Rev’d Peter Balabanski
Pentecost + 22 – Haggai 2 1-9, Ps 145 1-5 17-21 2, Thess 2 1-5 13-17, Lk 20 27-40
It’s appropriate that on the Sunday where we remember those who have been killed in conflict that the readings and liturgy focus on what comes after conflict Haggai 2 and what might come after death. Luke 20 Last week at our All Souls observance, we shared a reflection on that second focus by a WA Catholic priest, Fr Errol Lobo. He quoted his Church’s official teaching on life after death. It says We must be wary of ‘arbitrary imaginative representations’ as ‘neither Scripture nor theology provide sufficient light for a proper picture of life after death’. Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith 17-5-1979 But that said, he reminded us that what Christians possess and offer the world is the sure and certain hope that for those in Christ, with death, life is only changed, not ended.
The way we expressed that hope at All Souls last Sunday evening was for each of us to name aloud our departed loved ones, and everyone greet to each name with the cry, PRESENT! A roll-call and response. It’s true in two ways. Firstly, as Fr Lobo put it, Christ’s love, and also our love in Christ, is indeed stronger than death. Nothing can shatter the bonds of affection that exist between us and our departed loved ones. They are always PRESENT to us; always PRESENT in us.
Our response to the roll-call is true in another sense too. If God is beyond the constraints of time, then time is in God, and all time is present to God. So everyone, living in our time, or living in any other time, past or future, is PRESENT to God. That’s what we asserted in our roll-call. PRESENT is a cry of defiant love; defiant hope. It echoes the pride, the hope and the love that the memorials in this and so many other places express. But as Fr Lobo reminded us, we must be wary of ‘arbitrary imaginative representations’. So what can we do responsibly?
I suggest two things – and both for pastoral reasons. Firstly, because I believe in the resurrection, I assure people who have lost loved ones – particularly marriage partners – that this is not the end. I believe that our love will continue in the resurrection. We don’t know what that will look like. It’s not sure from scripture that it’s immediate, or at the end of time; or indeed if our relationships will resume in the same form. But we do believe that death is not the end.
And secondly, I can refer to a scripture like the Gospel we just shared where Jesus himself teaches about the resurrection – and specifically about marriage in the resurrection. I’ll share a brief story about this.
I spoke with someone who was very worried because they’d been widowed and then later remarried. They were very concerned that in the resurrection, there’d be confusion and hurt about who they were married to. It’s an understandable concern. I was able to say two things. In our marriage vows, we specifically say that we take each other in marriage ‘so long as we both shall live’ – or as the old language put it, ‘till death us do part’. I reminded this person of the faithful, loving care they’d given right through until the death of their first spouse. They’d been utterly faithful, they’d kept their promise, and there was no breach of faith in remarrying. Then I was able to refer to the Gospel we just heard; where Jesus taught that in the resurrection, people don’t marry or get given in marriage. He gives no further detail; but then he hadn’t been asked a caring, pastoral question by the Sadducees in the first place. It sounds as though they didn’t care about anyone’s feelings.
They were asking him a cynical, trick question based on their belief that there is no resurrection. And that was the question Jesus was answering. He wasn’t addressing a pastoral crisis; he was disarming a theological land mine. The Sadducees were referring to something in the Jewish tradition called levirate marriage. Deut 25.5-10, Gen. 38:8f According to this teaching, a brother of a man who has died leaving his widow childless was required to perpetuate his dead brother’s name by marrying the widow and having children with her for his brother.
The Sadducees mocked the reason for levirate marriage with their seven-marriage theory to prove their point and humiliate Jesus – and anyone else who believed in the resurrection. It’s ironic that by the time this Gospel was written, the temple had been destroyed and the Sadducees were effectively non-existent. As Fr Lobo would have reminded them, be wary of ‘arbitrary imaginative representations’.
So resurrection and remembrance. On this Remembrance Sunday, we participate with people all over the world in asserting a love that transcends death. And as followers of Jesus and people of the resurrection, we offer the world the sure and certain hope that for those in Christ, with death, life is only changed, not ended.
I suppose the Sadducees would quibble about who is and who isn’t in Christ. We might respond with words from Col 1.20, 23; Through Christ, God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross. Since this is so, continue securely established and steadfast in the faith, without shifting from the hope promised by the gospel.
Thanks be to God. Amen