by the Very Rev. Jered Weber-Johnson
Watch the sermon recording on YouTube
I am confident that I’ve told this story to at least some of you before. But, like the gray hairs in my beard might indicate, I’m happy to tell the same story more than once.
When my wife Erin and I lived in Taiwan, we were sent, in our first week, to attend a conference for youth in the Episcopal diocese there. We arrived at a church with 200 youths, and because we were still novices in speaking Chinese, one of those poor kids had the unhappy assignment to be our translator for the duration of the conference. In short order we were gathered in a massive parish hall, seated on plastic chairs, ready to hear an evangelist who had been brought in for the occasion.
He started as evangelists often do, or so it seemed through our young translator, enumerating the perils of the world, and the pitfalls of living a life without God. As he worked himself up, he paused and asked the group to try an exercise with him. Small 5×7 cards were distributed and pencils handed out. And, as our translator told us, we were to take a moment to consider our lives without God. What were 5 things we might fall into if God were not in our lives? I took a few moments and hastily wrote down the first five sins that came to mind. As heads began to look up, it was clear the exercise was over, and the evangelist continued. Calling on the student in the back row, 4 or 5 seats to my left, the evangelist asked the student to share his list. Without hesitation the student said in a clear voice, again translated for us by our young companion, “I would spend more time with my family. I would visit my grandparents more often. I would be more present to my girlfriend. I would give more energy to my studies at school. I would go outdoors to enjoy nature more.” he said.
I found myself amused. Was this kid taking the question like one does in an interview when asked about our growing edges? Spinning his faults into strengths? But each subsequent kid, when asked about their 5 sins, instead listed 5 relationships that were clearly important. Then the line got to me. I stood, with my translator at my side, with a sinking feeling that I had not gotten the assignment correct, and said: “I would be a glutton, eating too much. I’d likely drink too often or fall into drugs. There’s the risk of cheating on my wife. I could even become violent and take a life.” Thinking to myself, “that’s how you get real about sin!”, but, there was an audible gasp. I don’t recall what Erin said, but the line went on much as the previous students had, with lists of important relationships. Feeling sure that something had been missed, I asked the young translator again. What had the evangelist asked us? He consulted with one of his compatriots and then turned to me, saying “What are the five most important things that would take priority in your life if God was no longer your first priority?”
We laugh now, but I fear I scandalized those poor youths, and an evangelist, and made his work all the harder. And, I wonder still about the question I thought I had been asked. What does life look like without God? It seems a sort of simplistic question on the face of it. And, it feels a bit like the interaction between Jesus and the Sadducees today. They come to Jesus asking him about the Resurrection, hoping to use his words to prove their belief that there is no resurrection from the dead. They ask about a thing called Levirate marriage, a commandment that requires when a man dies, his brother is to take the widow as his own wife, and together they are to produce children as a means of continuing the deceased siblings line after death. What happens, ask the Sadducees, when a woman is married to seven subsequent brothers and still dies childless? In the resurrection, whose wife will she be?
Their question blindly sidesteps the obvious injustice that would keep a woman in a system where her body and her value were linked to her ability to produce an heir, and not to her innate dignity as a child of God. If only such ideas were dead and in the past. The Sadducees are like those who wish to know how many angels could fit on the head of a pin. A useless theological exercise that misses the point of a good and gracious God whose existence is pure life, and in whose presence we are given life and life abundant.
Jesus responds to the Sadducees, “Those who belong to this age marry and are given in marriage; but those who are considered worthy of a place in that age and in the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage. Indeed they cannot die anymore, because they are like angels and are children of God, being children of the resurrection. And the fact that the dead are raised Moses himself showed, in the story about the bush, where he speaks of the Lord as the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. Now he is God not of the dead, but of the living; for to him all of them are alive.” As theologian Suzanne Guthrie points out, it’s as if Jesus sees the absurdity of their question and is amused.
She writes,
“As I grow older the doctrine of the Communion of Saints opens to my continually challenged perceptions. Sacramental liturgy plays with boundaries of time, and worshipers believe and then come to realize, that “all of them are alive” as Jesus says. To me, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob live – as well as Hagar, Sarah, Rebecca, Leah and Rachel – at least in my imagination, if not within the landscape of prayer.
So, naturally, I want to know about relationships in that next sphere of reality. Do Michel, Ahinoam, Abigail, Maacah, Haggith, Abital, Eglah, and Bathsheba have to be linked to King David? Anne Boleyn to Henry? Any of us to our spouses from disastrous first marriages? What a relief that Jesus laughs this off. “Indeed they cannot die anymore” rendered in our translation, sounds like a joke.”
So, what is the point of the Resurrection? Does it matter that the God whose life is truly life abundant and without end, does it matter that that God exists, and shows up to us and extends that life to us? Jesus’ answer points to the Sadducees’ lack of imagination, what it could mean to live in a world unafraid of death. What would that world look like? Can you imagine it? Jesus isn’t telling us that such a world wouldn’t have marriage. He’s telling us that such a world would not have systems that keep people stuck, trapped, or captive. Such a world would allow us to imagine who we truly are, to become even more fully who God created us to be, without fear or shame.
We practice imagining such a world when we gather in this place. Church, which I confess many times lacks this resurrection imagination, is, at its best, a place where we wonder together, and lean toward a reality, in which the fear of death does not hold sway. A place where the limits of fear that would cause us to hoard and ration and stockpile things like money, grace, love, and forgiveness, are released, and we learn to welcome all and to be welcomed by the God whose life is truly life. This is the kind of place we are trying to build here at St. John’s.
Today, you’ll go to an event where we’ll talk about projects that will seek to preserve and improve this building. We’ll talk about money pledged and dollars to be raised. But, underneath and behind it all is a people truly trying to imagine what it would look like to live as if our things, our building, our resources existed to welcome all. In the work of this campaign, as in our faith formation and worship and outreach, we lean toward a world where God’s resurrection, where God’s abundant life and love, truly matter, and imagine what it could look like to live free of fear and death. Imagine a place with me where those struggling with addiction, even if they’re not members, can find space to get free. Imagine a place where spiritual seekers can sit in contemplation, even when they don’t pledge to or worship in this community. Imagine a place where children of all races, sexualities, and genders, spend their days knowing they are known and welcomed and beloved, even when they do not belong to this community of faith. Imagine a church that makes its space available to neighbors and community groups, a place where all are welcome, and where all can encounter grace, forgiveness, and love.
Let us build a house where love can dwell
And all can safely live
A place where saints and children tell
How hearts learn to forgive
Built of hopes and dreams and visions
Rock of faith and vault of grace
Here the love of Christ shall end divisions
All are welcome, all are welcome
All are welcome in this place
