Sermon Tone Analysis

Title

Resurrecting the Two Lampstands

Outline

In Matt 5 Jesus equates anger with murder

We try to separate, even justify anger, but Jesus equates it with murder, its logical solution

Take the two witnesses, the two lampstands, who are, due to their miracles a Moses figure and an Elijah figure.

How does one shut them up?

How does one keep them from demonstrating God’s judgment, reinforcing their message?

Well, no one can stop them until “they have finished their testimony” and then it is “the beast who comes up from the abyss,” the demonically controlled ruler who has them killed.

(A Domitian figure in Revelation.)

That did it.

Everyone relaxes and rejoices.

Then in 3 1/2 days they rise, hear “Come up here” from heaven, and “they went up to heaven in a cloud as their enemies looked on.”

Evil has done its worst.

It has killed them in the midst of Jerusalem, no longer Zion, City of God, but Sodom and Egypt, the place of in which the Lord was crucified.

But God has the last word.

Truth wins.

Death has died in the death of Christ.

Those joined to Christ finish their testimony before they die.

Then they are publicly called into heaven, into life, to the consternation of their foes.

Here is the gospel in a nutshell, or at least the witness of the gospel.

Anger cannot even kill without God’s permission and killing only prepares one for resurrection life.

Thus we come to the Sadducees

They have read the Pentateuch and have not seen any reference to resurrection.

They use a conundrum they have used before - one perhaps based on Tobit, but with a negative twist - to show that death wins, that resurrection is absurd.

Jesus tells them that they have left God out of the picture: “The children of this age marry and are given in marriage; but those who are deemed worthy to attain to the coming age and to the resurrection of the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage.

They can no longer die, for they are like angels; and they are the children of God because they are the ones who will rise.”

God is life, and those who are children of God will rise, but they will rise as God is, i.e. beyond the need for procreation and thus for marriage.

No, Sadducees, your position is absurd once you factor in God.

This also makes many discussions of marriage and sexuality today absurd, for tells us God’s reason for marriage and sexuality.

Then Jesus points out a text the Sadducees have missed: “Moses made known in the passage about the bush, when he called ‘Lord’ the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob; and he is not God of the dead, but of the living, for to him all are alive.”

The little verb “to be” or haya, the basis of Yahweh: I am the God of these worthies, not I was; I am, for I am life itself, being itself.

and therefore those “in me” are alive indeed.

Sisters, that is what is missing in present discussions

“You live, you die, so get all the pleasure you can get in this go ‘round.

There is no purpose in life.”

But that misses God.

That misses that he is, that he is life, and that those joined to him are joined to a new dimension of life.

That misses the good news and all are invited to be joined to that life.

That misses that God is the origin even of earthly life and thus he has given purpose to it.

That misses that God controls our time of death and thus the devil himself is God’s devil, not really independent.

That misses the new life that is already in us to the extent that we are joined to God is coming in its fulness, that death is the gateway into deeper life.

Since this is true, Sisters, you and I are called to bear testimony to it to be a Moses or Elijah.

And the world will hate you.

But do not fear.

They can only kill you and only do that if God allows, but you are in God and so in a new dimension of life so your future is life and death only frees you to go deeper into life.

Readings

FIRST READING

Revelation 11:4–12

4 These are the two olive trees and the two lampstands that stand before the Lord of the earth.

5 If anyone wants to harm them, fire comes out of their mouths and devours their enemies.

In this way, anyone wanting to harm them is sure to be slain.

6 They have the power to close up the sky so that no rain can fall during the time of their prophesying.

They also have power to turn water into blood and to afflict the earth with any plague as often as they wish.

7 When they have finished their testimony, the beast that comes up from the abyss will wage war against them and conquer them and kill them.

8 Their corpses will lie in the main street of the great city, which has the symbolic names “Sodom” and “Egypt,” where indeed their Lord was crucified.

9 Those from every people, tribe, tongue, and nation will gaze on their corpses for three and a half days, and they will not allow their corpses to be buried.

10 The inhabitants of the earth will gloat over them and be glad and exchange gifts because these two prophets tormented the inhabitants of the earth.

11 But after the three and a half days, a breath of life from God entered them.

When they stood on their feet, great fear fell on those who saw them.

12 Then they heard a loud voice from heaven say to them, “Come up here.”

So they went up to heaven in a cloud as their enemies looked on.

RESPONSE

Psalm 144:1b

1 Of David.

Blessed be the LORD, my rock,

who trains my hands for battle,

my fingers for war;

PSALM

Psalm 144:1–2, 9–10

1 Of David.

Blessed be the LORD, my rock,

who trains my hands for battle,

my fingers for war;

2 My safeguard and my fortress,

my stronghold, my deliverer,

My shield, in whom I take refuge,

who subdues peoples under me.

9 O God, a new song I will sing to you;

on a ten-stringed lyre I will play for you.

10 You give victory to kings;

you delivered David your servant.

From the menacing sword

GOSPEL ACCLAMATION

2 Timothy 1:10

10 but now made manifest through the appearance of our savior Christ Jesus, who destroyed death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel,

GOSPEL

Luke 20:27–40

27 Some Sadducees, those who deny that there is a resurrection, came forward and put this question to him, 28 saying, “Teacher, Moses wrote for us, ‘If someone’s brother dies leaving a wife but no child, his brother must take the wife and raise up descendants for his brother.’

29 Now there were seven brothers; the first married a woman but died childless.

30 Then the second 31 and the third married her, and likewise all the seven died childless.

32 Finally the woman also died.

33 Now at the resurrection whose wife will that woman be?

For all seven had been married to her.” 34 Jesus said to them, “The children of this age marry and are given in marriage; 35 but those who are deemed worthy to attain to the coming age and to the resurrection of the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage.

36 They can no longer die, for they are like angels; and they are the children of God because they are the ones who will rise.

37 That the dead will rise even Moses made known in the passage about the bush, when he called ‘Lord’ the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob; 38 and he is not God of the dead, but of the living, for to him all are alive.”

39 Some of the scribes said in reply, “Teacher, you have answered well.”

40 And they no longer dared to ask him anything.

Notes

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 19, 2022 | ORDINARY TIME