Worthy Questions
Children's sermon
Illustration
Preaching
Sermon
Worship
After the election, U.S. political leaders will have to deal with enormous problems, some of the worst of them caused by our own leaders. We are right to be apprehensive and to pray for the decrease of violence in the world and for the just distribution of national wealth. But November 7 is All Saints' Sunday, a time to remember those who have preceded us in the faith, to give thanks for the good that has been done by preceding generations, and to reflect on the final passage that awaits us all. The Immediate Word team member Julie Strope, drawing on the appointed lections for the First Reading and for the Gospel, frames questions appropriate for All Saints' Sunday and also for our post-election situation.
Other team members, as usual, offer their own perspectives, illustrations, worship resources, and a children's sermon. Let us together work to overcome the hostility that divides our land.
Worthy Questions
Luke 20:27-40; Haggai 1:15b--2:9; Psalm 98
By Julia Ross Strope, D.Min.
The Sunday after national elections. What are you thinking and feeling? All Saints' Sunday. Who are you remembering? First day of the week again. What questions are you asking?
In the Gospel story, the Sadducees ask Jesus a question: After seven husbands, whose wife will the woman be after death? The Sadducees were one religious/political group in first-century Palestine. The other group that shows up prominently in the New Testament is the Pharisees. Both groups competed with each other for religious power and made deals with the Roman occupiers for political power. Both groups challenged Jesus throughout his ministry. Though the Sadducees were mainly priests, they apparently did not believe in life after death, and so they ask Jesus a rather insincere question. Perhaps, today we might call it "double coding." Marital relationships in heaven may have been street conversation in the first century, but it doesn't make our list of top ten topics.
Apart from life after life, sexuality and family trees, there is a question of ownership. A wife was property; who can claim her as property in heaven?
With technology, awareness of learning styles, understanding of personality development, scientific worldview and space travel, we formulate our questions with a different set of assumptions and expectations. The value and meaning of life and death, truth and mystery depend upon an individual's point of view.
Our primary angst is centered around our property in time and space. Will we outlive our money? Who would use the right furniture polish on grandmother's credenza? The language/vocabulary we use as the vehicles for our thoughts is based in technology and economics. The metaphysical speculation of Hellenism and the Renaissance rarely are used as ways to explore our body/mind connections or our search for connection with the universe.
So what truths from the Lukan story about Jesus and the Sadducees cross the centuries to us? As one of my fourth graders in Sunday school class observed, "Truth is like a baseball; every pitcher puts a different spin on it." Maybe the truths from this Gospel story for us include:
1. We are twenty-first-century postmodern people who are aware of neurological aspects of dying and we have no clue as to space/form after death.
2. It is a waste of our intellectual energy to speculate about relationships and property beyond our last heartbeat.
3. In our living and our dying, we are thoroughly alive in the presence of the Holy.
Are these truths for you?
Months of media harangue with tidbits of political truth are behind us for a while! Our neighborhood 2004 election signs have been stolen for the last time. We've voted, and as a culture have demonstrated some of the same problems Third World countries have when they hold elections and attempt to be democratic: verbal abuse, personal aggrandizement, party expediency. I perceive that Christians and other religious folk have cheapened our national integrity.
Whoever makes the White House home and office has major issues to work with. The topics are the same as last year -- gay marriage, abortion options, homelessness, hunger, health care, prescription drugs, social security, education, terrorism, taxes, forests, oil, war ... What issues did I forget to name that are part of your journey? (Someone from the congregation may add a few more; a handheld cordless microphone is helpful.) As a citizen and a person on the journey to God, I ask, "Can the White House man and his counselors make a difference in the lives of the people in your town and in other towns where people are angry and afraid, where people seek solutions to their discomfort?"
Fear has been a motivating factor in our national election in a similar way that the Old Testament Hebrew people returning from Babylon in 520 B.C.E. were afraid.
Not everything was hunky-dory in prophet Haggai's village; some houses were being built but the focus of the community was still in shambles. At the center of village was the temple to Yahweh, to masculine monotheism. The prophet-leader's method of encouragement was to speak in God's name, urging the people to build a temple/museum/safety deposit box in the middle of town so they could more readily see divine blessing. Too, the priests and their families could then live in some affluence. The last thing the people wanted was for God to be mad at them for delaying a home for divinity, the temple and deprive them of well-being.
The last thing citizens in the U.S. want is for our leaders to take away whatever security we have, whatever comfort we claim. So, like Haggai's people, citizens will take two or three jobs, spend less on food so that we can be less afraid of losing a roof or a table. By choice or not, the temples-to-profit will continue to rise high. Can a center focus be established in America to balance passions and ambiguities? Can our elected leaders compromise and collaborate to do the work needing to be done?
We've been told and we have experienced how difficult it is to sing a tune when we are distressed. Christianity has prided itself on being a hopeful set of doctrines. But many folk do not feel like singing or reading an ancient poem about how the Divine One blesses our nation (Psalm 98).
So many questions are floating around in our heads and hearts. We must formulate the questions in street language that empowers our thinking processes, words that resonate with our hourly goings and comings, words that guide us along our journey to inner peace. Such questions are worthy to ask God and each other.
What question would you like to ask out loud? (Allow time for people in the pews to think and respond. Acknowledge the question without responding until every one who wishes has articulated a question.)
These questions you have heard are our communal questions. We will continue to ask them together until we find some peace. Like the "Let's Talk America" concept cited in Nancy Gibbs' article, "The Morning After" (Time magazine, November 1, 2004, pp. 28-34), we can be faith-people talking about the questions and issues that are real for us day by day, respecting our different perceptions of truth.
The Sadducees did not keep asking Jesus questions. They needed to live with the idea that "all are alive to God." It's vital for us to live with our important questions, too. How do we develop habitual transactions with the God of Haggai and Jesus, Mary Magdalene and Susannah Wesley?
Which brings us to All Saints' Sunday. Thank God for the women and men who have asked questions throughout their lives, questions that helped them find peace in Divine Presence. When the issues of faith and dogma got too big and annoying, they repaired the buildings, put flowers under the cross, and planned potluck suppers. Some of their questions are our questions too, though they may not be the questions our children and grandchildren ask. We can be their saints mentoring them along their path to God.
(If no one from the congregation has asked about meaning, suffering, and technology, the preacher might verbalize them here. Such as: Is stem cell research ethical/moral? Should we eat genetically altered foods? Does technology stand between us and holy mystery? Why are we human creatures on this earth? If God is loving, why is there so much suffering? If God is God of all, how do we explain genocide? If God forgives and cleanses, why do addictive behaviors continue? How will the next generation deal with water and air contamination? If God loves the world, are the promises of scriptures for everyone, not just one or two groups of people? If God is the Energy of the Cosmos why does Nature create so much destruction? Where is God? What language helps humans express their relationship with the Holy? What arts give us access to the heart of God? And so on.)
Worthy questions rarely have short answers. Notice that Jesus did not even answer the question the Sadducees asked. He doesn't respond with conversation about polygamy in heaven, family continuation, ownership, or life beyond the grave. He didn't take their bait and they dared not ask any more questions.
When we align ourselves with the Holy, we will do and feel and think certain things. We too reach a point in our journey to the heart of God when our questions slow down. We reach a place of not needing to worry about life after death, not needing an external temple to be aware of Divine Presence. We come to a place when we are thankful for our heritage and move on, when we trust the process of secular government and are willing to work as we can to love our selves, our neighbors, and God despite the dominant patterns in the environment.
Accepting truths as they are discovered by secular researchers, we can participate in the mystery of being encompassed by God. Each morning between the beeps of the alarm clock and the cozy purr of the cat, a worthy question is, God, how can I be your compassion in the middle of my responsibilities today?
Let's be still for three minutes and consider what truths of this "sermon" we want to remember.
(Conclude the silence with prayer)
Thank you, God, for this new day
For morning mist and autumn colors,
For people who pray and love,
Study and teach.
Stand us up to look around
To offer gentle touch and welcome grace.
Amen.
Resources:
The Center for Progressive Christianity. www.tcpc.org
Time magazine, November 1, 2004
M. Borg. The Heart of Christianity. San Francisco: HarperCollins, 2003
J. Good. The Dishonest Church. Scotts Valley, Calif.: Rising Star Press, 2003
Team Comments
George Murphy responds: It's good to remember here that the Sadducees in this week's Gospel are the religious conservatives, the defenders of the old-time religion. We should try to appreciate their desire to defend the core of Israel's faith, shown in their insistence that it was only the five books of Moses, the Torah, that were authoritative. They were protecting religion from new and perhaps dangerous ideas. But that also meant not being open to new things that God might intend.
The reason for the Sadducees' rejection of the resurrection of the dead was simply that they found no support for the idea in Torah. And indeed there is little explicit mention of the concept anywhere in the Old Testament. But the idea did develop relatively late, during the Persian period. Daniel 12:2-3 and Isaiah 26:19 are the clearest texts that speak of a resurrection of the dead. The Pharisees, who accepted the authority of later parts of the Hebrew Scriptures, could thus appeal to those passages.
There had no doubt been many debates between Sadducees and Pharisees on this matter, and in our Gospel Jesus is being challenged as one who represents the latter point of view. (Later on, in the book of Acts [23:6-10], Paul would get the support of the Pharisees for himself against their rivals by raising the issue of resurrection.) They don't challenge him directly on scriptural grounds but because of the supposed incoherence of the concept of resurrection itself. How can the problem of the woman with seven husbands possibly be resolved in (as the Sadducees would put it) "this so-called resurrection?"
Jesus' answer gets to the heart of the Sadducees' conservatism: Resurrection means that God does something genuinely new. It is indeed something that can't be understood entirely within the categories of this world that we're accustomed to. God is not limited to the same old same old or to what can unfold or develop from what already exists. At the very end of the Bible the one who sits upon the throne declares, "See, I am making all things new" (Revelation 21:5).
But then Jesus turns to the issue of scripture. He quotes a surprising passage in support of the resurrection, the story of the burning bush in Exodus 3. In order to convince the Sadducees he would have to appeal to the books of Moses, and that's what he does here. At first glance the story of the burning bush and the reference to God as the God of the patriarchs doesn't seem to say anything about resurrection but such an exegetical approach apparently wasn't unique to Jesus in this setting. The very interesting book by the Jewish scholar Pinchas Lapide, The Resurrection of Jesus: A Jewish Perspective (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1983) is worth consulting here. The chapter on "Resurrection in Judaism" discusses some of the texts that the rabbis used in discussing the possibility of resurrection.
But for Christians, Jesus is not just one more rabbi. The basic reason why we can find support for the resurrection of the dead in Exodus 3 is that Jesus says it's there. We could say even more strongly that Jesus puts it there. As the authoritative (and risen!) Word of God he invests the scripture with new meaning.
But having criticized the Sadducees, we also should recognize that there are dangers in the position of the Pharisees and of all who believe in some kind of "survival" or afterlife. People may be tempted to practice a religion because they think that it means they get eternal life, or at least an extended life, out of it. But at the most fundamental level we're called to trust in God because God is God, not because of the benefits we may get out of it. In one of his later writings, in a letter to a friend, C. S. Lewis spoke of this:
"I believed in God before I believed in Heaven. And even now, even if -- let's make an impossible supposition -- His voice, unmistakably His, said to me, 'They have misled you. I can do nothing of that sort [i.e., eternal life] for you. My long struggle with the blind forces is nearly over. I die, children. The story is ending' -- would that be a moment for changing sides? Would not you and I take the Viking way: 'The Giants and the Trolls win. Let us die on the right side, with Father Odin' " (C. S. Lewis, Prayer: Letters to Malcolm [Glasgow: William Collins Sons, 1966], p. 120).
Finally, while all the Synoptic Gospels have an account of this encounter between Jesus and the Pharisees, I've always kind of liked the Lukan version because of the phrase that Jesus adds at the end. It is not just that God is the God of the living but that "to him all of them are alive" (or, in the RSV, "for all live to him"). The resurrection isn't just a matter of people being able to conquer death under their own power. Life is possible, and new life is possible, because of a relationship with God. And that would be a good note to strike for All Saints' Sunday. It is a celebration of the communion of saints, which means Christians being in communion with one another and with God.
Carlos Wilton responds: A presidential candidate is on his way into a major event. He leaves his armor-plated limousine, surrounded by a phalanx of Secret Service agents. Off to one side is a crowd of journalists, holding out their microphones, angling their cameras. As the candidate passes by -- smiling, waving, and trying his best to look presidential -- the reporters shout out their questions. These are not questions whose
answers the reporters really want to know -- at least not from any sincere intellectual interest. The questions are meant to trap, to annoy, to catch the candidate off guard: thereby producing a sound bite that can serve as fodder for the evening-news media mill.
When the Sadducees ask Jesus their question about marriage in heaven, their motivation is somewhat similar. They're not so much interested in learning what Jesus says, as in seeing him squirm. The question they're asking is a time-tested theological dilemma: "If a woman had seven husbands during her earthly life, whose wife would she be in heaven?"
It's a bit like the old Philosophy 101 teaser: "Can God make a stone so heavy he can't lift it?"
As George has reminded us, the Sadducees were a conservative party within the Judaism of Jesus' day. They came mostly from the priestly classes, and recognized no scriptures other than the Pentateuch. The Sadducees didn't find in the Pentateuch any evidence for the resurrection of the dead, but that doesn't stop them from asking the question. Like the reporters behind the police barricades, they hope their trick question will leave Jesus' reasoning tied up in knots.
As we examine the Sadducees' question, it is good to remember that the resurrection -- to people of Jesus' day -- does not mean the sort of purely spiritual existence many of us mean when we think about heaven. The prevailing views of our culture are influenced by Greek ideas of the immortality of the soul. The Jewish idea is earthier: resurrection means bodily resurrection, a continuation of a life very similar to this earthly life we now know, but eternal in scope. This makes the purpose of the Sadducees' question clear. It's meant to trap Jesus into admitting that the idea of bodily resurrection is absurd.
In giving the answer he does, Jesus shows that his views are consistent with the Pharisees, at least on this one point. He describes heavenly life as qualitatively different from life on earth, so the question of marriage is not a meaningful one. Rather than impaling himself on one of the horns of the Sadducees' dilemma, he goes right between the two of them and dismantles the premise of the question itself: a classic debater's gambit, and very effective in this case.
The scribes, at least, like his answer. He has beaten the Sadducees at their own game, finding a citation in the Pentateuch that supports his argument. Mark tells us they commend him for speaking well.
So what does this ancient, arcane theological exchange have to teach us? Every time we say the Apostles' Creed, we affirm "the resurrection of the body." What do we mean by that?
The whole point of the doctrine of the resurrection of the body is not that bodily life as we know it will be restored, but rather that we will continue, in the life to come, as the people we essentially are. The creed talks not about "resuscitation of the body," but about "resurrection" -- which is something quite different.
The ancient Hebrews had no word for "personality." The only way they could conceive of an individual human life continuing after death was to envision the bodily aspect of that life. Personality, to them, consisted in a voice, a touch of the hand, an embrace, a distinctive smile. So it is for us, as well: as we envision heavenly reunion with the ones we love, we often picture ourselves seeing them in bodily form.
In most of the New Testament (as well as in the Hebrew Scriptures), the soul is not some airy vapor that's housed in the body for a brief time, until it soars up into a new and purified existence. No, in classical Christianity, soul and body are knit together as one.
Our faith is very wholistic that way. In the great resurrection, God will redeem both body and soul. Exactly how this will happen, or what the resurrection-body will be like, no one can say. Our poor minds are simply too small to comprehend it. All we can be sure of is that the new life in Christ is going to be utterly different from anything we have come to know.
That's rather close to what Jesus says to the Sadducees. He doesn't say what the resurrected life will be like, but he does say what it won't be like. It won't be filled with the sort of conundrums that the Sadducees are posing!
"Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp," writes the poet William Blake, "Or what's a heaven for?" The resurrection of the body -- like so many doctrines of the creed -- is a matter of "our reach exceeding our grasp." To grow into these ideas is the work of a lifetime, and then some.
Carter Shelley responds: Julie, as you've already suggested, the Sadducees' question to Jesus is really an attempt to discover whether he's on their side or the Pharisees' side when it comes to orthodoxy. The answer Jesus supplies reveals once again his ability to sidestep trick questions while simultaneously answering them with more insight and knowledge than his challengers provide. You offer some excellent questions worthy of twenty-first-century Christians trying to struggle along in Jesus' steps without the benefit of his obvious imprint and guidance in situations unknown in the first century.
Since we ministers don't get a lot of opportunities to explore the subject of heaven or hell in sermons, my offering this week is some notes from a book by Colleen McDannell and Bernhard Lang called Heaven: A History. I used the following notes with students in my Introduction to the Christian Tradition course at Wake Forest. The first day of class, I invite each student to write down three questions she or he hopes will be answered by the end of the semester. "What is hell like?" "What is heaven like?" "Is there a hell?" "Is there a heaven?" are questions that appear every time. Church members often wonder about the same thing without having much to go on themselves. So this Sunday, I will choose to preach about "Ancient and Historic Views of Heaven in the Bible and the Christian Tradition."
A fun additional resource is Mark Twain's book Letters from the Earth. Twain specified that this book not be published during his lifetime, because it would shock too many people. One of my favorite sections concerns Twain's persuasive argument that people who don't enjoy Sunday morning services are hardly likely to want to join angel choruses and 24-hour services in heaven. Furthermore, Twain observes, no one ever mentions the likelihood that heaven includes sexual activity. Why would anyone want to go there when that's one of the best things about life on earth?
Here follow my notes for Heaven: A History by Colleen McDannell and Bernhard Lang (New Haven & London: Yale University Press, 1988):
The chief architect of the new image of heaven was Jesus, but important expansions and modifications were made by Paul and the author of the book of Revelation. In all three cases, Jewish philosophical and metaphysical arguments for an afterlife held less importance than the intense experience of the divine that promised everlasting blessedness. While earlier writers saw life after death in terms of the re-establishment of the Jewish state or as a special reward for the virtuous, the New Testament heaven eliminated the notion of compensation. Heaven was not the place or time when an elect group who lacked something would find fulfillment, but rather the promise that Christians would be permitted to experience the divine fully.
In Luke the problem is posed thusly: A man dies, his brother marries the widow, all seven brothers marry her, and all die. Whose husband will she be when she dies and goes to heaven? Jesus answers that the children of this age marry and are given in marriage, but those judged worthy ... of resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage. They become like angels and are no longer liable to death. Children of the resurrection are children of God. The woman, then, will not be the wife of any one of the seven brothers at the resurrection of the dead.
The Sadducees' question is a challenge to the apocalyptic view that the afterlife will be cozy, comfortable, and include marriage in the future. Jesus refutes the Sadducees' disbelief in an afterlife but does not side with the Pharisees, nor does Jesus provide an apocalyptic vision. Resurrection yes. Marriage no. No sex. No life similar to the one on earth. Jesus imagined the new life not only as spiritual and immortal but also as contemporaneous with this one. God is not the God of the dead but of the living. The dead are not languishing in Sheol but have risen up to God. They now live in God's presence in heaven.
Historically, there have been two parallel notions of heaven that have been popular throughout the centuries when Christianity has been a world religion. One view suggests that heaven means union with God. It may be described as a bright light, a sense of warmth and well-being, and in many other mystical, comforting, and appealing terms. This form of heaven in which we unite with the divine, suggests that we lose our individuality and autonomy, but that it doesn't matter because being forever in God's presence is the best future anyone can have.
The other concept of heaven that has been envisioned resembles more the kind of heaven where a woman who has had seven husbands might run into difficulties. In this heaven, people retain their own autonomy and get to be with the people they loved on earth. In this heaven the environment will be similar to all that was wonderful on earth. Neither tradition has much scriptural support, but both notions of heaven have been presented and believed throughout most of Christian time.
***
Few authors dare to describe heaven where many find it easy to write about hell. One of the most intriguing and original notions of heaven presented recently is the one offered by Alice Seabold in The Lovely Bones.
Related Illustrations
From Carlos Wilton
A man called a florist to order flowers to be sent to the funeral of a friend. When he arrived at the funeral home, he was astonished to read this message on the extra-wide ribbon he had ordered to go with the flowers: "Rest in peace on both sides and if there is room we'll meet in heaven."
Jesus is saying, "There is room."
***
"But then in her Resurrection, [the soul's] measure is enlarged, and filled at once; There she reads without spelling, and knowes without thinking, and concludes without arguing; she is at the end of her race, without running; in her Haven, without sayling: A free-man, without any prentiship; at full yeares, without any wardship; and a Doctor, without any proceeding: She knowes truly, and easily, and immediately, and entirely, and everlastingly.... What a death is this life! What a resurrection is this death!"
-- John Donne, from a sermon preached at St. Paul's, London, Easter evening, 1626; in Complete Poetry and Selected Prose (London: Nonesuch, 1946), p. 607
***
If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.... Probably earthly pleasures were never made to satisfy it, but only to arouse it, to suggest the real thing. If that is so, I must take care, on the one hand, never to despise, or be unthankful for, these blessings, and on the other, never to mistake them for something else of which they are only a kind of copy, or echo, or mirage. I must keep alive in myself the desire for my true country, which I shall not find till after death; I must never let it get snowed under or turned aside; I must make it the main object of life to press on to that other country and to help others do the same.
-- C. S. Lewis, from Mere Christianity
***
An upstart company in New Athens, Ill., is offering customers the chance to send messages into the hereafter. Created by Paul Kinsella, 31, the Internet-based Afterlife Telegrams relies on terminally-ill volunteers to carry clients' messages like ghostly carrier pigeons. For $10 per word, the volunteers -- or "messengers" -- memorize short missives and promise to do their best to deliver them in the ethereal realm.
Yes, it's legal. "Why wouldn't it be?" Mr. Kinsella says.
He still had trouble licensing the company with the New Athens Town Hall. The business doesn't fall into the standard government classifications, since nothing tangible is produced and the messengers aren't laborers.
So far, Mr. Kinsella has enlisted only one messenger. To qualify, a volunteer must be diagnosed with terminal illness by a certified doctor and must have a survival prognosis of less than one year. "I need more, but I have no plans to go asking anyone," he says....
The Better Business Bureau of Southern Illinois did not immediately return phone calls requesting comment.
-- Josh Earl, "Client Telegrams Sent to Hereafter," in The Washington Times, December 11, 2002
***
In his memoir, The Gift of Peace, the late Cardinal Joseph Bernadin of Chicago acknowledges that many people had been asking him what he thought about heaven and the afterlife. His answer takes the form of a simple example.
Cardinal Bernadin was a second-generation Italian-American. Both his parents emigrated to the U.S. from a small Italian town. Throughout his childhood, Bernadin enjoyed looking through his parents' photo albums at pictures of their old home. When he later traveled to Italy for the first time, it all seemed surprisingly familiar. In his own words:
"After years of looking through my mother's photo albums, I knew the mountains, the land, the houses, the people. As soon as we entered the valley, I said, 'My God, I know this place. I am home.' Somehow I think crossing from this life into life eternal will be similar. I will be home."
Worship Resources
OPENING
N.b.: All copyright information is given from the first cited place where found. Some copyright information may differ in other sources due to adaptations, etc.
Music
Hymns
"For All The Saints." WORDS: William W. How, 1864; MUSIC: Ralph Vaughan Williams, 1906. Public domain. As found in UMH 711; Hymnal '82: 287; LBOW 174; TPH 526; AAHH 339; TNNBH 301; TNCH 299; CH 637.
"I Sing A Song Of The Saints Of God." WORDS: Lesbia Scott, 1929; MUSIC: John H. Hopkins, Jr., 1940. Public domain. As found in UMH 712; Hymnal '82: 293; TPH 364; TNCH 295.
"Sing With All The Saints In Glory." WORDS: William J. Irons, 1873; MUSIC: Ludwig van Beethoven, 1824; arr. Edward Hodges, 1864. Public domain. As found in UMH 702.
"Great Is Thy Faithfulness." WORDS: Thomas O. Chisholm, 1923; MUSIC: William M. Runyan, 1923. (c) 1923, renewed 1951 Hope Publishing Co. As found in UMH 140. TPH 276; AAHH 158; TNNBH 45; TNCH 423.
"All My Hope Is Firmly Grounded." WORDS: Joachim Neander, 1680; trans. Fred Pratt Green, 1986; MUSIC: Herbert Howells, 1930, 1977. Trans. (c) 1989 Hope Publishing Co.; music (c) 1968 Novello and Co., Ltd. as found in UMH 132; Hymnal '82: 665; TNCH 408.
Songs
"In The Presence Of Your People." WORDS: Psalm 22; MUSIC: Brent Chambers, 1977. (c) 1977 Scripture in Song, Div. Integrity Music. As found in Renew 12.
"Great Is The Lord." WORDS and MUSIC: Michael W. Smith and Deborah D. Smith, 1982. (c) 1982 Meadowgreen Music Co. As found in Renew 22.
"Sing A New Song." WORDS and MUSIC: Daniel L. Schutte. (c) 1972, 1974 Daniel L. Schutte. As found in Renew 21.
CALL TO WORSHIP
Leader: Come, let us praise the One who created us.
People: We offer our worship to our God.
Leader: Let us wonder at the complexity and unity of creation.
People: We are in awe of the far reaches of space and the bumblebees that fly.
Leader: Let us draw near to the One who loves us.
People: We offer our lives into your keeping, O God.
COLLECT / OPENING PRAYER
O God, in whom we live and move and have our being, help us to trust you with all of our questions and doubts that we may be renewed in faith; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
or
We come as people of the earth who have a limited vision. Our horizon is limited and there is much that we cannot see. We come as people who bear your image and your spirit. Help us to see with your eyes and to trust ourselves always into your infinite care. Amen.
Response Music
Hymns
"When Our Confidence Is Shaken." WORDS: Fred Pratt Green, 1971; MUSIC from Chants Ordinaries de l'office divin, 1881; harm. from The English Hymnal, 1906. Words (c) 1971 Hope Publishing Co. As found in UMH 505.
"Stand By Me." WORDS: Charles Albert Tindley, ca. 1906; MUSIC: Charles Albert Tindley, ca. 1906. Arr. (c) 1989 The United Methodist Publishing House. As found in UMH 512; TNNBH 318.
"Out Of The Depths I Cry To You." WORDS: Martin Luther, 1524; trans. Gracia Grindal; MUSIC: Attr. to Martin Luther, 1524; harm. Austin C. Lovelace, 1963. Trans. (c) 1978 Lutheran Book of Worship; harm. (c) 1964 Abingdon Press. As found in UMH 515; Hymnal '82: 666; LBOW 295; TPH 240; TNNBH 207; TNCH 554.
"I Want Jesus To Walk With Me." WORDS: Afro-American Spiritual; MUSIC: Afro-American Spiritual; adapt. William Farley Smith, 1986. Adapt. (c) 1989 The United Methodist Publishing House. As found in UMH 521. TPH 363; AAHH 563; TNNBH 500; TNCH 490.
Songs
"Ah, Lord God." WORDS and MUSIC: Kay Chance. (c) 1976 Kay Chance. As found in Renew 254.
"Blessed Be The Name Of The Lord." WORDS and MUSIC: Don Moen. (c) 1986 Integrity's Hosanna! Music. As found in Renew 260.
"I Call You Faithful." WORDS: Bobby Price; MUSIC: Kevin Walker; arr. J. Michael Bryan. (c) 1990, 1996 Dawn Treader Music. As found in CCB 70.
PRAYERS OF CONFESSION / PARDON
Leader: Come, let us confess to God and before one another the ways in which we have missed the mark.
People: We confess to you, O God, that we are frail creatures. There is so much that we do not understand and that scares us. To hide our fear we assert with loud voices how much we know and how much is in our control. Yet in the quietness of our own hearts we know that we are ignorant of so much and there is very little that we have any say about. Forgive us our false bravado and enable us to come to you with all the questions and doubts of our hearts and minds. Assure us once again that we are your children and that we are loved and adored as the apple of your eye. Amen.
Leader: God knows who we are and of what we are made. God calls us children of the Most High and that is what we are. Take heart and know that the love and grace of God is yours today and forever.
GENERAL PRAYERS, LITANIES, ETC.
Glory and honor and blessings are yours, O God, who sees into the depths of our hearts and into the mysteries of all creation. You are far beyond our understanding and yet you come and dwell among us and within us. You offer yourself as our rock and our foundation.
(The following paragraph is most suitable if a prayer of confession will not be used elsewhere.)
We confess that we often trust our own thoughts and understandings instead of your grace and love. We think that in naming things we have taken control of them. We grasp at every opportunity to feel power. Forgive us and teach us to trust in you as an infant trusts the parent in whose arms it rests.
We give you thanks for the butterflies in the garden and the black holes of space. They delight us in their beauty and their majesty. We thank you for mystery of life and of love as we experience that as your creatures and as your beloved children.
(Other specific thanksgiving may be offered.)
We offer up to you those things that sadden us and which we do not understand. Sickness, poverty, violence, and death seem so out of place in your creation and yet they are all around us. As you move within creation bringing healing, allow our spirits to go with yours.
(Other petitions may be offered.)
All these things we ask in the Name of Jesus who taught us to pray saying, "Our Father ...."
Hymnal and Songbook Abbreviations
UMH: United Methodist Hymnal
Hymnal '82: The Hymnal 1982, The Episcopal Church
LBOW: Lutheran Book of Worship
TPH: The Presbyterian Hymnal
AAHH: African American Heritage Hymnal
TNNBH: The New National Baptist Hymnal
TNCH: The New Century Hymnal
CH: Chalice Hymnal
CCB: Cokesbury Chorus Book
PMMCH3: Praise. Maranatha! Music Chorus Book, Expanded 3rd EditionRenew: Renew! Songs and Hymns for Blended Worship
A Children's Sermon
What's a saint?
Object: a picture of one or more saints with halos around their heads
Based on Luke 6:20-31
Good morning! Today is All Saints' Day. What's a saint? Can anybody tell me? (let them answer) Before I tell you exactly what a saint is, let me show you this picture that somebody painted. Here we see some people with halos around their heads. They were painted this way to show that they were saints. The artist felt that saints were very special people who were so close to God that they were different than normal people like you and me. The halo was painted there to identify them as being these special saints.
Now, I want to tell you that this isn't true. Saints are people who love Jesus and try to do what he tells them to do. Do each of you love Jesus and do you try to do what he tells you to do? (let them answer) Well, that makes each of you a saint and that means this is your day, too.
What were some of the things Jesus told us to do? (let them answer) He told us to love one another, to love our enemies, to be generous with people in need, and a lot of other things. One of the hardest things he told us to do was to do to others what we want them to do to us. What do you think he meant by that? (let them answer) Yes, it means we should never do something to another person that we wouldn't want them to do to us. We don't want anyone to hit us or call us bad names, so we must not do that to others. On the other hand, we do want people to love us and to help us when we need help, so we need to do that for others. If we try to do these things and all the other things that Jesus wants us to do, then we are his people and we are entitled to be called saints.
Dear God: We do believe in your Son, Jesus, and we want to do what he tells us to do. Help us to be your saints. Amen.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
The Immediate Word, November 7, 2004, issue.
Copyright 2004 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to The Immediate Word service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons and in worship and classroom settings only. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to permissions@csspub.com or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., P.O. Box 4503, Lima, Ohio 45802-4503.
Other team members, as usual, offer their own perspectives, illustrations, worship resources, and a children's sermon. Let us together work to overcome the hostility that divides our land.
Worthy Questions
Luke 20:27-40; Haggai 1:15b--2:9; Psalm 98
By Julia Ross Strope, D.Min.
The Sunday after national elections. What are you thinking and feeling? All Saints' Sunday. Who are you remembering? First day of the week again. What questions are you asking?
In the Gospel story, the Sadducees ask Jesus a question: After seven husbands, whose wife will the woman be after death? The Sadducees were one religious/political group in first-century Palestine. The other group that shows up prominently in the New Testament is the Pharisees. Both groups competed with each other for religious power and made deals with the Roman occupiers for political power. Both groups challenged Jesus throughout his ministry. Though the Sadducees were mainly priests, they apparently did not believe in life after death, and so they ask Jesus a rather insincere question. Perhaps, today we might call it "double coding." Marital relationships in heaven may have been street conversation in the first century, but it doesn't make our list of top ten topics.
Apart from life after life, sexuality and family trees, there is a question of ownership. A wife was property; who can claim her as property in heaven?
With technology, awareness of learning styles, understanding of personality development, scientific worldview and space travel, we formulate our questions with a different set of assumptions and expectations. The value and meaning of life and death, truth and mystery depend upon an individual's point of view.
Our primary angst is centered around our property in time and space. Will we outlive our money? Who would use the right furniture polish on grandmother's credenza? The language/vocabulary we use as the vehicles for our thoughts is based in technology and economics. The metaphysical speculation of Hellenism and the Renaissance rarely are used as ways to explore our body/mind connections or our search for connection with the universe.
So what truths from the Lukan story about Jesus and the Sadducees cross the centuries to us? As one of my fourth graders in Sunday school class observed, "Truth is like a baseball; every pitcher puts a different spin on it." Maybe the truths from this Gospel story for us include:
1. We are twenty-first-century postmodern people who are aware of neurological aspects of dying and we have no clue as to space/form after death.
2. It is a waste of our intellectual energy to speculate about relationships and property beyond our last heartbeat.
3. In our living and our dying, we are thoroughly alive in the presence of the Holy.
Are these truths for you?
Months of media harangue with tidbits of political truth are behind us for a while! Our neighborhood 2004 election signs have been stolen for the last time. We've voted, and as a culture have demonstrated some of the same problems Third World countries have when they hold elections and attempt to be democratic: verbal abuse, personal aggrandizement, party expediency. I perceive that Christians and other religious folk have cheapened our national integrity.
Whoever makes the White House home and office has major issues to work with. The topics are the same as last year -- gay marriage, abortion options, homelessness, hunger, health care, prescription drugs, social security, education, terrorism, taxes, forests, oil, war ... What issues did I forget to name that are part of your journey? (Someone from the congregation may add a few more; a handheld cordless microphone is helpful.) As a citizen and a person on the journey to God, I ask, "Can the White House man and his counselors make a difference in the lives of the people in your town and in other towns where people are angry and afraid, where people seek solutions to their discomfort?"
Fear has been a motivating factor in our national election in a similar way that the Old Testament Hebrew people returning from Babylon in 520 B.C.E. were afraid.
Not everything was hunky-dory in prophet Haggai's village; some houses were being built but the focus of the community was still in shambles. At the center of village was the temple to Yahweh, to masculine monotheism. The prophet-leader's method of encouragement was to speak in God's name, urging the people to build a temple/museum/safety deposit box in the middle of town so they could more readily see divine blessing. Too, the priests and their families could then live in some affluence. The last thing the people wanted was for God to be mad at them for delaying a home for divinity, the temple and deprive them of well-being.
The last thing citizens in the U.S. want is for our leaders to take away whatever security we have, whatever comfort we claim. So, like Haggai's people, citizens will take two or three jobs, spend less on food so that we can be less afraid of losing a roof or a table. By choice or not, the temples-to-profit will continue to rise high. Can a center focus be established in America to balance passions and ambiguities? Can our elected leaders compromise and collaborate to do the work needing to be done?
We've been told and we have experienced how difficult it is to sing a tune when we are distressed. Christianity has prided itself on being a hopeful set of doctrines. But many folk do not feel like singing or reading an ancient poem about how the Divine One blesses our nation (Psalm 98).
So many questions are floating around in our heads and hearts. We must formulate the questions in street language that empowers our thinking processes, words that resonate with our hourly goings and comings, words that guide us along our journey to inner peace. Such questions are worthy to ask God and each other.
What question would you like to ask out loud? (Allow time for people in the pews to think and respond. Acknowledge the question without responding until every one who wishes has articulated a question.)
These questions you have heard are our communal questions. We will continue to ask them together until we find some peace. Like the "Let's Talk America" concept cited in Nancy Gibbs' article, "The Morning After" (Time magazine, November 1, 2004, pp. 28-34), we can be faith-people talking about the questions and issues that are real for us day by day, respecting our different perceptions of truth.
The Sadducees did not keep asking Jesus questions. They needed to live with the idea that "all are alive to God." It's vital for us to live with our important questions, too. How do we develop habitual transactions with the God of Haggai and Jesus, Mary Magdalene and Susannah Wesley?
Which brings us to All Saints' Sunday. Thank God for the women and men who have asked questions throughout their lives, questions that helped them find peace in Divine Presence. When the issues of faith and dogma got too big and annoying, they repaired the buildings, put flowers under the cross, and planned potluck suppers. Some of their questions are our questions too, though they may not be the questions our children and grandchildren ask. We can be their saints mentoring them along their path to God.
(If no one from the congregation has asked about meaning, suffering, and technology, the preacher might verbalize them here. Such as: Is stem cell research ethical/moral? Should we eat genetically altered foods? Does technology stand between us and holy mystery? Why are we human creatures on this earth? If God is loving, why is there so much suffering? If God is God of all, how do we explain genocide? If God forgives and cleanses, why do addictive behaviors continue? How will the next generation deal with water and air contamination? If God loves the world, are the promises of scriptures for everyone, not just one or two groups of people? If God is the Energy of the Cosmos why does Nature create so much destruction? Where is God? What language helps humans express their relationship with the Holy? What arts give us access to the heart of God? And so on.)
Worthy questions rarely have short answers. Notice that Jesus did not even answer the question the Sadducees asked. He doesn't respond with conversation about polygamy in heaven, family continuation, ownership, or life beyond the grave. He didn't take their bait and they dared not ask any more questions.
When we align ourselves with the Holy, we will do and feel and think certain things. We too reach a point in our journey to the heart of God when our questions slow down. We reach a place of not needing to worry about life after death, not needing an external temple to be aware of Divine Presence. We come to a place when we are thankful for our heritage and move on, when we trust the process of secular government and are willing to work as we can to love our selves, our neighbors, and God despite the dominant patterns in the environment.
Accepting truths as they are discovered by secular researchers, we can participate in the mystery of being encompassed by God. Each morning between the beeps of the alarm clock and the cozy purr of the cat, a worthy question is, God, how can I be your compassion in the middle of my responsibilities today?
Let's be still for three minutes and consider what truths of this "sermon" we want to remember.
(Conclude the silence with prayer)
Thank you, God, for this new day
For morning mist and autumn colors,
For people who pray and love,
Study and teach.
Stand us up to look around
To offer gentle touch and welcome grace.
Amen.
Resources:
The Center for Progressive Christianity. www.tcpc.org
Time magazine, November 1, 2004
M. Borg. The Heart of Christianity. San Francisco: HarperCollins, 2003
J. Good. The Dishonest Church. Scotts Valley, Calif.: Rising Star Press, 2003
Team Comments
George Murphy responds: It's good to remember here that the Sadducees in this week's Gospel are the religious conservatives, the defenders of the old-time religion. We should try to appreciate their desire to defend the core of Israel's faith, shown in their insistence that it was only the five books of Moses, the Torah, that were authoritative. They were protecting religion from new and perhaps dangerous ideas. But that also meant not being open to new things that God might intend.
The reason for the Sadducees' rejection of the resurrection of the dead was simply that they found no support for the idea in Torah. And indeed there is little explicit mention of the concept anywhere in the Old Testament. But the idea did develop relatively late, during the Persian period. Daniel 12:2-3 and Isaiah 26:19 are the clearest texts that speak of a resurrection of the dead. The Pharisees, who accepted the authority of later parts of the Hebrew Scriptures, could thus appeal to those passages.
There had no doubt been many debates between Sadducees and Pharisees on this matter, and in our Gospel Jesus is being challenged as one who represents the latter point of view. (Later on, in the book of Acts [23:6-10], Paul would get the support of the Pharisees for himself against their rivals by raising the issue of resurrection.) They don't challenge him directly on scriptural grounds but because of the supposed incoherence of the concept of resurrection itself. How can the problem of the woman with seven husbands possibly be resolved in (as the Sadducees would put it) "this so-called resurrection?"
Jesus' answer gets to the heart of the Sadducees' conservatism: Resurrection means that God does something genuinely new. It is indeed something that can't be understood entirely within the categories of this world that we're accustomed to. God is not limited to the same old same old or to what can unfold or develop from what already exists. At the very end of the Bible the one who sits upon the throne declares, "See, I am making all things new" (Revelation 21:5).
But then Jesus turns to the issue of scripture. He quotes a surprising passage in support of the resurrection, the story of the burning bush in Exodus 3. In order to convince the Sadducees he would have to appeal to the books of Moses, and that's what he does here. At first glance the story of the burning bush and the reference to God as the God of the patriarchs doesn't seem to say anything about resurrection but such an exegetical approach apparently wasn't unique to Jesus in this setting. The very interesting book by the Jewish scholar Pinchas Lapide, The Resurrection of Jesus: A Jewish Perspective (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1983) is worth consulting here. The chapter on "Resurrection in Judaism" discusses some of the texts that the rabbis used in discussing the possibility of resurrection.
But for Christians, Jesus is not just one more rabbi. The basic reason why we can find support for the resurrection of the dead in Exodus 3 is that Jesus says it's there. We could say even more strongly that Jesus puts it there. As the authoritative (and risen!) Word of God he invests the scripture with new meaning.
But having criticized the Sadducees, we also should recognize that there are dangers in the position of the Pharisees and of all who believe in some kind of "survival" or afterlife. People may be tempted to practice a religion because they think that it means they get eternal life, or at least an extended life, out of it. But at the most fundamental level we're called to trust in God because God is God, not because of the benefits we may get out of it. In one of his later writings, in a letter to a friend, C. S. Lewis spoke of this:
"I believed in God before I believed in Heaven. And even now, even if -- let's make an impossible supposition -- His voice, unmistakably His, said to me, 'They have misled you. I can do nothing of that sort [i.e., eternal life] for you. My long struggle with the blind forces is nearly over. I die, children. The story is ending' -- would that be a moment for changing sides? Would not you and I take the Viking way: 'The Giants and the Trolls win. Let us die on the right side, with Father Odin' " (C. S. Lewis, Prayer: Letters to Malcolm [Glasgow: William Collins Sons, 1966], p. 120).
Finally, while all the Synoptic Gospels have an account of this encounter between Jesus and the Pharisees, I've always kind of liked the Lukan version because of the phrase that Jesus adds at the end. It is not just that God is the God of the living but that "to him all of them are alive" (or, in the RSV, "for all live to him"). The resurrection isn't just a matter of people being able to conquer death under their own power. Life is possible, and new life is possible, because of a relationship with God. And that would be a good note to strike for All Saints' Sunday. It is a celebration of the communion of saints, which means Christians being in communion with one another and with God.
Carlos Wilton responds: A presidential candidate is on his way into a major event. He leaves his armor-plated limousine, surrounded by a phalanx of Secret Service agents. Off to one side is a crowd of journalists, holding out their microphones, angling their cameras. As the candidate passes by -- smiling, waving, and trying his best to look presidential -- the reporters shout out their questions. These are not questions whose
answers the reporters really want to know -- at least not from any sincere intellectual interest. The questions are meant to trap, to annoy, to catch the candidate off guard: thereby producing a sound bite that can serve as fodder for the evening-news media mill.
When the Sadducees ask Jesus their question about marriage in heaven, their motivation is somewhat similar. They're not so much interested in learning what Jesus says, as in seeing him squirm. The question they're asking is a time-tested theological dilemma: "If a woman had seven husbands during her earthly life, whose wife would she be in heaven?"
It's a bit like the old Philosophy 101 teaser: "Can God make a stone so heavy he can't lift it?"
As George has reminded us, the Sadducees were a conservative party within the Judaism of Jesus' day. They came mostly from the priestly classes, and recognized no scriptures other than the Pentateuch. The Sadducees didn't find in the Pentateuch any evidence for the resurrection of the dead, but that doesn't stop them from asking the question. Like the reporters behind the police barricades, they hope their trick question will leave Jesus' reasoning tied up in knots.
As we examine the Sadducees' question, it is good to remember that the resurrection -- to people of Jesus' day -- does not mean the sort of purely spiritual existence many of us mean when we think about heaven. The prevailing views of our culture are influenced by Greek ideas of the immortality of the soul. The Jewish idea is earthier: resurrection means bodily resurrection, a continuation of a life very similar to this earthly life we now know, but eternal in scope. This makes the purpose of the Sadducees' question clear. It's meant to trap Jesus into admitting that the idea of bodily resurrection is absurd.
In giving the answer he does, Jesus shows that his views are consistent with the Pharisees, at least on this one point. He describes heavenly life as qualitatively different from life on earth, so the question of marriage is not a meaningful one. Rather than impaling himself on one of the horns of the Sadducees' dilemma, he goes right between the two of them and dismantles the premise of the question itself: a classic debater's gambit, and very effective in this case.
The scribes, at least, like his answer. He has beaten the Sadducees at their own game, finding a citation in the Pentateuch that supports his argument. Mark tells us they commend him for speaking well.
So what does this ancient, arcane theological exchange have to teach us? Every time we say the Apostles' Creed, we affirm "the resurrection of the body." What do we mean by that?
The whole point of the doctrine of the resurrection of the body is not that bodily life as we know it will be restored, but rather that we will continue, in the life to come, as the people we essentially are. The creed talks not about "resuscitation of the body," but about "resurrection" -- which is something quite different.
The ancient Hebrews had no word for "personality." The only way they could conceive of an individual human life continuing after death was to envision the bodily aspect of that life. Personality, to them, consisted in a voice, a touch of the hand, an embrace, a distinctive smile. So it is for us, as well: as we envision heavenly reunion with the ones we love, we often picture ourselves seeing them in bodily form.
In most of the New Testament (as well as in the Hebrew Scriptures), the soul is not some airy vapor that's housed in the body for a brief time, until it soars up into a new and purified existence. No, in classical Christianity, soul and body are knit together as one.
Our faith is very wholistic that way. In the great resurrection, God will redeem both body and soul. Exactly how this will happen, or what the resurrection-body will be like, no one can say. Our poor minds are simply too small to comprehend it. All we can be sure of is that the new life in Christ is going to be utterly different from anything we have come to know.
That's rather close to what Jesus says to the Sadducees. He doesn't say what the resurrected life will be like, but he does say what it won't be like. It won't be filled with the sort of conundrums that the Sadducees are posing!
"Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp," writes the poet William Blake, "Or what's a heaven for?" The resurrection of the body -- like so many doctrines of the creed -- is a matter of "our reach exceeding our grasp." To grow into these ideas is the work of a lifetime, and then some.
Carter Shelley responds: Julie, as you've already suggested, the Sadducees' question to Jesus is really an attempt to discover whether he's on their side or the Pharisees' side when it comes to orthodoxy. The answer Jesus supplies reveals once again his ability to sidestep trick questions while simultaneously answering them with more insight and knowledge than his challengers provide. You offer some excellent questions worthy of twenty-first-century Christians trying to struggle along in Jesus' steps without the benefit of his obvious imprint and guidance in situations unknown in the first century.
Since we ministers don't get a lot of opportunities to explore the subject of heaven or hell in sermons, my offering this week is some notes from a book by Colleen McDannell and Bernhard Lang called Heaven: A History. I used the following notes with students in my Introduction to the Christian Tradition course at Wake Forest. The first day of class, I invite each student to write down three questions she or he hopes will be answered by the end of the semester. "What is hell like?" "What is heaven like?" "Is there a hell?" "Is there a heaven?" are questions that appear every time. Church members often wonder about the same thing without having much to go on themselves. So this Sunday, I will choose to preach about "Ancient and Historic Views of Heaven in the Bible and the Christian Tradition."
A fun additional resource is Mark Twain's book Letters from the Earth. Twain specified that this book not be published during his lifetime, because it would shock too many people. One of my favorite sections concerns Twain's persuasive argument that people who don't enjoy Sunday morning services are hardly likely to want to join angel choruses and 24-hour services in heaven. Furthermore, Twain observes, no one ever mentions the likelihood that heaven includes sexual activity. Why would anyone want to go there when that's one of the best things about life on earth?
Here follow my notes for Heaven: A History by Colleen McDannell and Bernhard Lang (New Haven & London: Yale University Press, 1988):
The chief architect of the new image of heaven was Jesus, but important expansions and modifications were made by Paul and the author of the book of Revelation. In all three cases, Jewish philosophical and metaphysical arguments for an afterlife held less importance than the intense experience of the divine that promised everlasting blessedness. While earlier writers saw life after death in terms of the re-establishment of the Jewish state or as a special reward for the virtuous, the New Testament heaven eliminated the notion of compensation. Heaven was not the place or time when an elect group who lacked something would find fulfillment, but rather the promise that Christians would be permitted to experience the divine fully.
In Luke the problem is posed thusly: A man dies, his brother marries the widow, all seven brothers marry her, and all die. Whose husband will she be when she dies and goes to heaven? Jesus answers that the children of this age marry and are given in marriage, but those judged worthy ... of resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage. They become like angels and are no longer liable to death. Children of the resurrection are children of God. The woman, then, will not be the wife of any one of the seven brothers at the resurrection of the dead.
The Sadducees' question is a challenge to the apocalyptic view that the afterlife will be cozy, comfortable, and include marriage in the future. Jesus refutes the Sadducees' disbelief in an afterlife but does not side with the Pharisees, nor does Jesus provide an apocalyptic vision. Resurrection yes. Marriage no. No sex. No life similar to the one on earth. Jesus imagined the new life not only as spiritual and immortal but also as contemporaneous with this one. God is not the God of the dead but of the living. The dead are not languishing in Sheol but have risen up to God. They now live in God's presence in heaven.
Historically, there have been two parallel notions of heaven that have been popular throughout the centuries when Christianity has been a world religion. One view suggests that heaven means union with God. It may be described as a bright light, a sense of warmth and well-being, and in many other mystical, comforting, and appealing terms. This form of heaven in which we unite with the divine, suggests that we lose our individuality and autonomy, but that it doesn't matter because being forever in God's presence is the best future anyone can have.
The other concept of heaven that has been envisioned resembles more the kind of heaven where a woman who has had seven husbands might run into difficulties. In this heaven, people retain their own autonomy and get to be with the people they loved on earth. In this heaven the environment will be similar to all that was wonderful on earth. Neither tradition has much scriptural support, but both notions of heaven have been presented and believed throughout most of Christian time.
***
Few authors dare to describe heaven where many find it easy to write about hell. One of the most intriguing and original notions of heaven presented recently is the one offered by Alice Seabold in The Lovely Bones.
Related Illustrations
From Carlos Wilton
A man called a florist to order flowers to be sent to the funeral of a friend. When he arrived at the funeral home, he was astonished to read this message on the extra-wide ribbon he had ordered to go with the flowers: "Rest in peace on both sides and if there is room we'll meet in heaven."
Jesus is saying, "There is room."
***
"But then in her Resurrection, [the soul's] measure is enlarged, and filled at once; There she reads without spelling, and knowes without thinking, and concludes without arguing; she is at the end of her race, without running; in her Haven, without sayling: A free-man, without any prentiship; at full yeares, without any wardship; and a Doctor, without any proceeding: She knowes truly, and easily, and immediately, and entirely, and everlastingly.... What a death is this life! What a resurrection is this death!"
-- John Donne, from a sermon preached at St. Paul's, London, Easter evening, 1626; in Complete Poetry and Selected Prose (London: Nonesuch, 1946), p. 607
***
If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.... Probably earthly pleasures were never made to satisfy it, but only to arouse it, to suggest the real thing. If that is so, I must take care, on the one hand, never to despise, or be unthankful for, these blessings, and on the other, never to mistake them for something else of which they are only a kind of copy, or echo, or mirage. I must keep alive in myself the desire for my true country, which I shall not find till after death; I must never let it get snowed under or turned aside; I must make it the main object of life to press on to that other country and to help others do the same.
-- C. S. Lewis, from Mere Christianity
***
An upstart company in New Athens, Ill., is offering customers the chance to send messages into the hereafter. Created by Paul Kinsella, 31, the Internet-based Afterlife Telegrams relies on terminally-ill volunteers to carry clients' messages like ghostly carrier pigeons. For $10 per word, the volunteers -- or "messengers" -- memorize short missives and promise to do their best to deliver them in the ethereal realm.
Yes, it's legal. "Why wouldn't it be?" Mr. Kinsella says.
He still had trouble licensing the company with the New Athens Town Hall. The business doesn't fall into the standard government classifications, since nothing tangible is produced and the messengers aren't laborers.
So far, Mr. Kinsella has enlisted only one messenger. To qualify, a volunteer must be diagnosed with terminal illness by a certified doctor and must have a survival prognosis of less than one year. "I need more, but I have no plans to go asking anyone," he says....
The Better Business Bureau of Southern Illinois did not immediately return phone calls requesting comment.
-- Josh Earl, "Client Telegrams Sent to Hereafter," in The Washington Times, December 11, 2002
***
In his memoir, The Gift of Peace, the late Cardinal Joseph Bernadin of Chicago acknowledges that many people had been asking him what he thought about heaven and the afterlife. His answer takes the form of a simple example.
Cardinal Bernadin was a second-generation Italian-American. Both his parents emigrated to the U.S. from a small Italian town. Throughout his childhood, Bernadin enjoyed looking through his parents' photo albums at pictures of their old home. When he later traveled to Italy for the first time, it all seemed surprisingly familiar. In his own words:
"After years of looking through my mother's photo albums, I knew the mountains, the land, the houses, the people. As soon as we entered the valley, I said, 'My God, I know this place. I am home.' Somehow I think crossing from this life into life eternal will be similar. I will be home."
Worship Resources
OPENING
N.b.: All copyright information is given from the first cited place where found. Some copyright information may differ in other sources due to adaptations, etc.
Music
Hymns
"For All The Saints." WORDS: William W. How, 1864; MUSIC: Ralph Vaughan Williams, 1906. Public domain. As found in UMH 711; Hymnal '82: 287; LBOW 174; TPH 526; AAHH 339; TNNBH 301; TNCH 299; CH 637.
"I Sing A Song Of The Saints Of God." WORDS: Lesbia Scott, 1929; MUSIC: John H. Hopkins, Jr., 1940. Public domain. As found in UMH 712; Hymnal '82: 293; TPH 364; TNCH 295.
"Sing With All The Saints In Glory." WORDS: William J. Irons, 1873; MUSIC: Ludwig van Beethoven, 1824; arr. Edward Hodges, 1864. Public domain. As found in UMH 702.
"Great Is Thy Faithfulness." WORDS: Thomas O. Chisholm, 1923; MUSIC: William M. Runyan, 1923. (c) 1923, renewed 1951 Hope Publishing Co. As found in UMH 140. TPH 276; AAHH 158; TNNBH 45; TNCH 423.
"All My Hope Is Firmly Grounded." WORDS: Joachim Neander, 1680; trans. Fred Pratt Green, 1986; MUSIC: Herbert Howells, 1930, 1977. Trans. (c) 1989 Hope Publishing Co.; music (c) 1968 Novello and Co., Ltd. as found in UMH 132; Hymnal '82: 665; TNCH 408.
Songs
"In The Presence Of Your People." WORDS: Psalm 22; MUSIC: Brent Chambers, 1977. (c) 1977 Scripture in Song, Div. Integrity Music. As found in Renew 12.
"Great Is The Lord." WORDS and MUSIC: Michael W. Smith and Deborah D. Smith, 1982. (c) 1982 Meadowgreen Music Co. As found in Renew 22.
"Sing A New Song." WORDS and MUSIC: Daniel L. Schutte. (c) 1972, 1974 Daniel L. Schutte. As found in Renew 21.
CALL TO WORSHIP
Leader: Come, let us praise the One who created us.
People: We offer our worship to our God.
Leader: Let us wonder at the complexity and unity of creation.
People: We are in awe of the far reaches of space and the bumblebees that fly.
Leader: Let us draw near to the One who loves us.
People: We offer our lives into your keeping, O God.
COLLECT / OPENING PRAYER
O God, in whom we live and move and have our being, help us to trust you with all of our questions and doubts that we may be renewed in faith; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
or
We come as people of the earth who have a limited vision. Our horizon is limited and there is much that we cannot see. We come as people who bear your image and your spirit. Help us to see with your eyes and to trust ourselves always into your infinite care. Amen.
Response Music
Hymns
"When Our Confidence Is Shaken." WORDS: Fred Pratt Green, 1971; MUSIC from Chants Ordinaries de l'office divin, 1881; harm. from The English Hymnal, 1906. Words (c) 1971 Hope Publishing Co. As found in UMH 505.
"Stand By Me." WORDS: Charles Albert Tindley, ca. 1906; MUSIC: Charles Albert Tindley, ca. 1906. Arr. (c) 1989 The United Methodist Publishing House. As found in UMH 512; TNNBH 318.
"Out Of The Depths I Cry To You." WORDS: Martin Luther, 1524; trans. Gracia Grindal; MUSIC: Attr. to Martin Luther, 1524; harm. Austin C. Lovelace, 1963. Trans. (c) 1978 Lutheran Book of Worship; harm. (c) 1964 Abingdon Press. As found in UMH 515; Hymnal '82: 666; LBOW 295; TPH 240; TNNBH 207; TNCH 554.
"I Want Jesus To Walk With Me." WORDS: Afro-American Spiritual; MUSIC: Afro-American Spiritual; adapt. William Farley Smith, 1986. Adapt. (c) 1989 The United Methodist Publishing House. As found in UMH 521. TPH 363; AAHH 563; TNNBH 500; TNCH 490.
Songs
"Ah, Lord God." WORDS and MUSIC: Kay Chance. (c) 1976 Kay Chance. As found in Renew 254.
"Blessed Be The Name Of The Lord." WORDS and MUSIC: Don Moen. (c) 1986 Integrity's Hosanna! Music. As found in Renew 260.
"I Call You Faithful." WORDS: Bobby Price; MUSIC: Kevin Walker; arr. J. Michael Bryan. (c) 1990, 1996 Dawn Treader Music. As found in CCB 70.
PRAYERS OF CONFESSION / PARDON
Leader: Come, let us confess to God and before one another the ways in which we have missed the mark.
People: We confess to you, O God, that we are frail creatures. There is so much that we do not understand and that scares us. To hide our fear we assert with loud voices how much we know and how much is in our control. Yet in the quietness of our own hearts we know that we are ignorant of so much and there is very little that we have any say about. Forgive us our false bravado and enable us to come to you with all the questions and doubts of our hearts and minds. Assure us once again that we are your children and that we are loved and adored as the apple of your eye. Amen.
Leader: God knows who we are and of what we are made. God calls us children of the Most High and that is what we are. Take heart and know that the love and grace of God is yours today and forever.
GENERAL PRAYERS, LITANIES, ETC.
Glory and honor and blessings are yours, O God, who sees into the depths of our hearts and into the mysteries of all creation. You are far beyond our understanding and yet you come and dwell among us and within us. You offer yourself as our rock and our foundation.
(The following paragraph is most suitable if a prayer of confession will not be used elsewhere.)
We confess that we often trust our own thoughts and understandings instead of your grace and love. We think that in naming things we have taken control of them. We grasp at every opportunity to feel power. Forgive us and teach us to trust in you as an infant trusts the parent in whose arms it rests.
We give you thanks for the butterflies in the garden and the black holes of space. They delight us in their beauty and their majesty. We thank you for mystery of life and of love as we experience that as your creatures and as your beloved children.
(Other specific thanksgiving may be offered.)
We offer up to you those things that sadden us and which we do not understand. Sickness, poverty, violence, and death seem so out of place in your creation and yet they are all around us. As you move within creation bringing healing, allow our spirits to go with yours.
(Other petitions may be offered.)
All these things we ask in the Name of Jesus who taught us to pray saying, "Our Father ...."
Hymnal and Songbook Abbreviations
UMH: United Methodist Hymnal
Hymnal '82: The Hymnal 1982, The Episcopal Church
LBOW: Lutheran Book of Worship
TPH: The Presbyterian Hymnal
AAHH: African American Heritage Hymnal
TNNBH: The New National Baptist Hymnal
TNCH: The New Century Hymnal
CH: Chalice Hymnal
CCB: Cokesbury Chorus Book
PMMCH3: Praise. Maranatha! Music Chorus Book, Expanded 3rd EditionRenew: Renew! Songs and Hymns for Blended Worship
A Children's Sermon
What's a saint?
Object: a picture of one or more saints with halos around their heads
Based on Luke 6:20-31
Good morning! Today is All Saints' Day. What's a saint? Can anybody tell me? (let them answer) Before I tell you exactly what a saint is, let me show you this picture that somebody painted. Here we see some people with halos around their heads. They were painted this way to show that they were saints. The artist felt that saints were very special people who were so close to God that they were different than normal people like you and me. The halo was painted there to identify them as being these special saints.
Now, I want to tell you that this isn't true. Saints are people who love Jesus and try to do what he tells them to do. Do each of you love Jesus and do you try to do what he tells you to do? (let them answer) Well, that makes each of you a saint and that means this is your day, too.
What were some of the things Jesus told us to do? (let them answer) He told us to love one another, to love our enemies, to be generous with people in need, and a lot of other things. One of the hardest things he told us to do was to do to others what we want them to do to us. What do you think he meant by that? (let them answer) Yes, it means we should never do something to another person that we wouldn't want them to do to us. We don't want anyone to hit us or call us bad names, so we must not do that to others. On the other hand, we do want people to love us and to help us when we need help, so we need to do that for others. If we try to do these things and all the other things that Jesus wants us to do, then we are his people and we are entitled to be called saints.
Dear God: We do believe in your Son, Jesus, and we want to do what he tells us to do. Help us to be your saints. Amen.
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The Immediate Word, November 7, 2004, issue.
Copyright 2004 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to The Immediate Word service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons and in worship and classroom settings only. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to permissions@csspub.com or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., P.O. Box 4503, Lima, Ohio 45802-4503.
