November 11, 2007
(Twenty-fourth Sunday after Pentecost; Proper 27 - Kirkin' o' the Tartan)
Eternal Life
By The Very Rev. Terry White, Dean
Job 19:23-27a • Psalm 17:1-9
• 2 Thessalonians 2:1-5, 13-17 •
Luke 20:27-38
(From
The Lectionary Page)
Angus goes to the dentist and asks how much it costs to have a tooth pulled.
"$85 for an extraction sir" was the dentists reply.
"Ouch! Have ye got anything cheaper?" asks the agitated Scotsman.
"But that's the normal charge for an extraction sir", said the dentist.
“What about if ye don’t use any anesthetic?" asked Angus hopefully.
“Well it's highly unusual, but if that's what you want, I suppose I can do it for $70", said the dentist.
"Hmmmm, what if ye used a dentist trainee and also no anesthetic", asked the Scotsman.
The dentist said, “Well it's possible, but they are in training and I can't guarantee their level of professionalism, and it'll be a lot more painful since you aren’t using anesthetic, but I suppose in that case we can bring the price down to say $40.”
Angus was still not satisfied. So he proposed, “How about if ye make it a training session and have a student do the extraction and the other students watching and learning?"
The dentist pondered the proposal. “Actually, it would be good experience for the students. Tell you what: I'll charge you only $5 in that case,” said the dentist.
Angus smiled broadly. "Wonderful, it's a deal! Now tell me, doctor, can you book my wife for next Tuesday?”
About the only thing worse than a cheap Angus is a smart-aleck priest! So with my apologies to everyone named Angus this morning, let me offer on behalf of the cathedral congregation a very warm welcome to the St. Andrew’s Society and all who visiting for our annual celebration of Kirkin’ o’ the Tartan.
The Rev. Susan Riis asks: Ever been asked a smart-aleck question – by a child, student, or co-worker? Such a question is asked in order to expose what you do not know, or to lead you off on a tangent so that you forget what you really want to say, or just to out-and-out heckle you – to show the superior intelligence of the questioner and the stupidity of you – the person questioned.
Now, turn the situation around. When was the last time you asked such a question of a person you considered stubborn, wrong-minded, or just plain wrong? I do it, and maybe you do as well. To be sure we sometimes engage in this behavior because we want to trip up another or strut our intelligence and acumen. But sometimes we revert to being smart-alecks out of fear, be it the fear of simply being wrong or ignorant, but some times, the fear is much deeper.
No matter what our age, our status in life, or even how much Scottish blood is in us, there’s a lot of Sadducee in all of us and in the Church. We’ve been bashed and battered about by a world that does not follow either Jesus’ or Moses’ rules, and furthermore, treats people who do follow those teachings as simpletons at best. So we fight back, and get ugly, and that, too, takes life from us.
We desperately seek something that makes sense in the world we know and live in. A place where the Leaden Rule, not the Golden Rule, says “Do unto others before you are done unto.” We spend so much energy on living day-to-day, contemplating heaven seems either a waste of time or hardly relevant. Thus, our curiosity and fears remain unspoken, un-addressed, but still very much with us.
So in our Gospel lesson, when these particular Sadducees come to test Jesus, they come up with a question that might seem to deal with issues related to the here and now. But actually, they are asking about life’s most important questions: the nature of life and death, and whether there is anything beyond this life.
Their tradition told them that the only life we have is this life here and now. They rejected the writings of the prophets, and of Job whom we heard this morning, who rejoiced in the midst of his troubles that after his death he would see God and he would see God with his own eyes. The Sadducees believed that when you’re dead, you’re dead.
This belief, which is really a fear, is not confined to a single religious tradition. We all know how this view is lived out today, and we also know what it is like to entertain this fear at 3 o’clock in the morning. The fear is: what if our belief in the Risen Christ, and thus, our own resurrection is false; pie in the sky, a story to reconcile us to the hard fact of our own inevitable deaths, simply a beautiful lie? Saint Paul writes about this fear, "If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied." (Corinthians 15:19).
So the Sadducees, like their modern descendants, make a ridiculous example in order to show the nonsense of Jesus’ claim of eternal life with God, and they weave this long story of the seven brothers, one wife, and no children. Underneath this most obvious of smart-aleck questions, of course, is a great deal of fear and an ultimate question: what is the meaning of life?
In his answer, Jesus first tells them that the next world is not a continuation of this one – that concerns about marriage and children are concerns and very real ones in this life, but not for the resurrected life, which will be different. In that new life, we will be like the angels. Not angels (we don’t sprout wings and don halos) but we will be like them those mighty ones who do God’s bidding. We will be freed of the limitations of time and space, of distraction and discomfort, able to be true and single-hearted servants of God, to be our best, our most real, selves all the time. Heaven indeed.
And Jesus says that Abraham, Isaac, and Moses are there along with that great cloud of witnesses who have served and believed in God from the beginning: Noah, Sarah, Jacob, Deborah, Isaiah, Mary, Paul, Rebekah, Frances, Theresa, and those whose service and witness is known only by God and the people they have helped, the countless people who have lived, loved, and worked for the Kingdom of God. At this thin time of year, when the earth year is winding to a close, when we feel the closeness of this world and the next, we remember them with love and gratitude, and can feel their love and support.
The Anglican Church following the English Reformation was hesitant at best to include in liturgies praying for the faithful departed by name. That all changed in the early part of the 20th century as the Great War broke out.
Deacon Riis writes: On this November 11th, I am reminded of a drawing made toward the end of World War I. In it a priest, facing the altar, elevates the Host at Mass. Looking out at him and at the congregation from the wall behind the altar are many, many faces: some the faces of apostles, martyrs, and other saints; many others, however, are the faces of doughboys, sailors, ambulance drivers, doctors and nurses, Salvation Army workers holding out cups of coffee and doughnuts, women making bandages – all present, all alive. [The Reverend Susan Riis, in a homily for this day, 2001.]
Like the Sadducees in today’s Gospel, often you and I mask our real questions, sometimes being smart-alecks, sometimes seeking to trap others with clever words, and in other ways avoiding speaking of our deepest fears and frailties.
Jesus is not distracted and speaks to the heart of the matter: this life is not the end. The Love of God lives forever. The grace of Baptism extends to the next life, where life with God knows no end. So if our greatest fear of eternal death is dispelled, we are then freed to live this life courageously for God, taking risks that crush oppression and create justice, tearing down walls in society and the walls in our hearts which divide and exclude our sisters and brothers. Because Resurrection to eternal life is real, we can be agents of new life now, being radically generous with our money to provide for our neighbors and replacing the cynicism of smart-aleck language with the authentic and life-giving gospel of God’s Son that sees all of life, all people, and all of creation as sacred, deserving reverence and respect.
May all daughters and sons of Scotland, indeed all people of good will, unite to meet the needs of our world, beginning with the people of this city, especially the most vulnerable. May we speak and then release our fears, placing them in the hands of the Risen Christ, and let us live more confident of the Resurrection. There’s a lot of work to do, but with God on our side, we only fail if we don’t try. So simply put: DO NOT BE AFRAID TO LIVE BOLDLY FOR CHRIST.
