on a hill to be ready for the Rapture – but, as you may know, the Lord didn’t return two weeks ago. Or last week, either! That kind of expectation and assurance of the Return of Christ on a particular date takes place every so often with one group or another, leaving most Christians rather leery of the whole idea. Sadly, another result is that the Second Coming of Christ winds up getting short shrift in our thinking, praying, and daily living. As Anglicans, we affirm the belief that our Lord will return when we recite the Creed, and also in the acclamation during the Prayer of Consecration of the Sacrament when we all join in saying “we remember his death, we proclaim his resurrection, we await his coming in glory!” There it is – it’s as simple as that. However, perhaps the closest many of us come to giving much thought to what is ahead centers in thinking not about Christ’s return but the question of life after death – what happens when the body dies. And it just so happens that that’s the very subject of the readings from the Hebrew Scriptures and the Gospel for today! Consider the Gospel for a moment – that strange scene in which some of the Sadducees come to question Jesus. Whenever I read that episode, I can’t help thinking of how often priests spend answering questions from all sorts of people. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a pleasure to try to answer honest questions, but somehow, wherever you go, seeing a priest’s garb, some people just seem to need to come up and speak. Sometimes, they ask questions which are really just expressions of scoffing at the Christian Faith or the Church. That’s just the kind of situation described in today’s Gospel. In our Lord’s day, the Sadducees were a group whose members tended to come from the more prominent, wealthy, and politically powerful families. Unlike their rivals the Pharisees, the Bible of the Sadducees consisted of only the five Books of Moses, what we call the Torah or Pentateuch, that is Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. They rejected the books of the Prophets, the Psalms, the Proverbs, and so on. Since they thought they found no explicit teaching about the afterlife in the Books of Moses, they rejected any belief in life after death. In our vocabulary, they would have laughed at such a belief as “Newfangled nonsense!” Their view of life was quite similar to that of the non-Jews of their day, and quite like the thoughts of some people of our day, people who think of death as being total annihilation – the end of human life with nothing at all to follow. With that understanding, let’s look again at the scene in St. Luke’s Gospel this morning in which a group of Sadducees come to Jesus and ask questions, but not in order to learn anything – just to be able to poke fun at the rabbi from Nazareth whose teaching about life after death seems to them to be absurd. To show how foolish they think his teaching is, they propose a situation which is equally absurd. A woman has been the wife of each of 7 brothers. As each one died, she married the next until all died. “So, rabbi, in that “next world” of yours, whose wife will she be? Or maybe, she’ll be shared by all seven?” Christ’s response is a model of patience, perhaps because he intends his words to be heard by a wider audience than just those present at that moment. In any event, he begins by setting the Sadducees straight on a central point. The next life is not just the present life but without pain, it is not a version of this life but just extended forever. He makes it clear that the next life is a totally new and different kind of existence, one in which there is nothing like disease or decay, one in which our bodies don’t function the way they do here with eating, drinking, or even making love. So, he says the idea of being “married” in heaven is just foolish. St. Paul, later commenting on the death and resurrection of humans, writes that earthly bodies, being physical, die and see corruption. But our resurrection bodies, being spiritual, exist forever. In the Gospel, we heard Jesus quote a passage from the Book of Exodus, part of the Bible the Sadducees did accept, where God speaks to Moses about people who have been long dead: Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the great patriarchs of the Jewish people, and talking about them in such a way as to say that they are living rather than dead. The point is that they, and all others who we think of as “dead” are present and alive to God. That’s why the Church teaches us to pray for the dead so that, as the Prayer Book puts it, they may ever continue to grow in God’s love and service, becoming more and more the people they were intended to be, preparing for the happy moment when they will join the holy ones in heaven. This morning, the
Hebrew Scriptures provides us with that great statement of faith, the familiar
and powerful words from the Book of Job: “I know that
my Redeemer lives, and that on the last day, He will stand upon the
earth, and, after my body has been destroyed, I shall see God!”
That’s the happy promise Jesus taught, it’s what our religion
teaches, and it’s what today’s liturgy takes pains to affirm. So today we
consider the twin truths that Christ will come again, and that there
is a Larger Life beyond this one, a glorious existence promised by
Jesus. If there is anyone here this morning who tends toward a charismatic
tradition in the expression of your faith, feel free to raise your arms and
shout out “PRAISE THE LORD!” while the rest of us very dignified Anglicans may
prefer to make a very proper bow of the head to the God whose Son will
return, and who promises us eternal life. Even before Advent comes,
that’s really good news, isn’t it! + In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
The Reverend Alfred T. K. Zadig, Sr.
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This page last modified on Friday, April 11, 2008 09:40 PM |
