Election Day and Resurrection
By Bill Wylie-Kellermann
Wednesday, November 3, 2004
[Ed. Note : The following sermon, focused on Luke 20:27-40, was preached on November 2, 2004, Election Day (Feast of All Souls), at the Christian Theological Seminary, Indianapolis, Ind.]
Let me get this straight. One of two political parties, the wealthy established one, tries to use a trick question about marriage (designed to be an absurdly reductionist view) as a wedge to force Jesus to declare himself and align publicly with their party. But Jesus doesn't bite. He's neither intimidated, nor manipulated by the single-issue ploy.
I'm being facetious, but only partly so. There is, as so often it seems, an ironic providence to the lections of the day. The subject of this text is actually resurrection. And that freedom, above all, is a fitting Election Day theme.
Resurrection is the topic every time Christians join in worship; the moreso when bread and wine wait upon the altar. So here in ordinary time, it is a gift to name the reason we are gathered.
Why don't the Sadducees believe in it? Let it be said that they are indeed a wealthy collaborationist party. These are landed aristocrats, the absentee landlords who have driven people off their farms in Galilee turning them into day laborers, debt slaves, and sharecroppers. This is the party which controls the Sanhedrin and will shortly condemn Jesus to death, not to mention judge a number of the disciples as well. They have cast their lot with the Empire. They have a vested interest in Pax Romana, being, as it is, good for the land consolidation business.
So it is not simply because they are strict constructionists when it comes to Torah that makes them so adamant against resurrection. It is, as N.T. Wright explains, because resurrection (be it in the apocalyptics of Daniel and Ezekiel or Isaiah) has always been a revolutionary doctrine, not only freeing people for resistance to authority, but allowing them to imagine that another world is possible. The Sadducees get it: that resurrection is no pie-in-the-sky comfort held out to the poor as pacifying opiate. They comprehend that resurrection is about history and the transforming power of God.
They understand, as N.T. Wright argues, that "Resurrection is precisely concerned with the present world and its renewal, not with escaping the present world and going somewhere else; and, in its early Jewish forms right though its developed Christian forms, it was always concerned with divine judgment, with the creator god acting within history to put right that which is wrong" (The Resurrection of the Son of God, p.138).
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| [R]esurrection (be it in the apocalyptics of Daniel and Ezekiel or Isaiah) has always been a revolutionary doctrine, not only freeing people for resistance to authority, but allowing them to imagine that another world is possible. The Sadducees get it: that resurrection is no pie-in-the-sky comfort held out to the poor as pacifying opiate. | |
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And as they were speaking to the people, the priests and the captain of the temple and the Sadducees came upon them, annoyed because they were teaching the people and proclaiming in Jesus the resurrection from the dead. And they arrested them and put them in custody. (Acts 4:1-3a)
Again, what does "the resurrection from the dead" mean if proclaiming it is cause for arrest? Why is healing so threatening and provocative to the public authorities? Why should this apparent good work count as a crime?
I must acknowledge that William Stringfellow, my mentor in theology and indeed urban ministry (who will be known to some of you and by others utterly unheard of) was the one who helped me see the "political" dimension of these readings. He writes:
This arrest of Peter and John, associated publicly with the healing of the lame man and the open preaching of the resurrection, portended a wider persecution of Christians and an official repression of the Gospel, but it also relates back to the reasons for the condemnation and execution of Jesus, in which, it must not be overlooked, Jesus' own ministry of healing was interpreted by the incumbent authorities as if it were political agitation and was deemed by them to be a threat to their political authority. Where healing or, more broadly, where the witness to the resurrection is involved, the comprehension and response of Caesar and his surrogates to Christ as well as to the Apostles is, significantly, consistent. Such a witness is judged as a crime against the State. (Suspect Tenderness, p. 72)
If I may put it even more bluntly, the Sadducean party has a vested interest in the efficacious power of death. Resurrection means freedom, here and now, from fear of and bondage to that very power.
That is the true connection to this Election Day.
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| Marriage is an honorable estate, but if I read this text from Luke accurately, Jesus seems to say that it is a fallen estate as well. It is subject to bondage to death. Not just "until death us do part. . ." but to the power of death. | |
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make a difference for poor and working people,
hasten or slow the assault on constitutional rights, the environment, international law
But, to be frank, there's not much evidence it will make a difference in the embrace of the imperial vocation, of providing Pax Americana as military cover for corporate globalization
Christians in the freedom of the resurrection,
in the estate of eschatological alienation which it confers,
not invested in the present arrangement of the worldsystem,
graced to imagine alternatives,
are thereby fully free to be advocates on behalf of the poor and the least
or even the constitution and the creation
Tomorrow morning, or whenever it is that we are told the outcome of this election, we need to be prepared to be knocking, no matter who, on the White House door like relentless widows on their behalf. That is the political freedom which the resurrection commends.
Given this text, I cannot, in homiletical conscience, not mention marriage. At the very least this passage underscores that the "biblical view of marriage" includes a variety of cultural mores foreign to our own time. In Michigan where I live, as in many other states, a version of the Defense of Marriage Act is on the ballot. That is a scandal because if passed it would be mark the first time the constitution were employed to deny rights to individuals, rather than grant or protect them. It would not only legally define marriage, it would overturn legislation passed by local municipalities and policies made by institutions and corporations supporting domestic partnerships. I have friends, as do you, who may wake up tomorrow morning and find their health insurance has, in effect, evaporated. But more, make no mistake, it is also a scandal because (on the basis of the civil authority of clergy) it would attempt to proscribe to whom any given congregation or communion may offer its sacramental and pastoral ministry.
Marriage is an honorable estate, but if I read this text from Luke accurately, Jesus seems to say that it is a fallen estate as well. It is subject to bondage to death. Not just "until death us do part. . ." but to the power of death. Is Jesus really saying that in the kingdom of heaven marriage is unnecessary? Is he really saying that it is not foundational for the resurrected society? Not God's intention for humanity from beginning to end? From the creation to the heavenly city?
I have mentioned William Stringfellow. After the death of his partner, Anthony Towne, in 1980, Stringfellow was forced to sell the meadow adjacent to his Block Island home in order to pay the inheritance tax. He said to me, "If we'd have been married, this never would have been necessary." When my wife Jeanie and I were wed, we honeymooned on the Island. At dinner one evening, he graciously blessed our marriage. He opened the Book of Common Prayer and read a single verse over us: "The One that raised up Jesus from the dead will also quicken our mortal bodies, by the Spirit that dwelleth in us." I should mention that he read it from the Service for the Burial of the Dead.
It is today also the Feast of All Souls, a celebration of all those who are alive to God. For God is truly the God of the living and not the dead. The God of Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rachel, William Stringfellow and, Anthony Towne
May that One quicken our mortal bodies and so our imaginations, freeing us from bondage to death in this world and in the world to come. Amen.
The Rev. Bill Wylie-Kellermann is program director for the Seminary Consortium for Urban Pastoral Education (SCUPE) in Chicago, Ill. He is also on the steering committee of Word and World: A People's School. Bill lives in Detroit, Mich., and may be reached by email at bill@scupe.com.