Lex Orandi, Lex Credendi*

November 10, 2019

32nd Sunday in Ordinary Time

Proper 22

22nd Pentecost

Luke 20: 27-38 

                                 

1. I find this a most strange and off-putting Gospel

There is so much trouble here!

To begin with
the lectionary has skipped a bunch of the story
     not really skipped but saved for Holy Week

the last few times I have preached 

we have been moving toward Jerusalem
and the tension has been mounting 

And now…we are there

We are in Jerusalem

But what we haven’t heard is

Jesus making his triumphant entry

With all the crowds shouting
“Blessed is the King who comes…Hosanna Hosanna…Palm Sunday 

And Luke’s Gospel says that there are
Multitudes of disciples around him

Then he goes to the Temple
…not to worship but to drive out those merchants…
     turning over the tables…making a BIG ruckus
That will get people’s attention

And then Jesus takes up residence there---teaching in the temple

“every day” that’s what Luke says
“He’s teaching in the Temple EVERY DAY” 

The tension is reaching a crescendo
New opponents each day 

Seeking the opportunity 

     not just to trip him up but to kill him

That’s where we are today.

Today it is the Sadducees' turn.

This is the one and only time the Sadducees show up in Luke’s Gospel

So…Who are they? And why haven’t we met them yet?
They are the Jerusalem elite
They are attached to the Temple
     .....the Temple authorities

The business of the Temple can’t run without them

And nobody else is allowed to do it!

So that’s why we haven’t met yet
The Sadducees stay in Jerusalem…they don’t venture into the boondocks!

Now when Luke is writing

There are no more Sadducees 
they disappeared when the Temple was destroyed in 70AD
in the great Jewish Revolt.
No Temple - no Sadducees

They were a sect that recognized only the first 5 books of Moses

…the Pentateuch

So…we might say---super-biblically-conservative

And because they found no evidence of the resurrection in the first 5 books
it was not a part of their beliefs

In today’s episode

It is the Sadducees 

…who after the whole Temple-Table-Turning business are like: 

Look, buddy, how 'bout you go back to your Galilean backwater 

They come having practiced their tricky little plan

And they pose their crazy scenario
Even in the 21^st century, we can tell they are playing a game

So it has to do with the Levirate Marriage
…the Levirate marriage law in Deut 25
It sounds so strange and uncomfortable---plain weird
And the woman! Really! The woman is passed down like a used car!

I can't let myself get stuck here...
Because…the intent of the Levirate marriage law
was to ensure the preservation of the family name.
Why is that so important?
Well. In a world view without resurrection
the only way to quell your anxiety over death is to have children
     ...your offspring allow you to live on through your name

So it’s very important

The plan…The scenario takes the law to the extreme 

     in order to show that the whole idea of resurrection is downright foolish.

But Jesus responds by playing their game 

He stays in the first 5 books and he counters their argument
Using one of their most beloved texts
taken from the burning bush scene

And surprise! He wins the day because of 
verb tense

I AM...the God of  Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob
Not...I WAS

The bottom line 

The really important bottom line seems to reside in the last line:

“He is God, not of the dead, 

but of the living; 

for to him, all are alive.”

SO…This isn’t about marriage
Or the patriarchal system once again making women into property

Jesus is getting closer and closer to the cross.

So this is a text about RESURRECTION.
What does RESURRECTION even mean?

And what difference does it make?

The Sadducees speak as if resurrected life is just…more of the same
…the same old rules apply
They simply. don’t. have. the imagination for it!

But the scriptures…especially Paul…remind us 

that while we are certainly gazing into a mystery

the one thing we CAN say 

is that it is both 
qualitatively DIFFERENT
AND 
somehow continuous.

Different but continuous.

2. There is a maxim…a rule in theology that says

Lex Orandi…Lex Credendi
it means that how we pray witnesses to how we believe
…we pray AND SO we believe

The tradition of prayer…Our tradition of prayer 

In the first instance
arose naturally…organically
…nobody sat down at a writing desk and composed our liturgies
or our prayers and then decided what they meant

The tradition of prayer grew as an expression of belief

When we proclaim after hearing the Gospel on Eucharist Sundays

(And these are ancient prayers and proclamations found in the Didache
a text from the 1^st Century)

After hearing the Gospel read we proclaim:

“Praise to you Lord Jesus Christ” 
we are confessing our belief in God’s presence
in the reading of the scriptures…in our shared story

And in Holy Communion

Our holy communing…
we hear and respond
“The Body of Christ! Amen!”
We confess our belief in the Living God present and active in our midst
and indeed in our very bodies.

And in the funeral liturgy 

We hear these words…spoken by the Presider in the name of all gathered: 
“For your faithful people, O Lord, life is changed, not ended”

And here is where we confess our conviction...
Our faith...in the deep deep mystery of the resurrection. 

As we pray this way we are professing: 

God has nothing to do with death 

There is no death in God

3. Well…Easy for God to say!
For us…it seems rather obvious
Abraham, Isaac and Jacob…they died

They are very long dead
My Mom is dead
All the people on our ALL SAINTS list are dead
Because for us…most of the time…

we can only define being alive as being “NOT DEAD”

Not so for God!

For God, being alive is just being alive
it has nothing to do with death!!!

What if WE lived all of life
       believing that being alive has nothing to do with death?

How would it be different?

Would we be free from fear?
Would we be free from living ‘scared to death’?
Would we be free from choosing to spend 

     so. much. time. money. energy. avoiding or postponing death 

Rather than LIVING?

We are a Pilgrim People
that means we are always…at least somewhat UNFINISHED

that means we don’t always remember what we say we believe

About death…or about God

But sometimes…we do!

Don’t we live ‘resurrected life’ whenever we experience ‘new life’

Literal new life---like in the joy of a child’s birth?
or those first crocuses peeking out as winter fades?
And don’t we taste ‘new life’
When…through the tough work of contrition and repentance

our own un-forgiven-ness------bursts into NEW LIFE as we reconcile and reunite?
Isn’t that experience of being forgiven by others and by God
a very real taste of living resurrected life?

I believe so.

4. Today’s Gospel tells us how JESUS thought about God

The law about levirate marriage

Was for people who didn’t believe in an afterlife

It was a way of overcoming death

The way to overcome death was to have children to keep the name going

A world without resurrection is a world full of anxiety about overcoming death!
And it seems to me that we…pretty much…live in the midst of such a world 

If only we really believed ONLY in life

And not life as just… “not dead”

Jesus came to bring Good News

And that good News is that God is in a category of one

Entirely different from anything we can imagine

Death, for God

Just…ISN’T

“To God all are alive”

The real toughness of this text 

is that Jesus wants us to turn away from anxiety over death 

and turn away from the poor decisions and sufferings 

     that always. follow. such a fascination (we could talk about what those are for hours!)

Instead Jesus wants us to meet the God of the Living
Jesus wants us to share this Good News about God's ALIVENESS…

     today and every day and forever

It is a mystery…a deep deep mystery…
but WE, my friends, we have the imagination for it!

5.

My very first thought when I read today’s Gospel was for my Dad.

How will my newly widowed 87-year old Dad hear this?
Will he hear that he WON’T be re-united with Mom on the other side of the grass (as he likes to say)?

But then I thought --- NO
He’s had 87 years of faithful practice choosing to live in God’s ALIVENESS.
When he talks about Mom…which is darn-near always…

He talks about how she’s probably bossing everyone around up there

Reorganizing for maximum efficiency

Getting all in ship-shape---making it ready for him

Because that is what she did
she always thought about him

And then…he will SIGH and say

“I don’t know why I’m here…I just want to be with her”

…then there will be another pause.
And another deep sigh.
“I know…we can’t even begin to understand! 

I mean there is NO TIME in God…How does that compute…Beyond TIME…

how in heaven’s name are we supposed to even begin to grasp that!”
And with that, he rests…he rests in comfortable faith and easier trust.

“I AM THE GOD OF THE LIVING

TO ME ALL ARE ALIVE”

Lex Orandi

Lex Credendi

SO WE PRAY

SO WE BELIEVE