September 27, 2009
 

Matthew 22:23-33
 

                In 1759, the economist Adam Smith published, “The Theory of Moral Sentiments” in which he posed an important question.  Suppose, asks Smith, that a man in Europe were to learn of a fearful earthquake in China – an earthquake that swallowed up thousands of its inhabitants.  How would that man react?  He would, Smith mused, “make many melancholy reflections upon the precariousness of human life, and the vanity of all the labors of man.  He would too, perhaps, if he was a man of speculation, enter into many reasonings concerning the effects which this disaster might produce upon the commerce of Europe and the trade and business of the world in general.”  But then, Smith tells us, he would pursue his business or his pleasure with the same ease and tranquility as if nothing had happened.  While it might be considered, the happening in China makes only a small ripple in the pond of his life. 
                But now suppose, Smith says, that our man were told he was to lose his little finger on the morrow.  A very different reaction would attend the contemplation of this “frivolous disaster”.  Our man, Smith writes, would be reduced to a tormented state, tossing all night with fear and dread at the prospect of such a minor loss. 
                Now, we might argue that a person would be more distraught over the death of people in China, or that he or she would be less distraught when considering a minor surgery.  But, whether we agree or not with the starkness of Smith’s example, we must agree that there is  a seed of truth.
                Consider for example, how we might respond differently to the news of an earthquake in Turkey compared to the flooding of the Cedar River.  Or how someone in Los Angelos might have reacted much differently to the news of local rioting compared to news of a farm crisis.
                As we gain mobility and the ability to travel and interact with others, we might be more likely to sympathize and care about people at a distance than Adam Smith might have theorized, but still the tendency is there – naturally – to be more affected by those things which are readily tangible and understandable to ourselves.
                The article, “What has Posterity Ever Done for Me?” raises some of the same questions.  Rather than physical distance, however, it speaks of chronological distance.  The author asks the question – do we care what happens  a thousand years from now?  About a time that is chronologically distant from us?  He has his doubts.  Even a century, he writes, far exceeds our powers of empathetic imagination.
                Think for a moment.  What might it be like in the year 2100?  We have about as much chance predicting that with accuracy as a person living in the year 1900 could have imagined a world full of computers, airplanes and skyscrapers in the year 2000.  By the year 2100, my guess would be, barring the development of some spectacular medical breakthrough, I will no longer be on this earth.  Most likely, my children won’t be either and my grandchildren will be in the latter half of their lives.  How hard is it then for us to care about what life might be like in 2100 much less the year 3000? 
                An economist from MIT writes, “Geological time has been made comprehensible to our finite human minds by the statement that the 4.5 billion years of the earth’s history are equivalent to once around the world in an airplane…humanity got on eight miles before the end, and the industrial age happened six feet before the end.”
                According to what scientists now think, the sun is gradually expanding and 12 billion years from now the earth may be swallowed up by the sun.  This means that our airplane has time to go round three more times.  The question is, therefore, how long are we going to be on that airplane?  Are we interested in being on for another eight miles?  Are we interested in the next six feet?  Or are we only interested in the fraction of a millimeter – our lifetimes?
                But we’re here this morning for religion – not economic philosophy – so let’s turn to Jesus and the Sadducees.
                The Sadducees approach Jesus with a question.  “Teacher,” they ask, “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?”
                The Sadducees were the religious conservatives of the time.  They believed that only the Torah, the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, were Scripture.  They did not include the books of history, prophets, psalms or wisdom literature in what they understood God’s word to be.  If anything was not literally in the those first five books, it could not be counted as truth.  And those first five books do not literally refer to any type of resurrection or afterlife.  So the Sadducees did not believe that there was any kind of life after death.  Show it to us in the Torah, they would say.  So they ask Jesus this ridiculous question, because it really is ridiculous, in an attempt to prove, in their minds and to the crowd, that the idea of an afterlife is completely comical.
                And Jesus answers them – but not in the way they expected or desired.
                You see, the Sadducees’ question reveals something about themselves.  The question they put forward is asked from a very time-bound or earth-bound perspective.  There is an assumption behind the question that the resurrection or eternal life is exactly like life here on earth.  That it is just an extension of the same experience we have here, but after death.
                To some extent we all do that.  We imagine heaven with streets of gold, bathed in bright white light.  When we think of being reunited with the ones we love that have died before us, we imagine them just as they were on earth.  We do that because we are human.  We have earth-bound limits to the edges of our imagination.  But the Sadducees are using those limited images to try to disprove the existence of God’s eternity. As though God were bound by our earthly paradigm.
                That is essentially Jesus’ answer, or his non-answer, to their question.  The resurrection is different he says.  Things like marriage or death, which are such a part of this world, don’t even apply in God’s eternity.  The Sadducees are asking questions about how the furniture in heaven is arranged, but Jesus tells them that in heaven there isn’t any furniture.
                And then Jesus says that when talking to Moses, God did not say, “I was the God of Abraham, and I was the God of Isaac, and I was the God of Jacob.”  Instead, Jesus points out, God says, “I am the God of Abraham, and Isaac and Jacob.”  That is because Jesus says, “God is not the God of the dead, but of the living, for to God all are alive.”
                Come with me for a moment to the banks of a stream.  Throughout this stream as it courses along the banks, there are trout.  They are swimming against the current, moving against the water, experiencing things as bugs and leaves and bits of debris float down with the current.  The trout themselves remain pretty stable, in nearly the same spot, however, and they may not be aware that there are any other trout in the stream with them.  From their perspective, it is just them, the water and whatever is floating down their way.  But we are standing outside the stream.  From our perspective we can see and experience and know all the fish that are dotted throughout the stream.
                Now in a rough analogy, let’s say that the stream is the river of time and we are the fish swimming in it.  From our perspective, we are moving and experiencing things as they float down the stream.  But we are unable to jump forward or backward in the stream to interact with other people who have come before us or will come after.  God is standing on the banks, outside of the stream, outside of time.  From God’s perspective, all are equally there – alive.  God is not God of the dead but of the living for to him all are alive.
                To God – from God’s perspective – we are alive.  Moses is alive.  Martin Luther is alive.  Mother Teresa is alive.  Our great-grandchildren are alive.  The descendants we haven’t even imagined are alive.
                And therefore all are important in God’s eyes.
                Do we care about more than the next few millimeters of humanity’s plane ride round the earth?  We must if we truly confess God as Lord of the living.  We have a responsibility not only to our brothers and sisters in Christ who exist on this planet at the same time we do, but we have a responsibility to generations before and generations yet to come.  I know that right now it is increasingly vogue to be concerned with environmental issues.  I saw some t-shirts the other day sporting the logo – “Green, it’s the new black.”  But for Christians it goes far beyond the latest trend.  For Christians it begins with a God breathing over the waters of the deep, bringing forth creation and life and naming it good.  It continues with the understanding that everything we have in this life and even the promise of the next is a gift from the hand of God.  It is realizing that God’s salvation history exists not just for us and our generation but stretches into the future.
                For Christians it isn’t just a fad of environmentalism or social consciousness – it is called stewardship.  It is realizing that our decisions about what we consume and how we dispose of it has impact on the livelihood of others with whom we share this planet.  It is realizing that the choices we make today shape the future for our great-great-great-grandchildren, who we might struggle to feel empathy for, but whom God loves as much as God loves us here in this moment.  We are stewards in a house that belongs not to us, but to God.  We have a responsibility to take what we have received from all those faithful saints that have gone before us, to use it wisely, and to likewise leave a legacy of faith for generations to come.  Standing on the promises.  We have been given gift from God, of grace and forgiveness, love and relationship, a world that supports our lives and can take our breath away with its beauty.  And we are called to make our own promises that those gifts might be enjoyed far into the future.
                Our natural instincts, our self-interest, may cause us to want to look out for our own good.  To ask, “What has posterity done for me lately?”  But God is always calling us to overcome distance.  We are to overcome physical distance, and reach out in caring concern to both our neighbor near and our neighbor across the globe.  And we are to overcome chronological distance, to show care and respect both for those who precede us by hundreds of years and those who will follow in our footsteps.  In our stewardship of God’s resources we are challenged to make decisions based on, not just our view of the stream, but God’s grand perspective.
                What will the furniture look like in heaven?  We don’t know.  We can’t comprehend.  But we can know that we believe in a God who is Lord of the living.  And in this moment and at this time we can serve God as such. Amen.