Luke 20:27-38[1]
I was reminded recently
that our “vision” is always limited. I can wholeheartedly echo the sentiment
that I’ve heard many times: we typically don’t do well when we try to predict
the future. I would say my ability to predict the future is virtually
non-existent! Maybe that’s something we could all say. Just when we think we
know what’s around the bend, life has a way of proving us wrong. If we averaged
our success at predicting the future as a “batting average,” I would say that
most of us wouldn’t make it very far in a baseball or softball league! Our
vision is always limited.
At least part of the
problem for me is that I try to use the past to predict the future. I think I’m
not alone in that. When we try to envision the future based on the past, we are
necessarily limiting our perspective. Some of the best things that have come
into my life have come as a total surprise. Nothing in my past could have made
it possible for me to foresee them. You might say the same. Sometimes, using
the past to determine our view of the future leads to a pessimistic outlook.
It’s the viewpoint that says with Benjamin Franklin that “in this world,
nothing is certain except death and taxes.” That kind of attitude is common,
but it’s a pretty hopeless view of life. Since everyone dies, that way of
looking at things gives death has the final word on everything. And if death
has the final word, then we’re all trapped in the vicious circles of
selfishness, hatred, poverty, violence, injustice, and despair that we can see
all around us. That’s not an approach to life that gives us much enthusiasm for
living today, let alone looking forward to tomorrow.
In our Gospel lesson for
today, Jesus was responding in part to this kind of pessimism about life. He
had been answering questions from various groups of Jewish leaders, each one
intent on embarrassing him in front of the people. One question came from the
Sadducees. They were the ruling priests who controlled the Temple. They were
also the ones who held most of the wealth and power in their society. And as
Luke tells us, the Sadducees didn’t believe in any “resurrection.” They lived
in a closed system, and they weren’t open to the idea that there could be any
more to life than what they had already seen. The Sadducees came to Jesus and
asked him about the practice of a man marrying his brother’s widow. Moses had
told them to do this so that the first child would be the descendant of the
dead brother, to ensure that his name would continue to live on among the
people. Their question to Jesus was about seven brothers who in turn married
the same woman. They asked him, “In the resurrection … whose wife will the
woman be?” (Lk. 20:33). I don’t think they were seriously looking for an
answer. They didn’t believe in any “resurrection.” They were just trying to
make the idea of a “resurrection” look ridiculous. And Jesus with it.
But Jesus “corrected”
them. In another Gospel, he tells them “You understand neither the Scriptures
nor the power of God” (Mt 22:29, NASB)! He said this to the people who
were in charge of the Temple! Jesus corrected them by recalling the time when
Moses met God at the burning bush. This was foundational for the Jewish faith.
It was the episode when God revealed his “name” as “I am who I am.” There, God
spoke of himself as “the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of
Jacob” (Exod. 3:6). When Moses had this encounter, the patriarchs had been dead
for centuries. Jesus drew the inference that this proves that the dead are
raised, for he said that God is “God not of the dead, but of the living” (Lk.
20:38). More than that, throughout the Bible, God is known as the “living God.”
The prophets described God as the one who “lives” in contrast to the idols who
were “dead” statues of wood and stone. But if God is the “living God,” and if
God’s very being is defined by life, then it makes no sense to view the
patriarchs, or anyone else, as truly dead. As Jesus put it, “to him all of them
are alive.” In other words, God’s very nature as the “living” God challenged
their pessimism.
I think one of the most
important points Jesus was trying to make here is that you cannot limit God’s
work in the future by what we have seen in the past. If God is the God of life,
that means that our future is not one that’s defined by death, but rather by
life. God’s work in the world is based on promises that point toward a future
that is full of hope precisely because it’s based on God’s life. Promises like
“I will wipe away every tear,” and “they will beat their swords into
ploughshares,” and “He upholds the cause of the oppressed and gives food to the
hungry,” and “I am making everything new.” Our Psalm lesson for today reminds
us that God always keeps his promises. The Christian faith is at heart the hope
that God has begun to do just that through Jesus Christ. Our faith insists that
from God’s perspective, the final word that defines everything and everyone is
not death, but life.
I think that how we
choose to look at all of this makes a great difference in our the work we do
together as a congregation. For example, in the Reformed tradition we believe
that stewardship is not just about money. It’s essentially a stance of faith in
the “God of the living.” Because we believe in the life that God is bringing
into this world through Jesus Christ, we practice stewardship by committing all
we know ourselves to be to all we know Jesus Christ to be. I had a professor
once define “conversion” that way. I think the whole Christian life is like
that: committing all we know ourselves to be to all we know Jesus Christ to be.
And as we grow in our understanding of who we are and who Jesus is, we’re able
to see our lives more and more as a gift from God to be invested for the sake
of the Kingdom.
On the other hand, if we
choose to live within a closed system and assume that there’s only so much to
go around, we’re probably not going to be willing to risk much when it comes to
investing our lives for the sake of the kingdom of God. But if we can look at
things from the perspective of God’s future, a future in which the final word
is life, then perhaps maybe we can step out in faith. If we can see the
future as essentially open to all that God is doing in and through us, we have
a whole different motivation for practicing our faith, including practicing our
stewardship. In that kind of future, our “labor in the Lord” is “not in vain”
but rather makes an important contribution toward advancing God’s purposes in
our community and our world. I think that puts our stewardship, our faith
commitment, and everything we do, in a whole different light.
We all have the choice:
we can live as if the past overrules any hope for the future, and death
ultimately makes life “useless.” There have always been people who have taken
this point of view, living without hope, clinging desperately to their lives
out of fear. If we choose to assume that our best is back there in the past
somewhere—which means it’s gone—I doubt that we’re going to invest much of
anything for God’s Kingdom. But if we choose to live based on the faith that
the “God of life” is at work among us and through us to make everything new,
then maybe we can have the courage to stake our lives on God’s promises. It’s a
risk, because there’s a lot about life that seems to contradict those promises.
But when we embrace God’s vision for the future, perhaps we’ll begin to realize
that God’s vision very likely includes much more than we have seen. In fact, I
would say that God’s vision is such that we really have no idea what God can or
cannot do in our lives, in this congregation, and in this community!
The next step is to put
our faith into practice every day by praying without ceasing, by giving back
what we’ve been given, by helping those in need, by inviting others to join us,
by promoting a sense of community among us, by studying the Bible together, and
by joining together for worship on the Lord’s Day. When we invest our lives for
the sake of the kingdom of God, it’s a big vision we’re taking on. When we open
ourselves to God’s vision, we can begin to grasp the full weight of the hope
that God has things in store for us that we wouldn’t believe if we knew them in
advance! When we base our lives on this vision for the future, we humbly
recognize that we can’t do it alone. We need the living God who is the source of
everything we have to send us what we need to do the work. More than that, we
need God himself working in and through us, remembering that God’s last word is
not death but life!
[1] ©
2025 Alan Brehm. A sermon delivered by Rev. Alan Brehm PhD on 11/9/2025 for
Hickman Presbyterian Church, Hickman, NE.
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