WELCOME: Worship could be a time to celebrate those who teach us, who share new ways of looking at the world and ourselves. We could say thank you to teachers and leaders during worship this week. Those who, like Jesus, open us up to new possibilities. Come, let us worship God!
Scriptures: Psalm 98, and Luke 20:27-38
Message: “Righteous Equity”
Psalm 98.
(1) Sing to the Lord a new song, for he has done marvelous things; his right hand and his holy arm have worked salvation for him.
(2) The Lord has made his salvation known and revealed his righteousness to the nations.
(3) He has remembered his love and his faithfulness to the house of Israel; all the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God.
(4) Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth, burst into jubilant song with music;
(5) make music to the Lord with the harp, with the harp and the sound of singing,
(6) with trumpets and the blast of the ram’s horn- shout for joy before the Lord, the King.
(7) Let the sea resound, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it.
(8) Let the rivers clap their hands,
(9) let them sing before the Lord, for he comes to judge the earth. He will judge the world in righteousness and the peoples with equity.
Luke 20:27-38
The Resurrection and Marriage
(27) Some of the Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection, came to Jesus with a question. (28) “Teacher,” they said, “Moses wrote for us that if a man’s brother dies and leaves a wife but no children, the man must marry the widow and have children for his brother. (29) Now there were seven brothers. The first one married a woman and died childless. (30) The second (31) and then the third married her, and in the same way the seven died, leaving no children. (32) Finally, the woman died too. (33) Now then, at the resurrection whose wife will she be, since the seven were married to her?”
(34) Jesus replied, “The people of this age marry and are given in marriage. (35) But those who are considered worthy of taking part in that age and in the resurrection from the dead will neither marry nor be given in marriage, (36) and they can no longer die; for they are like the angels. They are God’s children, since they are children of the resurrection. (37) But in the account of the bush, even Moses showed that the dead rise, for he calls the Lord ‘the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.’ (38) He is not the God of the dead, but of the living, for to him all are alive.”
This is the word of God, for the people of God. Thanks be to God.
When I first started to look at and study our scriptures for today, the last verse of Psalm 98 stood out. The psalmist wrote: “sing before the Lord, for he comes to judge the earth. He will judge the world in righteousness and the peoples with equity” (Psalm 98:9).
Then in our gospel lesson today from Luke 20:27-38, we find the Sadducees are questioning Jesus about God’s righteousness and equity. So today I would like us to take some time to think about, “Righteous Equity”.
Let me start by telling you a story about a little girl who walked into a pet shop. She went up to the shopkeeper and asked in a sweet little lisp, “Excuthe me, mithter, do you have any wittle wabbits?”
The shopkeeper bent way down and put his hands on his knees so he would be on her level, and asked, “Do you want a wittle white wabbit or a wittle bwack wabbit? Or maybe that cute wittle bwown wabbit over there?”
The little girl thought for a moment, put her hands on her knees, leaned forward and said in a quiet little voice, “Mr., I don’t fink my pyfon weally cares.”
Well, she’s probably right. Her pet python didn’t care what color the rabbits were that were put in it’s cage. Her mind set was of righteous equity.
According to the dictionary the word equity is defined as meaning: fairness or of value. To be impartial or justice according to natural law. The word righteousness is defined as: The quality of being morally right or justifiable.
In the gospel of Luke chapter 20 the NIV bible title’s it. “The Authority of Jesus Questioned” it begins in verse 1 & 2: “ One day as he was teaching the people in the temple courts and preaching the gospel, the chief priest and the teachers of the law, together with the elders, came up to him. “Tell us by what authority you are doing these things,” they said. “Who gave you this authority?”(Luke 20:1-2). So when you read the rest of the chapter, and I suggest you do, Jesus is questioned and asked questions of those present, on a variety of different subjects all of which were about righteousness and equity.
He questioned them about John’s baptism and asked them, “was it from heaven, or from men?” Basically Jesus was asking them was John’s Baptism of righteous equity in the eyes of God ?
Then He continued to tell them, The Parable of the Tenants. And asked them;”What then will the owner of the Vineyard do to them?” (20:15) In other words what would be the righteous and equable thing that needs to be done in the eyes of men?
In verses 20-26 in chapter 20 Jesus is questioned about paying taxes to Caesar. He’s asked;” Is it right for us to pay taxes to Caesar or not?” They weren’t really asking what is the righteous and equitable thing to do. They were trying to trap him in his words. Verse 23 tells us; ‘He saw through their duplicity..’
Then in our text today we find the Sadducees looking for “righteous equity” on there behalf. Who were the Sadducees, you might ask.
The Sadducees,’who say there is no resurrection’(20:27), studied scripture most rigorously. They thought about and pondered God day and night. They dealt with life’s big questions. It’s pretty much all they did.
So here is the opportunity of a lifetime. Here is God in the flesh walking around among them. Here is Jesus, perfectly willing to talk about the meaning of scripture. Here is Jesus, eager to shed light on the will of God. The opportunity of a lifetime and they blew it.
Consider this. If you, like the Sadducee’s could ask Jesus a question, any question, and be promised a plain answer, what would you ask? There are a lot of big ones that have never been answered. Wouldn’t it be great if you could just go up to Jesus and ask him one of life’s big, profound eternal mysteries? “Why is there evil?” “What happens when we die?” “Why are we here?”
Jesus was asked a lot of questions during the time he was walking around some 2,000 years ago. Some of them were pretty good questions: “What must I do to be saved?” or “Whose fault is it that this man was born blind?” Others were not nearly so profound. “Can my two sons get the good seats in heaven?” “Can you make my brother split the family inheritance evenly?” It seems to many times selfishness gets in the way. Selfishness and ambition. But however misguided those questions were, at least they actually were questions.
The Sadducees however, came up to Jesus and told him this big, long hypothetical story. An elaborate and drawn-out set-up. And then for the punch line, they asked a question. Only it really wasn’t a question. I mean you ask a question if you want to learn something; a fact perhaps, or someone’s opinion, maybe some bit of wisdom. The Sadducees didn’t want to learn from Jesus. Their question wasn’t really a question at all.
They were like the family that bought a pet hamster. The children promised they would take care of it. You can guess how that worked out. Mom ended up with about 90 percent of the responsibility.
One evening she was thoroughly fed up with the kids’ lack of responsibility. She asked, “How many times do you think that hamster would have died if I hadn’t looked after it?”
After a moment, her 5‑year‑old son looked up and asked innocently, “Uh . . . Once?”
Well, of course he’s right. We only die once, and none of us avoid that one-time event.
These Sadducees came to Jesus with a similar question, regarding the subject of death. One of the differences between Pharisees and Sadducees is that the Sadducees did not believe in life beyond the grave. So it is obvious they are trying to entrap Jesus.
Listen to their question. “Teacher, Moses wrote for us that if a man’s brother dies and leaves a wife but no children, the man must marry the widow and have children for his brother. Now there were seven brothers. The first one married a woman and died childless.
The second and then the third married her, and in the same way the seven died, leaving no children. Finally, the woman died too. Now then, at the resurrection whose wife will she be, since the seven were married to her?”
Now ladies, imagine that you were a part of a system like this. I’m sure you wouldn’t consider this as,” Righteous Equity”! But in that system of righteous equity, if you were married to a man and he died, you would automatically be passed on to his brother, then if he died, the next brother and so on, regardless of what you thought about it or what your sisters-in-law thought about it. Things would likely get a little messy. Theoretically, this was all possible in the culture in which Jesus lived. A woman could survive being married to seven brothers.
“Now,” the Sadducees wanted to know, “whose wife would she be at the resurrection?” Since the Sadducees didn’t believe in a resurrection, this was obviously a trick question. Jesus, of course, saw through it immediately. Yet he decided to indulge them.
Jesus replied, “The people of this age marry and are given in marriage. But those who are considered worthy of taking part in that age and in the resurrection from the dead will neither marry nor be given in marriage, and they can no longer die; for they are like the angels. They are God’s children, since they are children of the resurrection.”
In other words, Jesus is telling them that marriage is an earthly phenomenon. It consists, first of all, as a union of the flesh. The same rules do not apply to a spiritual state. There is no marriage in heaven. So, if your first spouse has died and you have remarried, relax. You will be married to neither in the next life.
Having answered their question, Jesus turns the table and gives a very definite affirmation of life beyond the grave, just to make sure the Sadducees understand which side he is on: “In the account of the burning bush,” Jesus says, “even Moses showed that the dead rise, for he calls the Lord ‘the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.’“ Then Christ says conclusively, “He is not the God of the dead, but of the living, for to him all are alive.”
That’s good news, isn’t it? Everybody, whether they are alive or whether they are in heaven everybody is alive to God. Life continues beyond the grave.
The Sadducees could have posed the same problem with a much simpler question; one that sometimes gets asked today. How old are you in heaven? If you die as an infant, are you an infant in eternity? If you die at 104, frail and confused, are you frail and confused forever? How is God’s “Righteous Equity” revealed in heaven?
So the real question today is about one of life’s certainty’s. Like those rabbits, it makes no difference whether we are black, brown, yellow or white. It makes no difference whether we are rich or poor whether we are people of great acclaim or nobodies even whether we are sinners and saints. The mortality rate is still the same. 100%.
What does this mean for us? It means that it’s all right now. All our time is God’s time. Sunday morning is God’s and next Tuesday is God’s. Every minute since the moment of our birth belongs to God, and so does all of the future.
For us, things happen one after the other, day after day. So as we live our day-to-day lives, remember that Jesus is dying for the sin we are committing now. Jesus is rising to forgive us now. Jesus is calling us into the kingdom of heaven right now. God loves us now, so we must show love now. God is merciful to us now. “Sing before the Lord, for he comes to judge the earth. He will judge the world in righteousness and the peoples with equity.” (Psalm 98:9)
God is the God of the living, so we need to take the time God has blessed us with and truly see it as a time for life. Live for Jesus. Learn from Jesus. Live by scripture. Learn from scripture. Live in prayer. Learn from prayer. Live to share the good news. Learn from talking with and listening to other Christians.
We have the same opportunity the Sadducees had. Let’s not waste it setting traps like they did, saying things like, “If God is there, then this will happen” or “Since this is going on, God must not care.” We must keep asking questions, keep seeking knowledge and wisdom, but we have to understand, first off, that we’re not going to understand everything. God doesn’t owe us an explanation, and we wouldn’t comprehend it if we had one. Life’s big questions have answers that are too big to fit into our heads. Rather than demanding that God put everything into terms we can understand, let us look and see how God is working in the world and in our lives. Jesus is here among us. Jesus is among us and willing to show us the meaning of scripture and the meaning of our lives. Jesus is here among us eager to reveal to us the will of God. Forgiveness is ours. As Paul writes in Romans 6:11-14 “ In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. Do not offer the parts of your body to sin, as instruments of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer parts of your body to him as instruments of righteousness. For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under the law but under grace.”
Know this! Those who have come to faith in Jesus, our God is the God of the living not of the dead. And we should no longer allow sin to control our lives. Instead, we should offer ourselves to God to serve His purposes alive in Christ Jesus.
“Sing before the Lord, for he comes to judge the earth. He will judge the world in righteousness and the peoples with equity.”
Love is ours. The future is ours. It’s the opportunity of a lifetime. Amen.
In His Service,
Pastor Joe
Listen To Audio: Sermon 20221106
Listen To Audio: Service 11062022
Call to Worship:
L: You are God, not of the dead, but of the living, for to you, all of them are alive.
P: We come this morning, feeling a little dead; even with little energy for journey ahead. But you are God, and in you, we are not dead. For to you, all of us are alive! Help us strive; ready us to thrive. Yes, we are alive!! In the name of Jesus, we are alive!
Prayer of Confession: O God, we long to rest in you, to trust in your goodness, in your care for us, in your abundant life. But we don’t know how to rest. We have forgotten how to trust. We seek material goods that we don’t really need. We befriend people not always out of love. We ask questions of you like the Sadducees did of Jesus, questions that try only to prove our point, not to grow in understanding of your desires for us. Slow us down, Holy One. Attend to us, Holy One. Show us that you are our salvation and our resting place. Through Christ we pray. Amen.
ANOUNCEMENTS
Pastor Joe will be available at the church on Thursday Morning from 11:00 to 1:00. If you need to speak to him, contact Pastor Joe at 570-267-4570 (cell) or Email: joe.s.travis@gmail.com
Loose change goes to Local Mission.
Social Hour after Sunday Services TODAY. Greeting cards for signature are in the Community Building.
Feed a Friend Mission is still going on, monetary gifts only please.
Sunday School starts at 8:30am
Choir practice will be on Thursday at 1:00 P.M.
Election Day is November 8th.
Presbyterian Women will meet on Thursday, November 10th at 11 A.M.
The Great Bend United Methodists will be hosting a VETERANS DAY service on Friday Nov. 11 at 7:00 pm. All are welcome.
Men’s Breakfast, Wednesday November 16th at 8:00 A.M.
Session will meet on Saturday, November 19, 2022, at 9am in the community building.
Newsletter Deadline is Tuesday, November 29, 2022
The Worship Committee will be decorating the church and tree in blue, silver and white colors this year for the Christmas season. Anyone interested may give the ornament to Vickie, Gwenn, or Sandy before Nov. 20th.
St Paul’s Episcopal church in Montrose, is hosting speaker and book writer Barbara Crafton who will speak on the topic, “The Courage to Grow Old.” This is free and open to the public. Date: Saturday November 12 Time: 10:00 a.m. Lunch follows
