Proper 27 2025 Celtic Service- Moot

Proper 27, 9 November 2025

St. George’s Episcopal, Fredericksburg, VA

Celtic Service: “Moot”

Luke 20:27-38 NRSV

Some Sadducees, those who say there is no resurrection, came to Jesus and asked him a question, "Teacher, Moses wrote for us that if a man's brother dies, leaving a wife but no children, the man shall marry the widow and raise up children for his brother. Now there were seven brothers; the first married, and died childless; then the second and the third married her, and so in the same way all seven died childless. Finally the woman also died. In the resurrection, therefore, whose wife will the woman be? For the seven had married her."

Jesus said to them, "Those who belong to this age marry and are given in marriage; but those who are considered worthy of a place in that age and in the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage. Indeed they cannot die anymore, because they are like angels and are children of God, being children of the resurrection. And the fact that the dead are raised Moses himself showed, in the story about the bush, where he speaks of the Lord as the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. Now he is God not of the dead, but of the living; for to him all of them are alive."

First Nations Version

Then some of the Upright Ones (Sadducees), who say there is no rising again from death, came to Creator Sets Free (Jesus) to question him also. "Wisdom-keeper," they said, "in the law Drawn from the Water (Moses) gave us these instructions: If a Tribal Member should die before having children, then his brother should marry his widow and give her children. This way the man will have descendants: In a family of seven brothers, the oldest took a wife, but died without children. The next brother married her, but he also died with no children. A third brother married her, and, like his other brothers, he died with no children. The same happened to all seven of them, and, last of all, the woman also crossed over to death. When they all come back to life in the new world, whose wife would she be, since all seven men married her?” 

“Marriage belongs to this present world and to the ones who live in it,” he answered. “The ones who are chosen to rise to life in that world will not marry, for they will be like the spirit-messengers. They will never die, for they are the children of the Great Spirit who raises them again to new life.” And then he said, “As to the dead rising again, listen to what the Sacred Teachings tell us that Drawn from the Water (Moses) said when he saw the burning bush. He calls Creator the 'Great Spirit of Father of Many Nations (Abraham), He Made Us Laugh (Isaac), and Heel Grabber (Jacob): "He is not the Great Spirit of the dead, but of the living. To him all are alive.”

Good evening.

Tonight’s lesson is from an odd little question posed by some members of the Sadducees, a religious party in the Jewish faith that did not believe in a resurrection of the dead, physically or spiritually. When you are dead, you’re dead, they thought. So the question that they raise with Jesus is obviously one of the Gotcha variety. They knew that whatever Jesus said was going to upset somebody. This is just like the time people asked if they should pay taxes to Caesar or not. No way to win here.

They did not care what Jesus responded, just that it would put him in a pickle. He calls them on their fallacy, stating no one is married in heaven. There it will no longer be an issue. And even more, he calls them on their hypocrisy stating that Moses said that God was God of the living, not the dead. So therefore, we continue to live even when this current body no longer binds us.

It is hard to maintain healthy boundaries when people are out to get you. Over and over again the Pharisees and Sadducees tried to put Jesus over a barrel. And Jesus, with patience, and I would dare say love, does not respond at the level with which they come at him. Albert Einstein said, “Problems cannot be solved with the same level of thinking that created them.” And if you look at how Jesus responds in his ministry, over and over he reframes what is and invites people to step up to a higher way, out of the level of thinking that they brought to him. When the woman was caught in adultery, they threw her at Jesus feet and wanted him to follow to the letter what Moses said to do which was stone her. He did not deny Moses teaching, but invited those with a stone in their hand to think on this, “You who are without sin cast the first stone.” What was a Gotcha became another moment of amazing Grace.

In tonight’s lesson, he asks the Sadducees to stop playing games. Their hypothetical situation is moot. Their underlying belief in no afterlife is moot. He invites them into a deeper and stronger relationship instead of dictating to God and everyone else the way it should be.

In our reading given in the First Nations Translation you will see that the name Sadducees means “The Upright Ones.” Which also shows how they viewed everyone else. When it comes to our faith, may we not play games, either. May we reframe and raise the level of our dialogues to where God would have them be. And may we have faith in the one who loved us from our start, adores us now, and will embrace us when it is time for us to come home forever. Amen