Sermons

“The Rest Is Commentary”

Psalm 139:1-18; Luke 20:27-38 – Rev. Rebecca Littlejohn

Vista La Mesa Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), La Mesa, California – November 6, 2016

All Saints Memorial Sunday

Holy God, bless the speaking and the hearing of these words, that your Spirit of Love might comfort our souls and soothe our weary hearts. We pray in Jesus’ name, Amen.

There is a story about a Gentile who went to the most famous Jewish teacher of his time and asked him to explain the Torah to him, while he stood on one foot. The teacher’s response? “That which is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor – this is the whole Torah. The rest is commentary; go and study.” If this sounds a little familiar, but not quite, that’s because the Jewish teacher in question was not Jesus, but Hillel the Elder, who lived around the same time as Jesus, though mostly before that, and who clearly had some of the same sensibilities. I feel like he could have been a helpful addition to this conversation Jesus was having with the Sadducees.

It’s important to understand what is going on here between the Sadducees and Jesus. They weren’t having a debate about the details of the afterlife. The main defining tenet of the Sadducees was that they didn’t believe in resurrection. They weren’t trying to make a point about marital arrangements in heaven; they were trying to show that the whole idea of a life after death didn’t work. And I’m sure they found Jesus’ answer completely aggravating. The next couple verses beyond what we read say something about how no one dared ask him another question, but I’m guessing the Sadducees might have described that differently, with something along the lines of “Why bother? He’s not going to give you a serious answer anyway. He doesn’t even understand the parameters of the question!”

Because Jesus’ answer is pretty out of left field, isn’t it? They’re setting up a very specific situation, with a clear dilemma. And his answer basically just dismisses all that, saying it has no bearing on the situation at all, and oh, Moses, did understand that those who have died still live or else he wouldn’t have talked about God the way he did. He is rejecting the premise, so it’s not that surprising that they gave up trying to argue with him.

There are two very different spirits being expressed in this story. I’m sure learning more about first century Sadducees could benefit us somehow, but I’m more interested this morning in how these two spirits interact within our own hearts. Humans have been very way too specific about heaven for centuries. And while most of time, it’s pretty much harmless, sometimes it leads us astray.

The truth is that we’re earthly creatures. We are incarnate. We live in bodies; we inhabit a created, tangible world. And it’s hard for us to imagine existence that’s different from that. And so the pictures we paint in our minds about what heaven must be like are very similar to what we already know. It’s a place full of wonderful things, right? Whose heaven has a lot of chocolate? Hot tubs? Barcaloungers? Beaches? Anything else?

There is nothing wrong with this sort of daydreaming. It can be comforting, and that is not something God would begrudge us. But sometimes too much specificity ends up setting traps for us, like the one the Sadducees were trying to build. ‘You’re missing the point,’ Jesus tries to tell us. What you need to know is that God is the God of the living. And you are God’s children, and you shall live. The rest is commentary.

This matters because death is one of those situations that can make us get carried away. We’re not at our best when we’re grieving, and it’s easy to get caught up in tiny little, earthly details because we need something, anything, to hang that grief on. We might worry about someone not being buried with the precious object they loved so much, because no one could find it when it was needed. Or maybe we find ourselves obsessing about the caterer using the wrong kind of sauce at the funeral luncheon, because our late loved one hated that sauce. There are so many instances in which we really need to hear Jesus saying “Peace, child. You don’t need to worry about that. God is the God of the living. God is love and light and life. Do not worry. Do not fear. Peace.”

Sometimes it’s not us. It’s important to remember what Jesus says about what matters because we sometimes aren’t sure what to say to someone who has lost a loved one. But if we can stay grounded in Jesus’ message of love and life and light, we are unlikely to go wrong. We are such mortal creatures, so this is a tall assignment for us. We were created in the image of our Creator God, so our minds are programmed to run off in creative, detailed directions, imagining all sorts of scenarios for what the afterlife looks like. Some of them are helpful. Some of them are less helpful. But Jesus has given us a good way to assess which ones are worth keeping. Does it help us remember that God is love? Does it bring comfort to those who mourn? Does it remind us that God is the God of the living? Very good then. Conversely, does it cultivate regret? Is it based in judgment? Does it sow fear? Such fantasies are not the work of the God of the living, and should be dismissed. It’s important to be able to distinguish between good commentary and bad commentary.

We are earthly, mortal creatures, and we won’t know what happens after we die until we do so. But we know that God is a God of love, and will not disappoint us. There isn’t much beyond that that we need to understand. “How weighty to me are your thoughts, O God!” says the psalmist. “How vast is the sum of them! I try to count them—they are more than the sand; I come to the end—I am still with you.”

And that is the part that matters. Not that God’s thoughts are not our thoughts. Not that we will never fully comprehend the design of the universe. Not whether someone with multiple late spouses will be married to all of them in heaven. “I come to the end—I am still with you.” God is the God of the living, and God does not abandon us. If you take the wings of the morning and settle at the farthest limits of the sea, even there God’s hand will guide you and hold you fast. The rest is commentary. Go and live it. Alleluia and Amen.